Attributive adjectives and the internal syntax of the NP in Aguaruna and other Jivaroan languages (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
The Syntax of Adjectives: A Comparative Study, Guglielmo Cinque. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2010)., 202 pp., Price: 70(s50)(hardcover),70 (s50) (hardcover), 70(s50)(hardcover),35 (s25) (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-262-01416-8 (hardcover), 978-0-262-51426-2 (paperback)
Adjectives and adjectivals in Magar
Himalayan Linguistics, 2011
This paper analyses the forms and distribution of terms which describe property concepts in Magar, a Himalayish language of Nepal. In many languages, such terms comprise a dedicated category referred to as adjectives, however in some languages, for example Magar, words that describe property concepts are derived from other categories. In this paper, these derived terms are referred to as adjectivals. In Magar, all native terms describing property concepts are derived from verbs (i.e. nominalizations which function adnominally and as copular complements), or are verbs (in intransitive verb constructions). Underived 'true' adjectives do exist in Magar, but these are entirely borrowings from the lingua franca, Nepali. The morphosyntactic behaviour of these two lexical classes, native adjectivals and borrowed adjectives, differs from each other and across the Magar dialects. The paper describes two dialects: Syangja and Tanahu. It is apparent that there is considerable and significant divergence with respect to the morphosyntax of both native adjectivals and borrowed adjectives. Moreover, data, especially from the more conservative dialect, Syangja, suggests that historically Magar may not have had an independent natural class of adjective. Rather property concepts were expressed by nouns or by verbs depending upon their time-stability-more constant properties are expressed with nominal(ization)s and non time-stable properties with verbs.
The structure of Javanese and Madurese Determiner Phrases (Davies & Dresser)
Proceedings of AFLA 12, 2005
Javanese and Madurese DPs display a great deal of fluidity in the ordering of their constituents. The number of possible permutations makes description difficult and a coherent analysis seem nearly impossible in a deterministic theory such as that underpinning the Minimalist Program. The present paper attempts to account for some of the variations, showing that making use of some proposals already available in the literature allows some inroads into an account of the Javanese and Madurese data. Perhaps more importantly, the data from both languages require treating some adjectival modifiers not as phrases but as X° adjuncts to the N head. Just such an analysis has been proposed on various occasions for prenominal adjectives in English, including Stowell
The communicative function of adjective-noun order in English
WORD, 2020
The problem undertaken here is to account for the relational placement in English of words traditionally known as adjectives and nouns. Two distinct orders are examined as signals of discrete meanings: one where the characterizing word is preposed to the characterized word, as in long hair, and the other where it is postposed, as in hair long. Distribution of the two signals in attested text is accounted for under the hypothesis that an Assertion of Characterization is made WEAKER or STRONGER, respectively, through this word order. With these meanings, a writer draws a distinction between Characterization the writer assumes the reader will receive as uncontested and so requires WEAKER Assertion and Characterization which is selected out of an array of particularly relevant possibilities and so requires STRONGER Assertion.