Adjectival Modification and Order Restrictions: The Influence of Temporariness on Prenominal Word Order

by Sven Kotowski

Overview

This monographs investigates into the influence of the individual-/stage-level distinction (IL/SL) on order restrictions of multiple prenominal adjectives (AORs). It rejects the restriction regularly postulated—across different research frameworks—that SL-adjectives are being realized farther from the head noun than IL-adjectives, relegating the alleged constraint to an epiphenomenon of more general principles. While formal-theoretic hypotheses on AORs are formulated and put to the test empirically via a large corpus as well as two rating studies, the book also addresses adjective classification, modification patterns, and the IL-SL-debate in general. The preferred prenominal positions of typical SL-adjectives are argued to follow from their nature as absolute-gradable adjectives as well as from the distinction between object- and kind-modification. The empirical studies corroborate these considerations. The book critically discusses and opposes several well-established hypotheses on AORs, sketches a flexible and parsimonious syntax of adjectival modification, and will be of interest to syntacticians and semanticists working on DP-structure, the IL-SL-debate, and adjectival modification

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783110476385
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	09/12/2016
Series:	Studia grammatica , #80
Pages:	273
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.06(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sven Kotowski, Universität Düsseldorf.

Sven Kotowski, University of Düsseldorf, Germany.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

List of Tables viii

List of Figures ix

Abbreviations x

Introduction 1

1 The word class 'adjective' 10

1.1 Cross-linguistic and language-specific 11

1.1.1 Cross-linguistic perspectives 11

1.1.2 Language-specific perspectives 19

1.2 Semantics and subclassification of adjectives 23

1.2.1 Two dichotomies 23

1.2.2 Adjective typologies and modification 36

1.3 Chapter summary 66

2 Individual-level, stage-level, and temporariness 68

2.1 Data and Theories for the IL-SL-contrast 70

2.1.1 Diagnostics 71

2.1.2 Some notes on major theoretical accounts 85

2.2 Lexical aspect and temporariness 89

2.2.1 Adjectival aspect and the Vendler-classification 89

2.2.2 Temporariness and IL-SL 98

2.3 What kind of adjectives are typical SLs? 103

2.3.1 Typical SLs are absolute gradable adjectives 104

2.3.2 Conjectures on the (partial) absolute-SL-coincidence 105

2.4 Chapter summary 109

3 Adjective order restrictions, adjective classes, and property concepts in DP 111

3.1 Quality adjectives and DP structure 114

3.2 Adjective order restrictions 120

3.2.1 Preliminaries and scope of investigation 122

3.2.2 AORs in the narrow sense 131

3.3 Corpus-study 155

3.3.1 Rationale 155

3.3.2 Search procedure 161

3.3.3 Yield and data cleansing 162

3.3.4 Results 163

3.3.5 Discussion 170

3.4 Questionnaire study 172

3.4.1 Rationale 172

3.4.2 Participants and set-up 173

3.4.3 Items and hypotheses 174

3.4.4 Results 180

3.4.5 Discussion 183

3.5 Chapter summary and assessment 186

4 Layered adjective order and genericity 189

4.1 Modifiers applying to kinds - 189

4.1.1 Genericity 189

4.1.2 Well-establishedness 191

4.1.3 Concepts and kinds 195

4.1.4 The structural position of kind modifiers 197

4.2 The two-layered approach in Cinque and Larson 200

4.2.1 Data 200

4.2.2 The theory according to Larson and Cinque 203

4.2.3 Challenges to the two-layer system 206

4.3 Questionnaire study II 215

4.3.1 Rationale 215

4.3.2 Participants and set-up 216

4.3.3 Items and hypotheses 217

4.3.4 Results 221

4.3.5 Discussion 225

4.4 Chapter summary 229

Conclusion 230

References 234

Appendix I 247

Appendix II 249

Appendix III 259

Subject index 261