Adjective-Noun order

[Paul Hopper]

Or, to put it another way, the prenominal modifier is incorporated into
the NP.

- Paul




> May I suggest paying attention to the following 4 relevant phenomena.
> 1) A/N is overwhelmingly more compact prosodically than N//A is, as
> indicated by the following:
>
> (1)               a.            a hard-to-pronounce Chinese
> sound   
>                        b.            a Chinese sound hard to
> pronounce
> (2)               a.            the above-average salary                  
>                b.            the salary above average
> (3)               a.            a five-year old
> boy                             
>                        b.            a boy five years old.
>
>
>        (4)         a.            the
> clearly dominant candidates
>                               b.            *the dominant clearly
> dominants
>                               c.            the candidates clearly
> dominant
>                               d.            ?the candidates dominant
> clearly
>
> 2) The A in N//A is overwhelmingly richer in morphology than that in A/N
> is, as indicated by:
>            (5)a.            el    primer
> buen capitilo                      
>         b.            el
> capitilo primero bueno
>         c.            el
> capitilo bueno primero
>
> 3) The word order within A of N//A is overwhelmingly freer than that in
> A/N is, as indicated the above (4) and
>
> (5).
>
> 4) The A in N//A is overwhelmingly freer to expand than that in A/N is, as
> indicated by:
>        (6) a. a higher (*than the clouds) mountain
>              b. a mountain higher than the clouds
>
>
> These phenomena seem to hint that A in N//A is more like a predicate of
> the N, rather than just being a modifier. Or in other words,  A in N//A
> carries more features of predication than that in A/N.
>
> Bingfu Lu
> The Institute for Linguistic TypologyNanchang University, China
>
>
>
>
>
>>________________________________
>> From: "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
>> ============================================================@yahoo.com"
>> <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
>
> ============================================================@yahoo.com>
>>To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>>Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 1:21 AM
>>Subject: Re: Adjective-Noun order
>>
>>On (Standard Mandarin) Chinese:
>>
>>Adjectives may appear after the noun (predicative function) or before the
>> noun (modifying function). However, there is both a set of
>> non-predicative adjectives, which thus may appear only before the noun,
>> and a set of predicative-only adjectives, which thus may appear only
>> after the noun. This is lexically determined.
>>If you want I can send you a paper on the topic.
>>
>>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 17:11:21 -0500
>> Mike Klein <kdogg36 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>> 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
>>
>>
>>


-- 
Paul J. Hopper,
Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emeritus,
Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, PA 15213,
Tel. 412-683-1109,
Fax 412-268-7989.

Adjunct Professor of Linguistics,
Department of Linguistics,
University of Pittsburgh.

Senior External Fellow,
School of Linguistics and Literature,
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS),
Freiburg i.Br., Germany