Re: THEORY: Deriving adjectives from nouns

Joshua Shinavier wrote:
> How many of what?  I'm not sure what your relators and degrees of integration
> are.  Regarding the "pretty little girls' school", a brief analysis of the
> phrase reveals that there are exactly 10 possible interpretations which make
> sense in English,
Consider that "pretty" can mean "attractive" or "quite", thus it could
be "attractive little girls' school" or "quite little girls' school".  I
can see the following meanings (ignoring the phonological ambiguity
between "girl's" and "girls'"

The school which the attractive little girls attend
The school which is for attractive little girls
The school which is run by the attractive little girls
The school which is run by the very little girls
The school which the very little girls attend
The school which is for very little girls
The school which the very little girls run
The school which the attractive little girls run
The small, attractive, school which is for girls
The small, attractive, school which the girls run
The small, attractive, school which the girls attend
The very small school which is for girls
The very small school which the girls attend
The very small school which is run by the girls
The attractive school which is for little girls
The attractive school which the little girls attend
The attractive school which is run by the little girls

That's at least 16 meanings.  I can't think of any others off the top of
my head.

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