6 Adjectives
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Adriana Orlandi
Abstract
This chapter delimits and describes the category ‘Adjective’ in the main Romance languages. Section 1 sets out to delimit the category. Importantly, traditional criteria of adjectivehood like agreement and gradability fail to delimit the category, in that many adjectives are invariable and do not take degree markers. Syntactic dependence is a good criterion of adjectivity, but in order to be effective, it has to be related to the attributive position (distributional criterion), which is the only syntactic position accommodating all adjectives. This hypothesis is corroborated in Section 2, which deals more specifically with the attributive position. It describes the semantics of adjectival modification and discusses important issues like the relative position of the adjective in the noun phrase, and the difference between adjectives and determiners. Section 3 discusses the predicative position and its relationship with Qualification, or the prototypical function of the category.
Abstract
This chapter delimits and describes the category ‘Adjective’ in the main Romance languages. Section 1 sets out to delimit the category. Importantly, traditional criteria of adjectivehood like agreement and gradability fail to delimit the category, in that many adjectives are invariable and do not take degree markers. Syntactic dependence is a good criterion of adjectivity, but in order to be effective, it has to be related to the attributive position (distributional criterion), which is the only syntactic position accommodating all adjectives. This hypothesis is corroborated in Section 2, which deals more specifically with the attributive position. It describes the semantics of adjectival modification and discusses important issues like the relative position of the adjective in the noun phrase, and the difference between adjectives and determiners. Section 3 discusses the predicative position and its relationship with Qualification, or the prototypical function of the category.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Manuals of Romance Linguistics V
- Table of Contents VII
- Abbreviations XI
- Introduction 1
-
I. Romance word classes: theoretical and historical foundations
- 1 Theoretical foundation for a classification of words 13
- 2 How to classify words 41
- 3 Word classes in the history of Western grammar 69
- 4 Parts of speech in the Romance grammars of the Renaissance 97
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II. Word classes in the major Romance languages
- 5 Nouns 117
- 6 Adjectives 147
- 7 Determiners 177
- 8 Pronouns 207
- 9 Quantifiers 237
- 10 Negation and negative expressions 265
- 11 Verb classes 297
- 12 Auxiliary verbs 325
- 13 Grammatical categories of the verb 345
- 14 Verbal categories expressing syntactic dependencies 367
- 15 Adverbs 401
- 16 Focalisers 431
- 17 Modal particles 449
- 18 Prepositions 471
- 19 Conjunctions 499
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III. Word classes in smaller Romance varieties
- 20 Word classes in Occitan 527
- 21 Word classes in Sardinian 549
- 22 Word classes in Romansh 575
- 23 Word classes in Ladin 607
- 24 Word classes in Northern Italian dialects 633
- 25 Word classes in Southern Italian dialects 661
- 26 Word classes in Romance-related Creoles 689
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IV. Romance word classes and their interfaces: new horizons
- 27 Word classes and psycholinguistics 725
- 28 Word classes and learner varieties 743
- 29 Word classes and corpus linguistics 769
- 30 Word classes and neurolinguistics 797
- 31 Exploring the behaviour of connectives within a textometric perspective 819
- Index 843
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Manuals of Romance Linguistics V
- Table of Contents VII
- Abbreviations XI
- Introduction 1
-
I. Romance word classes: theoretical and historical foundations
- 1 Theoretical foundation for a classification of words 13
- 2 How to classify words 41
- 3 Word classes in the history of Western grammar 69
- 4 Parts of speech in the Romance grammars of the Renaissance 97
-
II. Word classes in the major Romance languages
- 5 Nouns 117
- 6 Adjectives 147
- 7 Determiners 177
- 8 Pronouns 207
- 9 Quantifiers 237
- 10 Negation and negative expressions 265
- 11 Verb classes 297
- 12 Auxiliary verbs 325
- 13 Grammatical categories of the verb 345
- 14 Verbal categories expressing syntactic dependencies 367
- 15 Adverbs 401
- 16 Focalisers 431
- 17 Modal particles 449
- 18 Prepositions 471
- 19 Conjunctions 499
-
III. Word classes in smaller Romance varieties
- 20 Word classes in Occitan 527
- 21 Word classes in Sardinian 549
- 22 Word classes in Romansh 575
- 23 Word classes in Ladin 607
- 24 Word classes in Northern Italian dialects 633
- 25 Word classes in Southern Italian dialects 661
- 26 Word classes in Romance-related Creoles 689
-
IV. Romance word classes and their interfaces: new horizons
- 27 Word classes and psycholinguistics 725
- 28 Word classes and learner varieties 743
- 29 Word classes and corpus linguistics 769
- 30 Word classes and neurolinguistics 797
- 31 Exploring the behaviour of connectives within a textometric perspective 819
- Index 843
