Monday, June 25, 2018

ellipsis - "If you don't have a fresh chicken, I'll take a frozen (one)." – When can an adjective act on behalf of a whole noun phrase?

Consider these sentences:





  1. If you haven't got a fresh chicken, I'll take a frozen.

  2. If you haven't got a fresh chicken, I'll take the frozen.

  3. If you haven't got fresh cream, I'll take canned.


  4. If you haven't got (any) fresh cream, I'll take some canned.

  5. If you haven't got fresh cream, I'll take the canned.




As you see, frozen and canned are adjectives that are used attributively but their accompanying nouns are left out. Is it grammatical to do so? Under what conditions? Does the phrase remain a noun phrase?



Of course, the problem can be detoured by adding back the omitted nouns (frozen chicken/one, canned cream), but the question is, cannot the adjectives do alone?



You can also share your native impression and tell us (preferably in the comment section) which of the sentences above you find acceptable and which unnatural.

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