15

I heard phrases like "place nice" and "place safe" several times during watching series and movies and each time I was wondering why an adjective stands after a noun while they teach that adjectives go strictly before nouns.

Unfortunately, all what I gained with simple googling is that it could be a set phrase like "Princess royal". And I already checked a similar question which doesn't answer my question because in this case I see no difference between "a place safe" and "a safe place".

Examples:

  1. We always have to go to, you know, someplace nice.
  1. Is there any place safe for her?
Pang
  • 203
  • 4
  • 9
voloshin
  • 261
  • 2
  • 8
  • 18
    someplace nice is not the same as place nice. – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic- Dec 16 '19 at 00:40
  • Heh heh. "Top knot, come down!" https://teamfishhooks.com/top-knot-come-down/ – puppetsock Dec 16 '19 at 19:05
  • It's a kind of challenge for me to get the difference between "someplace" and "some place" by ear. I found out that it's "someplace" only when the question already was created and I was looking for the exact examples. – voloshin Dec 17 '19 at 07:06
  • 1
    @voloshin, if it were "some place", place is a noun so you would have to say "some nice place", but "someplace" is an indefinite pronoun, so you say "someplace nice". – JavaLatte Dec 20 '19 at 07:28

3 Answers3

42

Rather than Noun + Adjective, it can be thought of as Noun that is Adj, which uses relative clause but that is is omitted.

We always have to go to, you know, someplace that is nice.

Is there any place that is safe for her?

In both cases, "that is nice" and "that is safe for her" are relative clauses. Cases of Noun + Adj are often just such relative clauses with that is omitted.

Another example:

I'd like a house (that is) big enough for 4 people.

Melebius
  • 105
  • 4
ChocolateOverflow
  • 2,012
  • 1
  • 8
  • 13
  • 1
    This is the best answer, because it provides the optional additional words which fully describe the meaning of the sentence. – Chris Melville Dec 16 '19 at 10:25
  • I agree, it's the easiest explanation for me to understand. Now I understand both examples I provided but I'm still wondering how to use the construction. Is it appropriate to use it or should I keep "that is'? Can I do the same with other words? – voloshin Dec 17 '19 at 07:13
  • 2
    You should read more on relative clause. Instead of "that", you can use "who", "which", etc depending what the relative clause clarifies or adds information to. In some cases, "that/which/who is" can be omitted, though I won't go into those specifics here. – ChocolateOverflow Dec 17 '19 at 07:18
  • You can't always omit that is but these Noun + Adj are often relative clauses that omit that is. – ChocolateOverflow Dec 17 '19 at 12:34
  • This answer is simply incorrect. According to this article http://wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?t=24650 , you can't do whiz-deletion if it leaves just an adjective afterwards, so in "someplace [that is] nice", that is cannot be whiz-deleted. This is clear if you replace "someplace" by "a place"., giving "We always have to go to, you know, a place nice". The mechanism that allows someplace nice but not a place nice is postpositive adjectives, which are required for someplace but are not permitted for a place. – JavaLatte Dec 17 '19 at 14:09
  • @JavaLatte What I was trying to say is if it's already N + Adj, it's likely a relative clause with "that is" omitted. If "that is" is not yet omitted, it may or may not be so. It's a "one-way" thing. "N + Adj" --> relative - "that is". You can't always go the other way around. – ChocolateOverflow Dec 18 '19 at 00:40
  • 1
    Yes, but one of the specific examples in the OP's question uses an indefinite pronoun, not an adjective. Your answer doesn't explain why you cannot place the adjective before someplace, nor does it explain why you cannot place the adjective after a place, which is a noun. It's plausible but wrong, and completely unhelpful for people who are trying to construct a correct sentence. – JavaLatte Dec 18 '19 at 01:40
  • I'm simply trying to explain that the OP's examples are that of the relative clause. I didn't explain exactly when, where or how relative clause is used. It's a somewhat long topic that the OP can google for more information. I was trying to keep my explanation short and simple. Those details would be helpful but can be looked up just knowing it's a case of the relative clause. If the OP wants me to explain exactly how the relative clause can be used and when "that is" can be omitted, they can post another question after some googling. – ChocolateOverflow Dec 18 '19 at 01:59
  • @JohnZhau the OP's second example is a relative clause with whiz-deletion, but the first example breaks the main rule about whiz-deletion: you can't whiz-delete and just leave a single adjective. Your explanation of the first example is incorrect. – JavaLatte Dec 18 '19 at 12:37
15

There are two possible mechanisms that could explain the position of the adjective in the example sentences that you provided: postpositive adjectives and whiz-deletion.

When you apply an adjective to an indefinite pronoun, the adjective must be placed postpositively (after the indefinite pronoun):

I am looking for something nice - correct
I am looking for nice something - incorrect

Whiz-deletion refers to the removal of a that-is or which is from a sentence:

I am looking for a house that is near to the school - correct
I am looking for a house near to the school - correct

Note that you can't do whiz-deletion if you are left with just one adjective after the that is: the adjective must be moved in front of the noun:

I am looking for a house that is new - correct
I am looking for a house new - incorrect
I am looking for a new house - correct

We always have to go to, you know, someplace nice

someplace is an indefinite article, so this example must use a postpositive adjective: you cannot put nice in front of the indefinite article:

We always have to go to, you know, nice someplace - incorrect

If you were to replace the indefinite pronoun by a noun, the adjective cannot be placed postpositively:

We always have to go to, you know, a place nice - incorrect
We always have to go to, you know, a nice place - correct

You cannot use whiz-deletion to remove that is from the sentence below, because there's only a single adjective after it.

We always have to go to, you know, someplace [that is] nice

Is there any place safe for her?

In this sentence, any is an indefinite pronoun, so a postpositive adjective would have to go after it, and before the noun:

Is there any safe place for her?

This sentence can therefore only be explained by whiz-deletion:

Is there any place [that is] safe for her?
Is there any place safe for her?

Note that, when the adjective is a subject complement, the adjective goes after the noun, though there is normally a verb in between them:

roses are red
the fish smells bad

If the verb is a be-verb and the sentence is converted to a question, the verb is moved to the front of the sentence, resulting in a NOUN + ADJECTIVE sequence:

Are roses red?

One other situation I can think of where you get NOUN + ADJECTIVE is after verbs like make (CAUSE TO BE), consider (OPINION), go (BECOME) and go (BE) which can take an object followed by an object complement, which is an adjective.

My five-point plan to make Britain safe again - Daily Telegraph

North Korea suggested today that it did not consider negotiations finished. - New York Times

Why Things Always Go Wrong - entrepreneur

6 reasons why people go hungry - global citizen

JavaLatte
  • 59,614
  • 2
  • 75
  • 134
  • I guess I should added more specific examples with context: "We always have to go to, you know, someplace nice." – voloshin Dec 15 '19 at 07:21
  • +1 Oh, I didn't notice your edit of the dropped "that is" before commenting about that. I was pointing that out too. That may also be the case with "a place safe". This is a place [that is] safe for all minorities. Or, This is a place safe from the zombie epidemic. – AIQ Dec 15 '19 at 07:51
  • 3
    But we also have "something nice". And I don't think you can get away with claiming that "something" is an adverb. – TonyK Dec 15 '19 at 14:53
  • There are also a few fossilized historical expressions in English which retain the order of noun + adjective instead of adjective + noun; the most obvious that comes to mind is the phrase “god almighty.” – Ethan Bierlein Dec 15 '19 at 16:40
  • Also a few calques from noun-adjective languages (usually French), such as secretary general (though general secretary is also used). – gidds Dec 15 '19 at 22:37
  • In the example "...did not consider negotiations finished", there is an implicit "to be", as in, "did not consider negotiations to be finished." – taz Dec 16 '19 at 00:07
  • 3
    I'm sorry but this answer is just absolutely wrong.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpositive_adjective – M.A.R. Dec 16 '19 at 02:47
  • 3
    This answer is an oversimplification of postpositive modifiers. What you suggest is what is called in linguistics a Whiz deletion, but there is absolutely a lot more to it and postmodification is a really complex grammar phenomenon. For example your answer fails to explain the difference between go to someplace nice and go to a place nice*. Please refer to the link provided by @M.A.R. – Eddie Kal Dec 16 '19 at 03:12
  • @M.A.R.thank you for your feedback: I have updated my answer. – JavaLatte Dec 16 '19 at 04:26
  • @gidds, the OP referred to this kind of thing in their question .. "princess royal". – JavaLatte Dec 16 '19 at 04:31
  • @taz, yes, the dictionary definition that I provided refers to this. – JavaLatte Dec 16 '19 at 04:34
  • 1
    I retracted my downvote and changed it to an upvote. As it stands now your answer is definitely better than the other answer. – Eddie Kal Dec 16 '19 at 17:15
  • Thank you for the answer. The discussion made it really complex and provided me with links to check. Nevertheless, at the same time it's also confusing to me because despite now I know that it's omitted "that is" I still don't understand why would people take trouble using "noun that is adj" construction while it's more logical to use "adj + noun". – voloshin Dec 17 '19 at 07:30
  • @voloshin "Is there a place that is safe" might have a subtly different meaning in some contexts- for example as a rhetorical question- but I would prefer to say " Is there a safe place" most of the time, and I think that most other english speakers would too. – JavaLatte Dec 17 '19 at 10:54
  • 1
    I have a little something to tell you about your theory that the adjective cannot precede an indefinite pronoun. – Michael Lorton Dec 17 '19 at 17:31
  • I don't understand about the postpositive adjectives. For instance, how about a question "Did you find anything negative?". –  Dec 17 '19 at 23:07
  • @KentaroDonatesForMonica, well, you can't say "Did you find negative anything?", but you can say "Did you find anything negative", therefore the adjective must be postpositive in this case. – JavaLatte Dec 18 '19 at 01:53
  • 1
    @Malvolio, aah, you got me there! Exceptions of exceptions of exceptions... Note the a before little. If something were acting as a pronoun, you couldn't put a in front of it, so it may be acting as a noun in this context. The Cambridge Dictionary has a specific entry for "a little something" so maybe it should be regarded as a a set phrase. – JavaLatte Dec 18 '19 at 02:09
0

There is a lot of linguistic precedence, as well. English borrows heavily from latin languages (e.g., Spanish). Many such languages that contribute to English frequently (but not always) use the noun-adjective (e.g. el hombre viejo).
The rule of "adjective-noun always" is not correct strictly speaking. It was likely intended to simplify teaching when illiteracy was much higher and reduce the aristocratic influence (both my my off-the-cuff speculation).

M E
  • 9
  • 1
  • I guess you'd be correct if the examples were evident Latin or French but "place safe" looks like neither the former nor the latter. – voloshin Dec 17 '19 at 07:37
  • Linguistic influence does not have to be limited to words of Latin languages. That's the beauty of English. – M E Dec 18 '19 at 15:08