Grammatica - loco

9
Adjectives
Licht- and donker- prefixed to any colour render ‘light’ and ‘dark’, e.g.
lichtgroen, donkerrood. Note: lichtpaars ‘mauve’. -ig and -achtig (most
usually the latter) can be suffixed to the names of colours to render ‘-ish’,
e.g. groenachtig ‘greenish’.
All colours can be compounded with each other to render shades, e.g.
grijsgroen ‘greyish green’, geelbruin ‘yellowish brown’. Note: zwartwit
‘black and white’, 11 e.g. een zwartwit televisietoestel ‘a black and white
television set’.
Sometimes nouns are prefixed to colours as is done in English, e.g.
smaragdgroen ‘emerald green’, kastanjebruin ‘chestnut brown’, scharlakenrood
‘scarlet’, okergeel ‘ochre’, pikzwart ‘black as pitch’, roetzwart ‘as black
as soot’, bloedrood ‘blood red’, hemelblauw ‘sky blue’, grasgroen ‘as green
as grass’, spierwit ‘as white as a sheet’.
Note: Wat voor kleur is het? ‘What colour is it?’
9.8
9.8.1
Notes on some peculiarities of adjectives
The adjective wijlen ‘late’ (as of deceased persons) precedes the title as in
English but is not used together with the definite article, unlike English
‘late’, e.g. wijlen Prof. T.H. Elsschot ‘the late Prof. T.H. Elsschot’, wijlen
mijn moeder ‘my late mother’, wijlen Koning Karels zoon ‘the late King
Charles’ son’.
9.8.2
There are a number of standard expressions in which the adjective follows
the noun. English has such cases too, e.g. moederlief, vaderlief, meisjelief
‘mother dear’ etc., God almachtig ‘God almighty’, gouverneur-generaal
‘governor-general’, Staten-Generaal ‘States-General’, moeder-overste
‘mother-superior’.
130 11 Het zwart op wit hebben ‘to have it in black and white (i.e. on paper)’.