Predication with _beautiful of face_

[Claude.Boisson]

I have nothing to say about the way to deal with "beautiful of face" in LFG
(sheer incompetence), but here are a few notes on data.

The construction is found in Hebrew, Aramaic / Syriac, Classical Greek,
Latin, French (and, I suspect, other Romance languages).

Greek has it with an "accusative of relation" on the noun (also with the
dative), and the adjective agrees with the subject. Ex.
pais praos to e:thos
[child meek the temper]
Here "e:thos" and its article "to" are neuter.

Similarly in Latin, with the N in the genitive, "sanus mentis" [sane of-mind].

As pointed out by Yehuda Falk, the widespread Hebrew construction
(sometimes called "epexegitical genitive") is reminiscent of compounding.
It may be a telling fact that, in Biblical Hebrew, it can indeed be
translated by a compound adjective in Greek (in the Septuagint) or in
English (see "stiff-necked"). Ex. :
Exod 34,6 has Hebrew [slow-of anger] = Septuagint "makrothumos".
The English "A-N-ed" adjective type seems a good translation for the Hebrew
construction.

In Syriac there may be a preposition which specifies the logical relation.
For instance Muraoka's Syriac Grammar quotes Gen 12.11 where the Syriac
translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Peshitta) has [beautiful in-sight],
that is with preposition "b-" [= in] prefixed to the noun. But here the
original Hebrew has no preposition: "?isha y at pat mar'e" (@ = schwa)  [woman
beautiful-of sight]

In Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic / Syriac, if we say "Mary is beautiful of
face", the adjective agrees with the subject, and not with the following
noun, as far as I know.

French is a bit puzzling, on various counts:

1) There seem to be strange constraints (or random phenomena?), so that, at
least for me (I haven't checked with other native speakers), selected data
are the following:

Paul est blanc de /*de la peau
[Paul is white of 0 / *the skin]

Marie est molle ?de / de la fesse
[Mary is soft of the buttocks]

Marie est large d' / *de l'esprit
[Mary is broad of 0 / *the mind]

Marie est large de / des hanches
[Mary is broad of 0 / the hips]

So, usually, the N has no definite article, but in some cases, it may have one.

2) The construction is not completely free. At least I would not say:
*Paul est idiot d'ide'es
[Paul est stupid of ideas]
*Marie est grosse de bouche
[Mary is big of mouth]
Paul est exceptionnel de courage
[Paul is exceptional of courage]
*Paul est grand de courage
[Paul is big of courage]

3) There seems to be a problem with agreement.

I say:
Il est mou de la fesse
[He is soft of the buttocks], where "mou" agrees with the masculine
singular subject pronoun, and not with the feminine singular noun "fesse"
And also:
Elles sont molles de la fesse
Ils sont mous de la fesse
*Il est molle de la fesse
*Ils sont molle de la fesse

*But* I would say (sorry for all these apparently sexist examples, useful
for examining gender agreement):
Elle est bas /*basse de plafond [she is low of ceiling = a moron ;
"plafond" is masculine]
where the adjective "bas" agrees with the following masculine singular
noun, *not* with the subject
Elle est bas / *basse du cul [she is low of the arse ; "cul" is masculine]
Elle est gras / *grasse du bide [she is fat of the tummy ; "bide" is masculine]
Elles sont bas / *basses du cul

I don't understand this.

Claude Boisson
Universite Lumie`re
Lyon, France