Postpositives in English: in search of adjectives available

• Authors: Šaldová Pavlína
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Single postpositive adjectives as a minor type of noun postmodification in English are surveyed using a corpus sample to assess their retrievability, to provide an overview of the morphematic types, and their register distribution. Applying an ancillary test of positional mobility to characterize the postpositive occurrences, four broad groups are delimited. Postmodification by a-adjectives and adjectives in terminological compounds is infrequent, whereas the majority of the sample is constituted by adjectives in -able/-ible and in -ed, whose post-head position involves changes in semantic meaning, as well as occurrences which cannot be accounted for by the constraints stipulated in grammars. The frequency and patterning of available, responsible or necessary call for a re-evaluation of the function of postposition, encompassing all frequent forms and taking into account reference and other textual factors.

Keywords

EN

adjectives; corpus; English; noun phrase; postposition

• Publisher: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts, Czech Republic
• Journal: Linguistica Pragensia
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 137-160

Contributors

author

Šaldová Pavlína

• Department of English Language and ELT Methodology Faculty of Arts, Charles University

Identifiers

DOI

10.14712/18059635.2021.2.2