The Syntax of Adjectives. A Comparative Study

Cross-linguistic evidence is offered that adjectives have two sources. Arguing against the standard view, and reconsidering my own earlier analysis, I propose that adjectives enter the nominal phase either as "adverbial" modifiers to the noun or as predicates of reduced relative clauses. Some of his evidence comes from a systematic comparison between Romance and Germanic languages. These two language families differ with respect to the canonical position taken by adjectives, which is prenominal in Germanic and both pre- and postnominal in Romance. I show that a simple N(oun)-raising analysis encounters a number of problems, the primary one of which is its inability to express a fundamental generalization governing the interpretation of pre- and postnominal adjectives in the two language families. I then argue that N-raising as such should be abandoned in favor of XP-raising—a conclusion also supported by evidence from other language families. After developing this framework for analyzing the syntax of adjectives, I appy it to the syntax of English and Italian adjectives. An appendix offers a brief discussion of other languages that appear to distinguish overtly between the two sources of adjectives

This monograph presents a comparative analysis of the syntax of adjectives arguing for a dual source of them cross-linguistically, either as direct modifiers or as reduced relative clauses.