Another case where an AdjP can occur postnominally is with certain ‘heavier’ adjective phrases which are modified by prepositional phrases: (17a) *A man sick (17b) A sick man (17c) A man sick of the same old excuses (17d) *A sick of the same old excuses man Looking at the noun phrases in (17a-d), we see that adding the prepositional phrase ‘of the same old excuses’ requires the ‘heavier’ adjective phrase to occur after the noun, as in (17b).

While adjective phrases in NPs often occur before the head noun, there are a few exceptions–cases in which the adjective phrase occurs postnominally, particularly with indefinite pronouns like ‘something’, ‘anything’, ‘nothing’, and ‘everything’. (16a) Let’s do a fun activity. (16b) *Let’s do a fun something. (16c) Let’s do something fun. (16d) *Let’s do an activity fun.

If we think of questions as being formed from the equivalent statement, we can see that yes-no questions are formed by moving the italicized verb from one side of the subject to the other.[1] The verbs that move are either auxiliary verbs or a form of the verb to be. We can use this fact of English grammar as a test for our subjects. Simply turn the clause into a yes-no question (or if it’s already a question, change it to a statement) and observe the position of the moving verb. This technique will work even when the subject is very long and contains many elements inside it:[2]

Notice that in discussing these roles, we are invoking the meaning of the sentence. They are, in other words, semantic roles, and they are not the same thing as grammatical roles like subject and direct object. Grammatical roles are defined by structural relationships within the sentence, semantic roles by relationships of meaning.