Adjective-Noun order

[Alan Jones]

In Jones 1998 ('Towards a Lexicogrammar of Mekeo') I argue that the
N-A construction, when functioning as a nominal group, is simply what
in SFL is called a 'rankshifted' predicate. I.e. a predicate A is
reanalysed (in use) as an attribitutive A or N-modifier. The actual
structure is ambiguous.

AJ

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 6:30 AM, bingfu Lu <lubingfu at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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 Typology
> Nanchang 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
>
>



-- 
Alan Jones,
Senior Research Fellow,
Department of Linguistics,
Macquarie University;
Visiting Fellow,
Department of Anthropology,
Australian National University.
----------------
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