[Lingtyp] R: The type "la bellezza di cento euro"

[Ekaterina Georgieva]

Dear Raffaele, dear All,

Thank you all for the references on this interesting type of noun  
phrases, the ‘idiot of a doctor’ construction! :) Indeed, this  
construction has attracted quite a lot of attention in the literature.  
Let me just mention a few theoretical works that discuss data from  
English, Dutch, Hungarian and various Romance languages: Napoli 1989,  
Kayne 1994, den Dikken & Lipták 1997, Hulk & Tellier 2000, Doetjes &  
Rooryck 2003, Casillas Martínez 2003, den Dikken 2006, Villalba &  
Bartra-Kaufmann 2010. I myself have a paper on a similar construction  
in Bulgarian:

Ekaterina Georgieva. 2023. Inflectionless adjectives in Bulgarian as a  
case of nominal predication. In Petr Biskup, Marcel Börner, Olav  
Mueller-Reichau & Iuliia Shcherbina (eds.), Advances in formal Slavic  
linguistics 2021, 179–209. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI:  
10.5281/zenodo.10123637  
Open-access:https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/411

Best regards,
Ekaterina

Quoting Raffaele Simone via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>:

> Dear colleagues and friends,
>
> thank you very much for your comments, suggestions and biblio indications.
> The data I'm gathering up about this phenomenon will become a  
> section of a larger paper on "Light Words", a concept that extends  
> and generalizes the notion "Light Verbs" and "Light Nouns", trying  
> to explain this phenomenon in a unified way.
> When finished, my paper will be circulated on this list for comments.
> Best,
>
> Raffaele
>
> ==============
> Emeritus Professor, Università Roma Tre
> Hon C Lund University
> Membre de l'Académie Royale de Belgique
> Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France
> Accademico (corrispondente) della Crusca
> Prix de l'Institut de France-Fondation Bonnefous 2022
> ===============
> Attività e pubblicazioni // Activity and publications  
> http://uniroma3.academia.edu/RaffaeleSimone
>
> Da: Malcolm Ross <malcolmross42 at gmail.com>
> Inviato: mercoledì 5 giugno 2024 02:04
> A: Raffaele Simone <raffaele.simone at uniroma3.it>
> Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Oggetto: Re: [Lingtyp] The type "la bellezza di cento euro"
>
> Dear Raffaele,
>
> Constructions of this kind have played a role in the histories of  
> some Oceanic Austronesian languages. See the attached paper.
>
> -Malcolm
>
> Emeritus Professor Malcolm Ross FAHA | Linguistics, School of  
> Culture, History and Language, College of Asia & the Pacific | HC  
> Coombs Building #9 | The Australian National University | Canberra  
> ACT 0200 | Australia | CRICOS Provider #00120C
>
>
>
> On 31 May 2024, at 18:39, Raffaele Simone via Lingtyp  
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>  
> wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues and friends,
>
> in Italian and other Romance languages there is a binominal NP  
> structure as in the following examples:
>
> italian
>
>   1.  Ho speso la bellezza di cento euro
> I have spent the beauty of one hundred euros
> "I spent a good one hundred euros"
>
>   1.  Ho pagato questa casa la miseria di centomila euro
> I have paid this house the misery of one hundred thousand euros.
> "I paid a paltry one hundred thousand euros for this house"
>
>   1.  Ha sposato un tesoro di ragazzo
> She has married a treasure of boy
> "She married a darling boy"
>
>   1.  Faccio uno schifo di lavoro
> I do a crap of job
> "I have a crap job"
>
>             The NP is structured as follows:
>
> A specifier + N1, a sort of "Light Noun" indicating a positive or  
> negative property (bellezza,tesoro, schifo ecc.) of N2 + di + N2, a  
> noun representing the "semantic phrase head", which the property  
> indicated by N1 refers to.
>
>> From the predicative point of view, the quality attributed to N2 is  
>> not encoded by an adjective or sim. but is transferred to N1.
> Other constraints:
> a. the list of the possible N1 is very limited;
> b. some N1 (as bellezza in 1, miseria in 2) don't indicate a  
> property but refer to an amount, so working as indefinite quantifiers.
>
> Could you indicate to me similar NP structures in other languages?
> Thanks.
>
> Raffaele (Simone)
>
> PS For Light Words, See Simone, R. & F. Masini. 2014. "On Light  
> Nouns". In Simone, R. & F. Masini (eds). Word Classes. 51-74.  
> Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
>
> ==============
> Emeritus Professor, Università Roma Tre
> Hon C Lund University
> Membre de l'Académie Royale de Belgique
> Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France
> Accademico (corrispondente) della Crusca
> Prix de l'Institut de France-Fondation Bonnefous 2022
> ===============
> Attività e pubblicazioni // Activity and  
> publicationshttp://uniroma3.academia.edu/RaffaeleSimone
>
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-- 
Dr. Ekaterina Georgieva
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics
Benczúr utca 33
H-1068 Budapest
ekaterina.georgieva at nytud.hun-ren.hu
https://sites.google.com/view/egeorgieva