Re: Most common irregular verbs?

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Henrik Theiling <theiling@A...>
wrote:

>I still find the analysis of 'ago' as an adjective quite a strange
>view.  The prototypical usages of adjectives seem to be at least, if
>at all grammatical, the non-typical case.
I do not know what a "prototypical adjective" is.  Not all
adjectives in English behave in the same way.

"The whole thing" vs. "all the things."  In German would these not
be translated as "das ganze Ding" and "die ganze Dinge"?

"Alone" gives us some interesting examples.  It is not used
attributively before a noun: "The alone boy stood on the corner."
But we can say, "I am alone"; "I alone will do it": "Alone he
manages to survive."

>This is why I gave my examples.  I find an attributive usage like in
>'the ago year' a bit strange.  Even if you define this adjective, by
>exception, to be postpositional as in 'the year ago', such a phrase
>remains strange.
In the same way, "ago" is never used attributively.  And, as I said
previously, "the year ago" IS strange.  We would only say "A year
ago."

>And a predicative use as in 'the year is ago' also seems, well,
>strange again. Yet typical adjectives work just like this, don't
>they?
It certainly is strange.  It is also incorrect, or I guess I should
say non-standard.  "Ago" is not used predicatively either.  It is
just not a typical adjective, since it can only be used
postpositionally.

To quote again from the Columbia Guide to Standard American
English, "The normal position of English adjectives is before the
nouns they modify...but certain adjectives, particulary some
borrowed from French, especially in stereotypical phrases, appear
after the noun, in what grammarians sometimes call the post-positive
position: _chaise longue_, _moment supreme_, _attorney general_"
(the plural of which is attorneys general).

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