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Part of
A0 – The Lexical Status of Adjectives
Edited by Phoevos Panagiotidis and Moreno Mitrović
[Language Faculty and Beyond 17] 2022
► pp. 219–256

On the extended projection of German adjectives

This chapter proposes a possible Extended Projection (EP) for German adjectives. It builds on previous work by Neeleman et al. (2004) on the English and Dutch adjectival EP. Based on work by Bobaljik (2012), this work also proposes that the comparative and superlative heads are part of the EP. We show that this proposal can be unified with the Neeleman et al. (2004) structure, by assuming Matushansky (2006)-style head-movement. The chapter then considers how different functional heads fit in the adjectival EP. Based on tests proposed by Neeleman et al. (2004), we find that some functional heads, such as viel (much) and zu (too), are part of the EP, while others, such as differentials, are not. While Neeleman et al. (2004) do not consider English “much" part of the adjectival EP, we show that, by the measure of their own tests, its German equivalent (viel) should be part of the German EP.

Keywords: adjectives, Extended Projection, degree expressions, comparative, superlative
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Extended Projections
    • 1.1Extended Projections in adjectives of Dutch and English
    • 1.2The role of superlative and comparative in the EP of adjectives
  • 2.On the nature of German viel
  • 3.Extended Projections in German adjectives
    • 3.1Excessives and equatives
    • 3.2On the internal structure of comparatives
  • 4.The class-2 modifier sehr
  • 5.Differentials
  • 6.The dichotomy of viel
  • 7.Mapping the EP
  • 8.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.17.07nit
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