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

[Sergey Say]

 Dear Rafaelle, 
The following book is an excellent resource on the types of constructions you are interested in.
Malchukov, Andrej L. 2000. Dependency reversal in noun-attribute constructions: towards a typology. (Lincom studies in Language Typology, 3). München: LINCOM EUROPA.
Best,
Sergey Say

    On Friday, May 31, 2024 at 10:39:32 AM GMT+2, Raffaele Simone via Lingtyp <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
    
   - Ho spesola bellezza di cento euro
 
I have spentthe beauty of one hundred euros
 
“I spent a good one hundred euros”
    
   - Ho pagato questa casala miseria di centomila euro
 
I have paid this housethe misery of one hundred thousand euros. 
 
“I paid a paltry one hundred thousand euros for this house”
    
   - Ha sposatoun tesoro di ragazzo
 
She has marrieda treasure of boy
 
“She married a darling boy”
    
   - Facciouno schifo di lavoro
 
I doa 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 (asbellezza 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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