1. Syntax Lecture 12: Adjectival Phrases

2. Introduction Adjectives, like any other word, must conform to X-bar principles We expect them – to be heads – to take complements – to have specifiers – to be modified by adjuncts

3. Adjectives as heads and their complements That adjectives head APs is not at all problematic – The AP always contains an adjective and it distributes like no other phrase He is [very tall]* He is [very] The [really tall] building* the [really] building Adjectives are mostly ‘intransitive’ or take PP or clausal complements: – red; big; round; sad; etc. – fond [ PP of chocolate]; keen [ PP on horticulture] – certain [ CP that he is correct]; anxious [ CP PRO to leave]

4. Adjectives as heads and their complements

5. The Specifier of AP There are a number of possible candidates for AP specifiers: – Degree adverbs E.g. – So tall – As tall – Too tall – However These elements are related to adjectives in a similar way that determiners are related to nouns Like determiners, they consist of single words and don’t appear to be phrases This suggests that, like determiners, they are heads not specifiers

6. The Specifier of AP

7. There are a number of possible candidates for AP specifiers: – Measure phrases E.g. – [Five miles] long – [One hour] late – These are obviously phrases, so they are better suited to be analysed as specifiers. But: They appear in the wrong place with respect to the degree adverbs – Five miles too long – * Too five miles long They are better analysed as specifiers of Deg rather than A

8. Measure phrases as DegP specifiers

9. The Specifier of AP There are a number of possible candidates for AP specifiers: – Other modifiers E.g. – So very boring – So typically predictable – These are in the right order to be AP specifiers. But: They can co-occur – So very typically predictable – So typically very boring – This would suggest that they are adjuncts, not specifiers

10. The Specifier of AP – However, there is a difference in these examples: So [[very typically] boring] So [typically [very boring]] – Interestingly, we can’t have the other interpretations: * so [very [typically boring]] * so [[typically very] boring] – This indicates that there are two different kinds of modifiers here: Extent modifiers: very Adverbial modifiers: typically – We can account for their different distributions by assuming: Extent modifiers are specifiers of AP Adverbial modifiers are AP adjuncts (adjoined to AP)

11. The Specifier of AP

12. Problems Specifiers are phrases – But it is not easy to argue that very is a phrase However, if it is not a specifier, but a head, it would be difficult to provide an unproblematic analysis – What category is it? If it is Deg, why is it not in complementary distribution with other Degs? – if it’s a head, not only do we not know what the specifier of AP is, but we also have a missing specifier of the phrase headed by very!

14. Problems Very has the ability to iterate – He is very very very sorry Other specifiers don’t do this: – * John John John is tall – * Who who who did you see – * the few few few men Adjuncts are recursive (so there can be any number of them) – but they are not iterative: – * a tall tall tall man – * he ran quickly quickly quickly

15. Problems The only other things that iterate are: – Many and really – These have certain phonological and semantic things in common, though they are not syntactically similar Very = modifies A, follows other modifiers Many = post determiner (i.e. A) Really = modifies A or V, precedes very – He is really very nice – He really hates garlic – Perhaps the ability to iterate has more to do with phonology and semantics and should not be seen as a syntactic phenomena

16. Problems Although the analysis of very as a specifier faces problems, it is perhaps less problematic than the alternatives.

17. The DegP As we have seen, the DegP is similar to the DP in that it is a functional projection on top of a thematic structure. The DegP obviously has a degree adverb (so, too, as, etc.) as its head and takes an AP complement We have also seen that measure phrases go in its specifier There are also adjunct modifiers which attach to DegP rather than AP – Clearly five miles too wide of the target

18. The DegP

19. Bound morpheme Deg heads Deg, as a functional head, fits into the same class as determiners, inflections and complementisers. It shares some properties with inflections in that, like tense, it can be a bound morpheme – More sure of himselfSure-er of himself – Most keen on chesskeen-est on chess Like tense, the comparative and superlative morphemes trigger the thematic head (adjective) to move to support them

20. Bound morpheme Deg

21. The phonologically empty Deg Adjectives don’t always appear with degree adverbs But they still have the same distribution as phrases headed by Deg: – He is [too tall]he is [tall] – A [too tall] mana [tall] man It follows that both phrases are of the same category – Presumably DegP So, some DegPs are headed by an abstract Deg

22. The phonologically empty Deg What evidence is there that there is a covert Deg? Adjectives which are not marked for comparative or superlative are said to be positive We might argue that the abstract Deg marks positive, as opposed to comparative or superlative While most languages have positive adjectives morphologically unmarked, it has been claimed that Chinese has an unmarked comparative and a marked positive: – zhangsan gao zhangsan tall =zhangsan is taller – zhangsan hen gao zhangsan very tall=zhangsan is tall

23. Conclusion Adjectival phrases have a very similar structure to nominal phrases and clauses – They are all headed by a functional element – Which takes a thematic complement

24. Conclusion Similar to the inflection, Deg has free and bound variants (too, -er) Therefore, similar to the IP, there may be head movement within DegP (A  Deg) Both DegP and AP have a full range of complements, specifiers and adjuncts, so they fully conform to X-bar predictions.