(# 8) Post-Positioned Adjectives -- The Short Cut "Post-Positioned Adjective" is not a category that is required to explain how every word in every sentence relates to the main S/V/C pattern, but it can save time and explanation. Suppose, for example, that we were analyzing the sentence: He was watching his son, soundly asleep, quiet and peaceful after a hard day of play.Within the rules of KISS Grammar, we could expand this to: He was watching his son, [*who was* soundly asleep, quiet and peaceful after a hard day of play.]And we could explain "asleep, quiet, and peaceful" as: "predicate adjectives to the ellipsed "who was." The "*who*" through "play" is an adjectival clause that modifies "son."To avoid the lengthy explanation, it is easier simply to consider such words as "post-positioned adjectives." In effect, the post-positioned adjective results from the reduction of an adjectival clause that has a S/V/PA pattern, just as an appositive is the reduction of an adjectival clause that has a S/V/PN pattern: She was watching her son, the fullback on the high school team.Although the PPA is not necessary for an explanation, theoretically -- and from what I have seen so far, it, like the appositive is a "late-blooming" construction. If one is interested in statistical analysis of natural syntactic development, identifying them as PPA's enables one to count them (which I am doing in my own work). |
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Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres' The Valpinçon Bather 1808, Musée du Louvre, Paris Click here for the directory of my backgrounds based on art. |
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