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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear Jennifer Culbertson,<br>
Ppolish is quite well known (at least within Slavic) as allowing
(or even requiring) some of its adjectives to occur after its head
noun. This phenomenon is regular with (non-gradable) attributive
adjectives denoting stable features or within in fixed
denominations, e.g. in different sorts of terminologies (e.g.,
język polski, niemiecki, chiński etc., i.e. 'Polish, German,
Chinese (language)', but also things like okres inkubacyjny
'incubation period/interval', ). Sometimes you can have either
way with (probaly) only a difference in frequency (e.g., "dochód
miesięczny" vs. "miesięczny dochód" 'monthly earnings', or "rytuał
magiczny" vs. " magiczny rytuał" 'magic ritual'), but in some
cases differences of meaning are observable as in (I guess), e.g.,
"reguły rytualne" (= 'rules that are part of an established
ritual/of rituals') vs. "rytualne reguły" '(= 'rules that resemble
rituals/look like acquiring a ritual character'). In any case,
where such a variation exists, the head noun-adjective order
always denotes a stable, fixed notion (and the adjective cannot be
graded, it has no comparative).<br>
I'm not a native speaker, nor am I familiar with more specific
literature on this subject (which certainly exists, mostly, I
guess in Polish). But I happened to accidentally find one article
which might be pertinent for your question:<br>
<br>
Tabakowska, E. (2007):<br>
Iconicity and linear ordering of constituents within Polish NPs.<br>
In: D. Divjak, A. Kochańska (eds.): Cognitive Paths into the
Slavic Domain. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 411-430.<br>
<br>
Good luck!<br>
<br>
Björn Wiemer<br>
<br>
</div>
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cite="mid:CAJMzoR5pgGh2m_2ynbOHKS8TyF6OHm8LDF_v7vxMViDreEi0Bg@mail.gmail.com"
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Hi all,<br>
<br>
I'm interested in examples of languages which have
lexically-determined exceptions to a general adjective placement
rule. A very well-documented example is French, in which
adjectives are generally post-nominal but a (small)
lexically-determined set can be pre-nominal. Do you know of other
examples?<br>
<br>
I'm also interested in whether anyone knows of any typological
work which might suggest whether this kind of variation is more
common for adjectives compared to numerals (or vice versa). I know
of cases in which the placement of the numerals one and/or two
differ from other numerals, but I don't have a sense for how
common that is.<br>
<br>
Thanks in advance for your help!<br>
<br>
Jennifer Culbertson<br>
Assistant Professor<br>
Linguistics Program<br>
George Mason University
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<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Björn Wiemer
Professor für Slavische Sprachwissenschaft
Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität
Institut für Slavistik
Jakob-Welder-Weg 18
D- 55099 Mainz
tel. ++49/ 6131/ 39 -22186
fax ++49/ 6131/ 39 -24709
e-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:wiemerb@uni-mainz.de">wiemerb@uni-mainz.de</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/wiemerb/">http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/wiemerb/</a>
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