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Attr. Post-pos, Pred.  
by Catesse (AU), 2011-09-15, 09:19  like dislike  Spam?  
This has been discussed at great length in the DE-EN forum, and the outcome, as far as I last saw it, was a bit fluffy. As I remember it: if an adjective can be used both as an attributive and as a predicate, nothing is done. If it can be used only postpositionally, it is marked as such. There are other combinations of usage available, and it seems to be left to the judgment of the contributors as to whether or not they are marked. A lot of the sites take no notice at all, perhaps because the problem does not arise, or perhaps because nobody has given it any consideration. Or perhaps because the usage is so irregular that it is pointless to indicate it.
My point in this case was to draw attention to the small number of cases in French where the adjective actually changes its meaning according to its position.
Some time ago, I came across an official report to the International Red Cross in Geneva by Dr Georges Morel, written about 1944, where his original "Les pièces sont très propres" had been translated in another official document elsewhere as "The pieces are very proper." I kid you not. The audacity of some translators in fraudulently claiming a knowledge of a language is beyond belief. (The rest of the document was of a similar quality; a lot of the errors where sheer comedy, but the instance where "politique" had been translated as "political", when in context it should have been "tactful", had consequences.)
So, just enough explanation to prevent a reasonable person from making such an error would be sufficient.
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