postpositive, a. (n.)
(pəʊstˈpɒzɪtɪv)
[f. L. postposit-, ppl. stem of postpōnĕre: see postpone. Cf. mod.F. postpositif (Littré).]
A. adj. Characterized by postposition; having the function of being placed after or suffixed; enclitic.
| 1786 H. Tooke Purley ix. 304 Grammarians were not ashamed to have a class of Postpositive Prepositives. 1845 Proc. Philol. Soc. II. 171 We.. find in the Manchu itself a postpositive participle. 1854 Latham Native Races Russian Emp. 266 In the [Rumanian] word omul we have homo ille; i.e. a substantive with the postpositive article. 1877 Sayce in Trans. Philol. Soc. 140 The older postpositive conjugation. 1930 T. Sasaki On Lang. R. Bridges' Poetry i. iv. 17 All these adjj. have been abundantly used through all the stages of English poetry... This fact appears partly to account for their frequent occurrence as postpositive attributes. 1936 Amer. Speech XI. 363/2 A discussion of the postpositive use of adjectives in such groups as law ecclesiastical. 1951 Archivum Linguisticum III. 24 Post⁓positive adjectives are in fact common in ON. 1963 [see enclisis]. 1978 Language LIV. 281 A particular clause-modifying particle has a fixed position, either clause-initial or ‘post-positive’—i.e. placed (along with indefinites and enclitic personal pronouns) immediately after the initial item in the clause. |
B. n. A postpositive particle or word.
| 1846 Proc. Philol. Soc. III. 13 This adjective may again be declined with all the postpositives usually employed as signs of cases. |
Hence postˈpositively adv.
| 1961 R. B. Long Sentence & its Parts xi. 256 Superlatives in most are now felt as compounds in which a modifying auxiliary pronoun has been united, postpositively, with a basic-form adjective head. 1964 Amer. Speech XXXIX. 36 Verbs contrast with adjectives by their ability to go postpositively. |