🚀 go-pugleaf

connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:

> > "un sale voleur" (adjective noun) = "a [morally] filthy thief"
> > "un voleur sale" (noun adjective" = "a [physically] filthy thief"
> > 
> > Are there are examples of such behaviour in English?  It doesn't
> > even have to involve a transfer of sense; just an adjective that
> > can occur both pre-nominally and post-nominally would be good to see.
> > The only example I can come up with is something like "the city proper".
> 
> There are some fossilized expressions of this sort in English:
> 
> 	knight errant
> 	durance vile
> 	Chicken Little
> 
> But these examples are true fossils; other nouns and adjectives cannot
> be substituted, and the adjective cannot be compared.  In other words,
> there is no _*knight peripatetic_ or _*musician errant_, and certainly
> no _*durance vilest_.  _Proper_ is unusual, perhaps unique, in that it
> is only postpositive in this usage and can be used after many other nouns
> than _city_.  But even _proper_ cannot then be compared (_*city most
> proper_).

there are those cases where a postnominal deverbal modifier has a
different interpretation (or usage) than its prenominal counterpart:

	a scorned woman		vs	a woman scorned
	an unfrocked priest	vs	a priest unfrocked
	a denied wish		vs	a wish denied
	the passed sentence	vs	the sentence passed

etc.

-- 

Tom Wachtel (wachtel@canon.co.uk)