Adjective-Noun order

[Giorgio Francesco Arcodia -- ============================================================ Ljuba Veselinova, Associate Professor Dept of Linguistics, Stockholm University, S-10691 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46-8-16-2332 Fax: +46-8-15 5389 URL : http://www2.ling.su.se/staff/ljuba/ "We learn by going where we want to go." Julia Cameron ============================================================]

Dear Ms Culbertson,

This is found also in Italian (Standard Modern):

(1)una bella ragazza
   a   pretty girl

(2)un buon libro
   a  good book

versus canonical:

(3) una ragazza affidabile
    a   girl    
reliable

(4) una ragazza inglese
    a   girl    
English

(5) un  libro interessante
    a   book  interesting

(6) un libro noioso
    a  book  boring

The opposite order of noun and adjective in (1-6) would 
not be ungrammatical, but it would sound more or less 
marked or even odd, depending on the case (e.g. 
*?un'inglese ragazza; this is actually almost 
ungrammatical).

Best,

Giorgio F. Arcodia


-- 
Dr. Giorgio Francesco Arcodia
Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
Dipartimento di Scienze Umane per la Formazione
Edificio U6 - stanza 4101
Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1
20126 Milano

Tel.: (+39) 02 6448 4946
Fax: (+39) 02 6448 4863
E-mail: giorgio.arcodia at unimib.it


On Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:55:14 -0500
 Jennifer Culbertson <jculber4 at GMU.EDU> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> 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?
> 
> 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.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help!
> 
> Jennifer Culbertson
> Assistant Professor
> Linguistics Program
> George Mason University