In this feature (based on WALS feature 87, by Matthew S. Dryer) we consider the two possible orders of attributive (or modifying) adjective and noun: adjective-noun, with the adjective preceding the noun, as in English stupid question, and noun-adjective, with the adjective following the noun, as in French la maison rouge [the house red] 'the red house'. The feature is not concerned with predicative adjectives (in clauses where the noun is the subject and the adjective is the predicate), as in English The man is stupid.
The term adjective is used here in a semantic sense, as a word with a lexical meaning such as 'hot', 'old', or 'blue'. We thus disregard demonstratives, numerals, or words meaning 'other'. In languages like French, or English, adjectives belong to a distinct class of words, while in other languages they are a subclass of nouns or verbs. We treat a word as an adjective as long as it denotes a property or quality, irrespective of its word class in the language.
