Adjective-Noun order

[Mike Klein]

Jenny,

Adjectives in Chinese always precede the noun, but there are two different
patterns: A de N (more common) and A N. The article below discusses the
syntactic and semantic differences. I don't know if lexical determination
plays a role, but I wouldn't be surprised if the alternation in Mandarin
had something in common with the word order alternation in Romance
languages.

Mike Klein

Waltraud, Paul (2005). Adjectival modification in Mandarin Chinese and
related issues. *Linguistics, 43*(4), pp. 757-793.

On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 11:55 AM, 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
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