Re: Most common irregular verbs?

Henrik Theiling 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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?
>
> Also, prototypical adjectives can be added to noun phrases to form
> other noun phrases.  So I should be able to say 'I like this year
> ago.' or 'I like the book ago.'  (Assuming, exceptionally, that this
> adjective is postponed.  It doesn't improve much if put in front,
> though.)
>
> The dictionary entries cited above quite obviously use quite a
> different view on adjectives as I do here.  I'd like to know what the
> system is behind their classification.  Do they define the terms?  Can
> anyone help?  Is the above common-sense or English intuition?  Why?
My guess is simply that it's an example of fitting English usage into
standard categories inherited from Latin.  Postpositions are not
generally recognized as a part of English (and many grammarians aren't
even aware of their existence), so they shoehorn it into the
conventionally-recognized category of "adjective"

I can't see any good reason, other than an assumption that "English
doesn't have postpositions" (or perhaps even the lack of awareness that
such things exist), to call "ago" anything but a postposition.

It certainly does not act like an adjective