Postpositive adjective


A postpositive adjective or postnominal adjective is an adjective that is placed after the noun or pronoun that it modifies, as in noun phrases such as attorney general, queen regnant, or all matters financial. This contrasts with prepositive adjectives, which come before the noun or pronoun, as in noun phrases such as red rose, lucky contestant, or busy bees.
In some languages, the postpositive placement of adjectives is the normal syntax, but in English it is largely confined to archaic and poetic uses as well as phrases borrowed from Romance languages or Latin and certain fixed grammatical constructions.
In syntax, postpositive position is independent of predicative position; a postpositive adjective may occur either in the subject or the predicate of a clause, and any adjective may be a predicate adjective if it follows a copular verb. For example: monsters unseen were said to lurk beyond the moor, but the children trembled in fear of monsters unseen and the monsters, if they existed, remained unseen.
Recognizing postpositive adjectives in English is important for determining the correct plural for a compound expression. For example, because martial is a postpositive adjective in the phrase court-martial, the plural is courts-martial, the suffix being attached to the noun rather than the adjective. This pattern holds for most postpositive adjectives, with the few exceptions reflecting overriding linguistic processes such as rebracketing.

Occurrence in languages

In certain languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Romanian, Arabic, Persian, Vietnamese, postpositive adjectives are the norm: it is normal for an attributive adjective to follow, rather than precede, the noun it modifies. The following example is from Italian, French and Spanish:
  • il cavallo bianco, le cheval blanc, el caballo blanco, "the white horse"
In particular instances, however, such languages may also feature prepositive adjectives. In French, certain common adjectives, including grand, usually precede the noun, while in Italian and Spanish they can be prepositive or postpositive adjectives:
  • le grand cheval, "the big horse"
  • il grande cavallo, "the big horse", or il cavallo grande, "the big horse"
  • el gran caballo, "the big horse", or el caballo grande, "the big horse"
When an adjective can appear in both positions, the precise meaning may depend on the position. E.g. in French:
  • un grand homme - "a great man"
  • un homme grand - "a tall man"
  • une fille petite - "a small girl"
  • une petite fille - "a little girl"
  • un petit chien - "a little dog "
  • un chien petit - "a small dog "
And in Spanish:
  • un gran hombre - "a great man"
  • un hombre grande - "a bulky man"
  • una niña pequeña - "a small girl"
  • una pequeña niña - "a little girl"
  • un pequeño perro - "a little dog "
  • un perropequeño - "a small dog "
Prepositive and postpositive adjectives may occur in the same phrase:
  • un bon vin blanc, un buon vino bianco, un buen vino blanco, "a good white wine"
In many other languages, including English, German, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, and Tagalog, prepositive adjectives are the norm, and adjectives appear postpositively only in special situations, if at all.

In modern English

General uses

Compulsory

Adjectives must appear postpositively in English when they qualify almost all compound and some simple indefinite pronouns: some/any/no/every...thing/one/body/where, those; Examples: We need someone 'strong; those well-baked; Going anywhere 'nice?; Nothing 'important happened; Everyone new' was shocked.
All adjectives are used postpositively for qualifying them precisely. The user follows the set formula:
This can be replaced by that or so, or, casually to evoke an affected air, yea. Without the preposition the formula is even more intuitive in replies. Examples pointing: "Which of the greyhounds do you like?" "Dogs this big." "A dog that weighty would definitely fit the bill." "A dog that tall to match my friend's." Examples figuratively: "A dog so fast it could win at the track".

Optional

Generally to these scenarios:
  1. When it is wished to modify adjectives using an adjective phrase in which the head adjective is not final. Such phrases are common in speaking and in writing save for the reflexive which is a bit stark but common in fiction. Examples: ...anxious to leave, proud/full of themselves. Comparative forms are positioned before/after the noun, as in we need a box bigger than......a bigger box than... Set compounds and near variations. technology easy-to-use; easy-to-use technology; fruit ripe for picking; ripe-for-picking fruit. The postpositive holds more sway for many of the briefest and simplest of such phrases. Examples: job in hand; task underway; a case in point
  2. Followed by verbs in the infinitive form for some adjectives, mainly as to size, speed, emotions and probability. Examples: Officers ready to be deployed...Passengers happy to leave...Tourists sad to leave...Team ecstatic with their performance...Solutions likely to work...City large enough...Rocket fast enough; can precede equally if compounded with hyphens. Example: We need numbers of ready-to-deploy officers.
The optional positions apply to the debatable pronoun and near synonym pairs any way/anyhow, some way/somehow, as well as to no way, in every way. Examples: It was in some way good; it was good in some ways; it was good somehow; it was somehow good.
Certain adjectives are used fairly commonly in postpositive position. Present and past participles exhibit this behavior, as in all those entering should..., one of the men executed was..., but at will this can be considered to be a verbal rather than adjectival use. Similar behavior is displayed by many adjectives with the suffix -able or -ible. Certain other adjectives with a sense similar to those in the foregoing categories are customarily found postpositively. Their antonyms and variations of due can be placed in either position. These two words are among the least varied from the original Anglo-Norman and Old French terms, reflected in modern French, themselves all close to common Latin original forms. A third is used in locating places and in mainly dated use for complex objects: Sweden/the village/town/city proper...operating on the heart proper, it means "more narrowly defined", or "as more closely matches its character".
Adjectives may undergo a change of meaning when used postpositively. Consider the following examples:
  1. Every visible star is named after a famous astronomer.
  2. Every star visible is named after a famous astronomer.
The postpositive in the second sentence is expected to refer to the stars that are visible here and now; that is, it expresses a stage-level predicate. The prepositive in the first sentence may also have that sense, but it may also have an individual-level meaning, referring to an inherent property of the object. Quite a significant difference in meaning is found with the adjective responsible:
  1. Can you direct me to the responsible people?
  2. Can you direct me to the people responsible?
Used prepositively, can you direct me to the responsible people?, it strongly connotes "dedicated" or "reliable", and by use of the heavily conditional "should be" it denotes that, otherwise, as in the second sentence, it denotes the far more commonly used meaning in the 21st century of "at fault" or "guilty" unless the qualifying word for is added.

Set phrases

There are many set phrases in English which feature postpositive adjectives. They are often loans or loan translations from foreign languages that commonly use postpositives, especially French. Some examples appear below: