Moscow Syntax and Semantics, Institute of Russian Language, 10 October 2009

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The Adjective Paradox:

From Non-prototypical Possessives to Prototypical Adjectives
Yury Lander
Institute of Oriental Studies RAS
yulander @ yandex. ru

1. Prologue

This talk :
Some words that are usually thought to be adjectives
ARE NOT adjectives as they are usually thought of.

Dixon 1977: Adjectives constitute a grammaticalized lexical class with a (semantically

defined) lexical core.

The adjectival core:

DIMENSION: big, little, long, short, etc.
AGE: new, young, old, etc.
VALUE: good, bad, etc.
COLOR: black, white, red, etc.

This talk :
(Most of) Dixons core adjectives do constitute a special class,
but this class has properties different from the adjectival word class as it is usually presented.

2. Possessive-like attribute constructions (PLACs)

English

Matushansky, O. 2002. A beauty of a construction. Proceedings of 21st West Coast

Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville (Mass.): Cascadilla. P. 264-277.

The possessor is the semantic head

(2) a beauty of a house

NB: In some other languages the syntactic head position can be occupied by an adjective.
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(3) la tonta de Juana that silly Juana Spanish
the silly of Juana

The construction used is the of-construction.

NB: The of-construction normally requires the possessive relation to be provided by the head
(Barker 1995).

(4) a child of John

(5) *a firetruck of John

The possessor cannot be specific/definite.

(6) my dear fool of a mother

As for the possessum still another property to be discussed later

Other languages

Malchukov, A. 2000. Dependency Reversal in Noun-Attribute Constructions: Towards a

Typology. Mnchen: LINCOM Europa.

Aleut
(7) hla-m ukina-a the boys knife
boy-REL.SG knife-PR.3SG

(8) ula-m tagada-a new houses

house-REL.SG new-PR.3SG

Hausa
(9) kak-an yaro the boys grandfather
grandfather-LNK.M boy(M)

(10) fr-n zne white cloth

white-LNK.M cloth(M)

Oceanic languages

Ross, M. 1998a. Proto-Oceanic adjectival categories and their morphosyntax. Oceanic

Linguistics 37: 85-119.
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Ross, M. 1998b. Possessive-like attribute constructions in the Oceanic languages of Northwest
Melanesia. Oceanic Linguistics 37: 234-276.

Tawala
(11) kedewa giu-na dogs tail
dog tail-PR.3SG

(12) kedewa bane-na a big dog

dog big-PR.3SG

Nehan
(13) a nieini-r kuah a big dog
ART food-LIG woman

(14) a puhina-r keke-n his short leg

ART short-LIG leg-PR.3

Ross:
(at least at a reconstructable level)
The possessor is the semantic head.
The construction is a kind of inalienable construction (i.e. a construction where the head
provides the possessive relation).
The possessor is non-specific.

NB: The three properties are identical to those discussed for the English construction above.

3. The semantics of the syntactic head in PLACs

What properties do the apparent syntactic heads in PLACs share?

Ross: The range of apparent syntactic heads in Oceanic PLACs is almost identical to that
of Dixons prototypical adjectives: DIMENSION, VALUE, AGE.
Matushansky: The syntactic head should be used as an epithet, i.e. as an evaluation.
The DIMENSION, VALUE, AGE adjectives prototypically all presuppose evaluation. In a
sense, they are not completely objective.

Tolai
(15) a vartovo ngala the high school
ART school big

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(16) a ngala na vartovo the big school
ART big LIG school

(17) a mapi na davai leaves of a tree

ART leaf LIG tree

(The less objective semantics of the apparent syntactic head probably explains why
COLOR terms are not used in Oceanic PLACs, although they are included in the adjectival
core by Dixon.)

Although the elements that appear as apparent syntactic heads in PLACs are not non-
restrictive in the canonical sense (i.e. it is not the case that they add additional information
about already established referents),
they are clearly less restrictive than objective non-evaluative attributes and nouns.

4. Explaining the properties of PLACs

Why do PLACs parasitize on inalienable constructions, possessives where the

possessum provides the possessive relation?
The relation should be provided by the head, since it is the head that actually functions as a
semantic attribute, characterizing the noun.
Notably, many heads in PLACs are probably non-intersective, i.e. need additional
descriptive content to be interpreted. This is akin to inalienable possessa which cannot be
interpreted without possessors.

Why are possessors in PLACs non-specific?

Semantic heads in PLACs cannot be specific just because they have not their own
reference, their reference is established after the appearance of their semantic modifiers
(=apparent syntactic heads).
Cf. the indefiniteness constraint on semantic heads in internally-headed relative
constructions.

Why do semantic modifiers appear as syntactic heads in PLACs?

Presumably, because less restrictive parts are likely to be less embedded.

Why do these patterns parasitize on possessives?

This is due to the fact that they include dependant nouns, with an undefined semantic
function within the NP.
But anyway, these are very non-prototypical possessives (first of all, because they do not
establish, or even restrict the reference of the possessum by means of its relations to
another individual).

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 Consequently, if a language has a PLAC, this construction should employ the pattern that
can be used as a very non-prototypical possessive, probably also in appositive structures
and with highly non-prototypical possessors (in fact, the requirement of the dependents
non-specificity fits into this picture).

4. Explaining the properties of non-PLACs?

Seemingly not all languages displaying small/closed adjective classes have PLACs.
Nonetheless, in many (yet, not all) of the languages with small/closed adjectival classes
described by Dixon, adjectives have some nominal properties (e.g., number marking, class
marking, etc.), i.e. they have properties of NP heads.
This can be considered an indication of the fact that they are likely to be less embedded.

NB: The fact that adjectives can be of different classes/genders, which is often taken as a
criterion for distinguishing adjectives from nouns, actually does not necessarily contrasts
nouns and adjectives, since there are languages where nouns (e.g., kin terms and body
parts) can change their class/gender (e.g., Dargwa, Jarawara).

5. Conclusion

Dixons core adjectives neither are prototypical modifiers (for they seek to be less
embedded) nor are maximally restrictive.
This does not agree with the well-accepted idea that the prototypical function of adjectives
is syntactic modification (cf. Croft 1991). Moreover, it is likely that prototypical modifiers
should be restrictive (also because there are languages without non-restrictive
modification).
What, then, do we want to consider real adjectives?

What makes an element be less embedded?

A. Compositionality. E.g., determiners are likely to be less embedded because they
connect the NP material with the predicate.
B. Relevance (and to some extent, restrictiveness). The less relevant elements are likely to
be less embedded. (Cf. topicalization and focalization, external possessors and similar
phenomena.)
Do the two factors compete with each other?

References

Barker, C. (1995) Possessive Descriptions, Dissertations in Linguistics series, CSLI Publications,

Stanford.
Bhat, D.N.S. (1994).The Adjectival Category: Criteria for Differentiation and Identification.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia : John Benjamins.
Croft, W. (1991) Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations : The Cognitive Organization of
Information. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press.
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Dixon, R.M.W. (1977) Where have all the adjectives gone? Studies in Language 1, 19-80.
Dixon, R.M.W. (1994) Adjectives. In R.E. Asher (ed.), The encyclopedia of language and linguistics,
vol. 1, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 29-35.
Dixon, R.M.W. & A.Y. Aikhenvald (eds) (2004) Adjective Classes. OUP.
Lander, Yu. (2004) Dealing with relevant possessors. In J. Kim et al. (eds), Possessives and Beyond :
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across Languages, Symposium, Helsinki, 17-19 August 2000.
Malchukov, A. (2000) Dependency Reversal in Noun-Attribute Constructions: Towards a Typology.
Mnchen: LINCOM Europa.
Matushansky, O. (2002) A beauty of a construction. Proceedings of 21st West Coast Conference on
Formal Linguistics. Somerville (Mass.): Cascadilla. P. 264-277.
Mosel, U. (1984) Tolai Syntax and Its Historical Development. (Pacific Linguistics. B-92.) Canberra,
ANU.
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McCready, T. Roeper, and M. Walkow. (2009) Expressives and identity conditions. Linguistic
Inquiry 40:356-366.
Ross, M. (1998a) Proto-Oceanic adjectival categories and their morphosyntax. Oceanic Linguistics
37, 85-119.
Ross, M. (1998b) Possessive-like attribute constructions in the Oceanic languages of Northwest
Melanesia. Oceanic Linguistics 37, 234-276.
Williamson, J. (1987) An indefiniteness restriction for relative clauses in Lakhota. In E. Reuland & A.
Ter Meulen (eds), The Representation of (in)Definiteness, 168190. Cambridge, MA: The MIT
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