A postpositive adjective or postnominal adjective is an

adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the m ...

that is placed after the

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...

that it modifies, as in

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently o ...

s such as ''

attorney general In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

'', ''

queen regnant A queen regnant (plural: queens regnant) is a female monarch, equivalent in rank and title to a king, who reigns '' suo jure'' (in her own right) over a realm known as a "kingdom"; as opposed to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reign ...

'', 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 (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, Welsh,

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

, etc.), the postpositive placement of adjectives is the normal

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...

, but in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

it is largely confined to archaic and poetic uses (e.g. "Once upon a midnight ''dreary''", as opposed to "Once upon a ''dreary'' midnight") as well as phrases borrowed from

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

(e.g. ''

heir apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

'', '' aqua regia'') and certain fixed grammatical constructions (e.g. "Those ''anxious'' to leave soon exited").Rodney Huddleston, ''English Grammar: An Outline'', CUP 1988, p. 109. In

, postpositive position is independent of predicative position; a postpositive adjective may occur either in the subject or the predicate of a

clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb w ...

, and any adjective may be a

predicate adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...

if it follows a

copular verb In linguistics, a copula (plural: copulas or copulae; abbreviated ) is a word or phrase that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement, such as the word ''is'' in the sentence "The sky is blue" or the phrase ''was not being'' in ...

. For example: ''monsters unseen were said to lurk beyond the moor'' (postpositive attribute in subject of clause), but ''the children trembled in fear of monsters unseen'' (postpositive attribute in predicate of clause) and ''the monsters, if they existed, remained unseen'' (predicate adjective in postpositive position). Recognizing postpositive adjectives in English is important for determining the correct

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This ...

for a compound expression. For example, because ''martial'' is a postpositive adjective in the phrase ''

court-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of mem ...

'', the plural is ''courts-martial'', the

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

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 Rebracketing (also known as resegmentation or metanalysis) is a process in historical linguistics where a word originally derived from one set of morphemes is broken down or bracketed into a different set. For example, ''hamburger'', originally ...

Occurrence in languages

In certain languages, including French,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional It ...

, Portuguese,

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, Romanian,

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, Vietnamese, postpositive adjectives are the norm: it is normal for an

attributive adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...

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" (literally "the horse white") In particular instances, however, such languages may also feature prepositive adjectives. In French, certain common adjectives, including ''grand'' ("big"), 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" (literally "the horse big") * ''el gran caballo'', "the big horse", or ''el caballo grande'', "the big horse" (literally "the horse big") 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 (of a small breed)" * ''un chien petit'' - "a small dog (for its breed)" 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

, German,

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...

, Japanese and

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

, prepositive adjectives are the norm (attributive adjectives normally come before the nouns they modify), 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 pronoun An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related form ...

s: ''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: #When it is wished to modify adjectives using an

adjective phrase An adjective phrase (or adjectival phrase) is a phrase whose head is an adjective. Almost any grammar or syntax textbook or dictionary of linguistics terminology defines the adjective phrase in a similar way, e.g. Kesner Bland (1996:499), Crystal ( ...

in which the

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may not ...

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: ''(noun/pronoun)...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 (the) picking''; ''ripe-for-picking fruit''. The postpositive holds more sway for many of the briefest and simplest of such phrases (e.g. ''in hand''). Examples: ''job in hand''; ''task underway''; a ''case in point'' #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 ''(in) no way, in every way''. Examples: ''It was in some way(s) 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 The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of ...

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 (a kind of

reduced relative clause A reduced relative clause is a relative clause that is ''not'' marked by an explicit relative pronoun or complementizer such as ''who'', ''which'' or ''that''. An example is the clause ''I saw'' in the English sentence "This is the man ''I saw''. ...

). Similar behavior is displayed by many adjectives with the suffix ''-able'' or ''-ible'' (e.g. ''the best room available'', ''the only decision possible'', ''the worst choice imaginable'', ''the persons liable''). Certain other adjectives with a sense similar to those in the foregoing categories are customarily found postpositively (''all the people present'', ''the first payment due''). Their antonyms (absent and undue) and variations of due (overdue, post-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: #Every ''visible star'' is named after a famous astronomer. #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 The term predicate is used in one of two ways in linguistics and its subfields. The first defines a predicate as everything in a standard declarative sentence except the subject, and the other views it as just the main content verb or associated ...

predicate. The prepositive in the first sentence may also have that sense, but it may also have an

individual-level The term predicate is used in one of two ways in linguistics and its subfields. The first defines a predicate as everything in a standard declarative sentence except the subject, and the other views it as just the main content verb or associate ...

meaning, referring to an inherent property of the object (the stars that are visible in general). Quite a significant difference in meaning is found with the adjective ''responsible'': #Can you direct me to the ''responsible people''? #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 phrase Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...

s in English which feature postpositive adjectives. They are often

loans In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that de ...

loan translation In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...

s from foreign languages that commonly use postpositives, especially French (many legal terms come from

Law French Law French ( nrf, Louai Français, enm, Lawe Frensch) is an archaic language originally based on Old Norman and Anglo-Norman, but increasingly influenced by Parisian French and, later, English. It was used in the law courts of England, be ...

). Some examples appear below: *In culinary arts with foods, drinks, and recipes: spaghetti bolognese;

chicken korma Korma or qorma (; ; ) is a dish originating in Indian subcontinent, consisting of meat or vegetables braised with yogurt ( dahi), water or stock, and spices to produce a thick sauce or gravy. Etymology The English name is an anglicisation of Hind ...

, satay, or supreme; whiskey

sour The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...

*In Christianity and translations of similar Abrahamic religious concepts: Christ/love/life everlasting, the devil/evil incarnate,

God Almighty El Shaddai ( ''ʾĒl Šadday''; ) or just Shaddai is one of the names of the God of Israel. ''El Shaddai'' is conventionally translated into English as ''God Almighty'' (''Deus Omnipotens'' in Latin, الله عز وجل Allāh 'azzawajal in Ara ...

*In law:''

actus reus (), sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime, is the Law Latin term for the "guilty act" which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the ("guilty mind"), produces criminal liability in t ...

'' and ''

mens rea In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action (or lack of action) would cause a crime to be committed. It is considered a necessary element ...

'',

fee simple In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" is real property held without limit of time (i.e., per ...

, ''

force majeure In contract law, (from Law French: 'overwhelming force', ) is a common clause in contracts which essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such ...

'', ''

locus classicus {{Short pages monitor.

Other postpositive noun modifiers

Nouns may have other

modifier Modifier may refer to: * Grammatical modifier, a word that modifies the meaning of another word or limits its meaning ** Compound modifier, two or more words that modify a noun ** Dangling modifier, a word or phrase that modifies a clause in an a ...

s besides adjectives. Some kinds of modifiers tend to precede the noun, while others tend to come after.

Determiner A determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner ...

s (including articles,

possessive A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict own ...

demonstrative Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

s, etc.) come before the noun.

Noun adjunct In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun functioning as a pre-modif ...

s (nouns qualifying another noun) also generally come before the nouns they modify: in a phrase like ''book club'', the adjunct (modifier) ''book'' comes before the

(modified noun) ''club''. By contrast,

prepositional phrase An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or cir ...

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...

s of location, etc., as well as relative clauses, come after the nouns they modify: ''the elephant in the room''; ''all the people here''; ''the woman to whom you spoke''. (These remarks apply to English syntax; other languages may use different word order. In

, for example, virtually all modifiers come before the noun, whereas in the Khmer language they follow the noun.) Sometimes a noun with a postpositive modifier comes to form a set phrase, similar in some ways to the set phrases with postpositive adjectives referred to above (in that, for example, the plural ending will normally attach to the noun, rather than at the end of the phrase). Some such phrases include: * With a noun followed by a prepositional phrase: ''mother-in-law'', etc.; ''editor-in-chief'', ''right of way'', ''president pro tempore'' (where ''pro tempore'' is a Latin prepositional phrase), ''fish filet deluxe'' (where ''de luxe'' is a French prepositional phrase) *With an infinitive verb or a

verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''qu ...

: ''father-to-be'', ''bride-to-be'', etc.; '' Johnny-come-lately'' *With an adverbial particle from a

phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (e ...

: ''passer-by'', ''hanger-on'' In some phrases, a noun adjunct appears postpositively (rather than in the usual prepositive position). Examples include

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headqu ...

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon ( la, Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), also known as the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Knights Templar, or simply the Templars, was a Catholic military order, o ...

, man Friday (or girl Friday, etc.), airman first class (also

private first class Private first class (french: Soldat de 1 classe; es, Soldado de primera) is a military rank held by junior enlisted personnel in a number of armed forces. French speaking countries In France and other French speaking countries, the rank (; ...

, sergeant first class), as well as many names of foods and dishes, such as

Bananas Foster Bananas Foster is a dessert made from bananas and vanilla ice cream, with a sauce made from butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, dark rum, and banana liqueur. The butter, sugar and bananas are cooked, and then alcohol is added and ignited. The bananas ...

beef Wellington Beef Wellington is a steak dish of English origin, made out of fillet steak coated with pâté (often pâté de foie gras) and duxelles, wrapped in puff pastry, then baked. Some recipes include wrapping the coated meat in a crêpe or parm ...

broccoli raab Rapini or broccoli rabe () is a green cruciferous vegetable, with the leaves, buds, and stems all being edible; the buds somewhat resemble broccoli, but do not form a large head. Rapini is known for its bitter taste, and is particularly associa ...

Cherries Jubilee Cherries jubilee is a dessert dish made with cherries and liqueur (typically kirschwasser), which are flambéed tableside, and commonly served as a sauce over vanilla ice cream. The recipe is generally credited to Auguste Escoffier, who prepare ...

Chicken Tetrazzini Tetrazzini is an American dish made with diced poultry or seafood and mushroom in a butter/cream and cheese sauce flavored with wine or sherry. It is served hot over linguine, spaghetti, egg noodles, or some other types of pasta, garnished ...

Crêpe Suzette A crêpe or crepe ( or , , Quebec French: ) is a very thin type of pancake. Crêpes are usually one of two varieties: ''sweet crêpes'' () or ''savoury galettes'' (). They are often served with a wide variety of fillings such as cheese, f ...

Eggs Benedict Eggs Benedict is a common American breakfast or brunch dish, consisting of two halves of an English muffin, each topped with Canadian bacon, a poached egg, and hollandaise sauce. It was popularized in New York City. Origin and history The ...

Oysters Rockefeller Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not al ...

peach Melba Peach Melba (french: pêche Melba, pronounced ) is a dessert of peaches and raspberry sauce with vanilla ice cream. It was invented in 1892 or 1893 by the French chef Auguste Escoffier at the Savoy Hotel, London, to honour the Australian soprano ...

steak tartare Steak tartare or tartar steak is a dish of raw ground (minced) beef. It is usually served with onions, capers, mushrooms, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and other seasonings, often presented separately, to be added to taste. It is often ser ...

, and

duck a l'orange Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ta ...

. Identifying numbers (with or without the word ''number''), and sometimes letters, appear after the noun in many contexts. Examples are ''

Catch-22 ''Catch-22'' is a satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-chr ...

''; warrant officer one, chief warrant officer two, etc.; Beethoven's Symphony No. 9; '' Call of Duty Three'', '' Rocky Four'', ''

Shrek the Third ''Shrek the Third'' (also known as ''Shrek 3'') is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy film loosely based on the 1990 picture book '' Shrek!'' by William Steig, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The ...

'',

Generation Y Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 200 ...

. (For appellations such as "Henry the Fourth", often written "Henry IV", see above.) Other common cases where modifiers follow a head noun include: *Phrases like ''the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among t ...

'' and ''

the Sisters Rosensweig ''The Sisters Rosensweig'' is a play by Wendy Wasserstein. The play focuses on three Jewish-American sisters and their lives. It "broke theatrical ground by concentrating on a non-traditional cast of three middle-aged women." Wasserstein received ...

'' (although in ordinary cases the phrasing "the Brown brothers" is more common) *Names of military operations and equivalent, such as

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

Operation Desert Storm Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...

, etc. *Names of scientific projects and the like, such as

Project Daedalus Project Daedalus (named after Daedalus, the Greek mythological designer who crafted wings for human flight) was a study conducted between 1973 and 1978 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a plausible uncrewed interstellar probe.Pr ...

Project Echo Project Echo was the first passive communications satellite experiment. Each of the two American spacecraft, launched in 1960 and 1964, were metalized balloon satellites acting as passive reflectors of microwave signals. Communication sig ...

*The adjective "adjacent" is occasionally used postpositive to signify a conceptual and vague relation, such as "politics adjacent".

Plurals of expressions with postpositives

In the plural forms of expressions with postpositive adjectives or other postpositive modifiers, the pluralizing

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone ...

(most commonly the suffix ''-s'' or ''-es'') is added after the noun, rather than after the entire phrase. For instance, the plural form of ''town proper'' is ''towns proper'', that of ''battle royal'' is ''battles royal'', that of ''attorney general'' is ''attorneys general'', that of ''bride-to-be'' is ''brides-to-be'', and that of ''passer-by'' is ''passers-by''. See also Plurals of French compounds. With some such expressions, there is a tendency (by way of regularization) to add the plural suffix to the end of the whole expression. This is usually regarded by

prescriptive grammar Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes info ...

ians as an error. Examples are *''queen consorts'' (where ''queens consort'' is considered the correct form) and *''court-martials'' (where the accepted plural is ''courts-martial'', although ''court-martials'' can be used as a third person present tense

verb form In linguistics, conjugation () is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection (alteration of form according to rules of grammar). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'', ...

). This rule does not necessarily apply to phrases with postpositives that have been rigidly fixed into names and titles. For example, an English speaker might say "Were there two separate

Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a far-left militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, the group was organized as a faction of Students for a Democ ...

s by the 1970s, or just one single organization?". Other phrases remain as they are because they intrinsically use a plural construction (and have no singular form), such as ''eggs Benedict'', ''nachos supreme'', ''Brothers Grimm'', ''Workers United''.

References

Sources

External links

Internet Grammar of English
at the

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

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The Onion (satire): "William Safire Orders Two Whoppers Junior"
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