Transferred epithets, adjectives that appear to have been transferred from adverb to prenominal position (e.g., "I balanced a thoughtful lump of sugar..."), have been viewed as unanalyzable both grammatically and from the viewpoint of transformational derivation. However, another explanation is that these combinations show patterns reflecting human sensation. The patterns pair an adjective describing sensation with a noun representing the experiencer (e.g., an angry man), a behavior (e.g., a sad smile), a body part of the experiencer (e.g., a happy face), a message from the experiencer (e.g., a jealous letter), or less explicitly expressing the experiencer's role, a causer of sensation (e.g., a happy event), a time of sensation (e.g., a sad moment), or a place in which sensation occurs (e.g., an unhappy home). They reflect our experience that messages and body parts are natural mediators of emotions. Further, we expect predicating adjectives, particularly in attributive positions, to have a descriptive or characterizing function and we may adjust our interpretation of adjectives such as these by certain predictable strategies to make them descriptive. (MSE)