Can "vel aliquid" be a modifier rather than "or anything"?

Question

In a twelfth-century manuscript about finding hidden objects, there is a section saying what the "hidden thing" ("res clausa") is. Quite a few are in this form:

Res clausa lignum vel aliquid siccum.

(I know there's no verb, but I think the "est" is implied).

Another is:

Res clausa herba vel aliquid rubeum.

The obvious translation is "or anything", so "wood or anything dry", "herbs or anything red", but it seems a little too generic; most herbs, for example, aren't red, so that seems a strange mixture. So I was wondering if, since "vel" can mean "even", the translation could be "somewhat dry wood", "reddish herbs" and so on?

Chris.

Answer 1

In this case, the adjectives actually belong to the nouns as well as aliquid. Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar states in section 287:

One adjective may belong in sense to two or more nouns of different genders. In such cases: an attributive adjective agrees with the nearest noun.

The nearest noun in these cases is aliquid, so the adjectives agree with it, but the adjective red applies to the herbs, and dry applies to the wood.

In short, it's saying "dry wood or anything dry" and "red herb or anything red".