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Re: USAGE: Persons unknown

From:Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...>
Date:Friday, March 16, 2007, 14:34
On 16/03/07, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
> Judging from anglophone newspapers, crimes are often perpetrated by persons > unknown. Why not "unknown persons"? > > Andreas >
There are a few English expressions that follow this, usually calques/Anglicized loans from French or Latinate expressions; other examples would be "Attorney(s)/Governor(s) General", where the first word inflects but not the second because nouns inflect for number in English but not adjectives - "big houses", not "big-s house-s" or "big-s house". Despite appearances, English actually is often more right-branching than left. For example: "[[The [big tall scary] man] [that I saw [when I went [to Scotland [on holiday [in summer]]]]]]", not the exclusively left-branching: "[The [big tall] [[in summer] [on holiday] [to Scotland] I went when] I saw that] man]]]]" -- Q: What will happen in the Aftermath? A: Impossible to tell, since we're still in the Beforemath. http://latedeveloper.org.uk

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Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>