Job Discussion Forums

[antonia v]

In class a student asked me about this sentence:

I like to sleep with the window open.

He asked my why the adjective was after the noun, and I was totally stumped. I promised I would get back to him with an answer. Can anyone help me?

[gaijinalways]

This could also be written as;

'I like to sleep with an open window.'

As to why it would be acceptable as you posted

[spiral78]

I haven't time to research this at the moment, and I'm embarassed to throw my hat in the ring, but at a quick guess I think 'stative verb' might be the answer?

Also awaiting the word of the grammar gods/goddesses.

[Serious_Fun]

[furiousmilksheikali]

[Stephen Jones]

I've got my copy of the CGEL in a box in a friend's house, so I can't look the construction up.

As has been said adjectives can be used in predicative position.
eg The window is closed.

I presume we are dealing with something similar here.

You also get the adjective after the noun in fossilizations, such as 'notary public'.

[Teacher in Rome]

I think that the "open" is a participle which is being used as an adjective. Placed after the noun "window", it has the same function as a relative clause:

a window that is open.

All this from Michael Swan (Practical English Usage)

[furiousmilksheikali]

Here is a link to some cases in which the adjective is used after a noun:

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?docid=144843#4

I'm not exactly sure which one this falls under however as I can't see how "I can only sleep with the window open" is a reduced relative clause. Any ideas?

As Stephen Jones points out there are plenty of cases of the adjective being used after the noun. A lot of them come from legal, miltary or diplomatic language as they are often adopted from French and retain the French word order such as court martial and secretary general hence the plural form of courts martial and secretaries general. I looked that up after once hearing a fellow teacher describing what a secretary general was with this jaw-dropping description: "Well, Kofi Annan is called the secretary general because he's both a secretary and a general!"

[wildchild]

because sleeping with an open window might be kind of painful.

[gaijinalways]

[John Hall]

It seems to be that this type of structure is often used in cases where putting the adjective in front of the noun would create a different meaning. E.g.,

"...driving with the lights off" does not mean the same thing as "...driving with the off lights."

"...walking with her head down" does not mean the same thing as "...walking with her down head."

Even these cases have different meanings:

"The dog walked with its tail drooping."

"The dog walked with its drooping tail."

To me, the second one means that the tail is permanently drooping, whereas the first means that the tail is only temporarily drooping.

There seem to be other relevant aspects involved as well: 1) all of these structures involve prepositional phrases that start with "with," and 2) when the adjective follows the noun it seems to be answering the question, "In what mode?" or the question, "In what condition?"

A few other example to consider:

"...running with his pants (on) inside-out."

"...going forward with a rope trailing."

"...appearing on stage with his tie crooked."

[rusmeister]

And Teacher in Rome gets the prize for being the first teacher to correctly describe open as participial!!!
(This is where knowing other languages really helps you understand your own - just try translating the phrase into other Indo-Euro languages - I did Russian, Italian and French and it came out participial)

John Hall gets honorary mention for correctly describing the positional use!

Gee, we ought to have grammar equivalents of Jeopardy or something on the site...

[antonia v]

[dmb]

[mdk]

I like to remember what the caterpillar told Alice in a simlar situation. It was something to the effect that he could use the word anyway he pleased. "The question is who is the master?"