In a well-known play, 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore, I well remember the words "brother unkind", it that order. Can this be a poetic license? Or is this reversal of word order (adjective after the noun), at present, usual practice? As another example, a often hear people say "place nice" or "place <some other adjective>", e.g., "We'll go to some place nice" where, for a person just grasping the essentials of English, "nice place" would be the natural thing. I'm more interested in the "place nice" case than in the first example which, after all, belongs to Elizabethan literature, but is the only other one I can remember now.
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Hi Enrique,
You're right to be confused about English grammar - one of the languages with so many "exceptions to the rule". I can't comment on the Elizabethan "brother unkind" (too far away historically for me) but maybe I can help with "some place nice":
My take (instinctive) is that we could say:
a) Let's go to a nice place;
b) Let's go to some place (which is) nice.
In the example (b), the "which is ..." is implied and not spoken.
That's my offering to your doubt. Maybe others here can help if I'm barking up the wrong tree!
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Originally posted by Enrique View PostGlad to meet you again, Quijote. Your examples and explanation could not be clearer. Thanks both to Sorrano and you. My doubts have now vanished. How lucky I am in having once found the Beethoven Reference Site forum! May it last forever.
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An adjective that follows a noun is called a postpositive adjective.
'place nice' is not really postpositive, pretty much as stated above by Quijote.
Postpositive adjectives are rare in English but do turn up occasionally in poetry e.g.
pavements grey ("The Lake Isle of Innesfree" by W B Yeats)
resolutions vain ("The Sick Stockrider" by Adam Lindsay Gordon)
girdle furl'd ("Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold)
edges drear ("Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold)
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