Syntactic positions of attributive adjectives

The present contribution studies the syntax of long- and short-form adjectives in Serbocroatian. The discussion draws particularly on data from the Bosnian variant that marks long- and short-forms by vowel-length and pitch-accent in addition to inflectional suffixes. Based on evidence from ellipsis, noun phraseinternal coordination and ordering of multiple adjectives, I propose two different structures for attributive long- and short-form adjectives: attributive long-form adjectives occupy the specifier of a functional projection dominating NumP, while short-form attributive adjectives are adjoined to NumP. I also show that this analysis contributes to explain the differences in agreement morphology observed between long- and short-form adjectives. Finally, I propose to extend the present analysis to German.

Published online: 6 May 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.153.01alj