🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov20.200343.15269@rdg.dec.com>, cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn) writes:
> 
> In article <1992Nov20.125429.4163@memstvx1.memst.edu>, connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes...
>>In article <By0nyB.7nM@swi.psy.uva.nl>, johan@swi.psy.uva.nl (Johan Henselmans) writes:
>>> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
>>> 
>>>>There are some fossilized expressions of this sort in English:
>>> 
>>>>	knight errant
>>>>	durance vile
>>>>	Chicken Little
>>> 
> and also Professor emeritus 
>>> How about adjectives such as "enough", "aplenty" and "galore" which 
>>> often appear after the noun they qualify.
>> 
>>_Aplenty_ is not an adjective in any sense of the word: neither syntactically,
>>nor formally, not historically (it's an old PP).  Neither, apparently, is
>>_galore_, though it's far from obvious what it would be.  (An adjective
> 
> Galore is from the Gaelic "gu leo\r" 
> leo\r = (feminine noun) sufficiency, enough, a bellyful
> gu  forms "gu leo\r" into an adjective
> 
> Adjectives in Gaelic generally come after the noun - maybe this is why
> "galore" comes after nouns in English.

Not having the Gaelic myself, I have infinite respect for anyone who does.
Still, the question remains: granted that _gu leo\r_ is an adjective in
Gaelic, we still don't know what _galore_ is in English, because it
doesn't act at all like an English adjective.

I had overlooked _professor emeritus_, but again the question remains:
what is _emeritus_ in English?  It occurs only as part of a professional
title and does not have adjectival morphology or syntax.

--Leo Connolly