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- From: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn)
- Subject: Re: postpositive articles in English
- Message-ID: <1992Nov20.200343.15269@rdg.dec.com>
- Sender: news@rdg.dec.com (Mr News)
- Organization: Digital Equipment Co. Ltd., Reading, England
- References: <1992Nov19.190026.937@almserv.uucp> <1992Nov19.215659.4152@memstvx1.memst.edu> <By0nyB.7nM@swi.psy.uva.nl> <1992Nov20.125429.4163@memstvx1.memst.edu>
- Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 18:57:13 GMT
- Lines: 32
-
-
- 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.
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Craig Cockburn, Digital Equipment Co. Ltd, Reading, England. Suas
- Internet: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com leis
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- Gha\idhlig!
- Views here are my own, and are not necessarily those of Digital
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