Cover not available
Part of
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 29, Nijmegen
Edited by Janine Berns, Haike Jacobs and Dominique Nouveau
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13] 2018
► pp. 111–126

Spanish adjectives are PathPs

| University of Tromsø
| Université Lille 3 – CNRS
The goal of this contribution is to explore the hypothesis that not all languages that have a lexical open class of adjectives project them syntactically as the same kind of object. Specifically, we will argue that Spanish adjectives syntactically project their scales as PathPs, while English adjectives are PlacePs of sorts which do not encode the potential syntactic differences between types of scales. We contend that three previously unrelated contrasts between English and Spanish can be elegantly explained through this hypothesis: (i) the availability of adjectives as strong result complements, (ii) the availability of positive degree adjectives as the base of degree achievements and (iii) the availability of comparison class PPs with semantically absolute adjectives. The proposal that adjectives can be projected differently in two languages is coherent with the claim that adjectives are not defined by UG, which is supported by the existence of languages that lack this category.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and main claims
  • 2.The non-universality of adjectives
  • 3.Contrasts I: resultative phrases in Spanish vs. English
  • 4.Contrast II: change of state with adjectives in English and Spanish
  • 5.Contrast 3: syntactically-represented standards of comparison
  • 6.Conclusions and further extensions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.13.08fab
References (38)
References
Acedo-Matellán, Víctor. 2012. “Adjectival Resultatives Cross-linguistically: a Morphological Account”. CONSOLE XVII: 1–25.Google Scholar
Baker, Mark C. 2003. Lexical Categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008. The Syntax of Agreement and Concord. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berg, René van den. 1989. A Grammar of the Muna Language. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Bergman, Brita. 1986. “A Comparison between some Static Sentences in Swedish Sign Language and in English”. In Signs of Life, ed. by Bernard T. Tervoort, 52–56. Amsterdam: Dutch Foundation for the Deaf.Google Scholar
Bhat, D. N. Shankar. 1994. The Adjectival Category. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bobaljik, Jonathan D. 2012. Universals in Comparative Morphology. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.Google Scholar
Demonte, Violeta & Pascual J. Masullo. 1999. “La predicación: los complementos predicativos”. In Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española, ed. by Ignacio Bosque and Violeta Demonte, 2461–2525. Madrid: EspasaGoogle Scholar
Dikken, Marcel den. 2010. “On the Functional Structure of Locative and Directional PPs”. In The Cartography of Syntactic Structures 6, ed. by Guglielmo Cinque and Luigi Rizzi, 74–116. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Durie, Mark. 1985. A Grammar of Acehnese. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Golovko, Eugeni, and Nikolai Vaxtin, N. 1990. “Aleut in Contact: The CIA Enigma”. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 22: 97–125. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, Kenneth, and Samuel J. Keyser. 1993. “On Argument Structure and the Lexical Expression of Syntactic Relations.” In The View from Building 20, ed. by Kenneth Hale, and Samuel J. Keyser, 53–111. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 2002. Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi. 1995. Subjects, Events and Licensing. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer, Christopher Kennedy and Beth Levin. 1999. “Scale Structure Underlies Telicity in Degree Achievements”. Proceedings of SALT 9: 127–144. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.Google Scholar
Hernanz, María Ll. 1988. “En Torno a la Sintaxis y a la Semántica de los Complementos Predicativos en Español”. Estudi General 8: 7–27.Google Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, Ángel. 1998. Análisis de Cláusulas Sintéticas Subcategorizadas: Modelo Teórico-descriptivo. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad de Sevilla.Google Scholar
Kamp, Hans. 1975. “Two Theories about Adjectives”. In Formal Semantics of Natural Language, ed. by E. Keenan, 123–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, Christopher. 1999. Projecting the Adjective. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Christopher, and Louise McNally. 2005. “Scale Structure, Degree Modification, and the Semantics of Gradable Predicates.” Language 81: 345–381. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leonetti, Manuel, and Victoria Escandell. 1991. “Complementos Predicativos en Sintagmas Nominales”. Verba 18: 431–450.Google Scholar
Lestrade, Sander. 2012. A Linguistic Ontology of Mode: The Use of Locations in Spatial Language. In Spatial Cognition VIII, ed. by Cyrill Stachniss, Kerstin Schill and David Uttal, 319–337. Berlin: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mallén, Enrique. 1991. “A Syntactic Analysis of Secondary Predication in Spanish”. Journal of Linguistics 27: 375–403. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mateu, Jaume. 2002. Argument Structure. Relational Construal at the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Ph.D. dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
McCawley, James. 1992. “Justifying Part-of-speech Assignments in Mandarin Chinese”. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 20: 211–246.Google Scholar
McNally, Louise. 2011. “ The Relative Role of Property Type and Scale Structure in Explaining the Behaviour of Gradable Adjectives. ” In ViC 2009, ed. by Rick Nouwen et al., 151–168. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Pantcheva, Marina. 2011. Decomposing Path. Ph.D. dissertation, CASTL, University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Ramchand, Gillian. 2008. First Phase Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, Susan, and Yoad Winter. 2004. “Total Adjectives vs. Partial Adjectives: Scale Structure and Higher-Order Modifiers”. Natural Language Semantics 12: 259–288. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sassoon, Gallit & Assaf Toledo. 2011. “Absolute vs. Relative Adjectives – Variance within vs. between Individuals”. Proceedings of SALT 21: 135–154. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Son, Minjeong, and Peter Svenonius. 2008. “Microparameters of Cross-Linguistic Variation: Directed Motion and Resultatives”. Proceedings of the WCCFL 27: 388–396.Google Scholar
Starke, Michal. 1995. “On the Format for Small Clauses”. In Small Clauses, ed. by Anna Cardinaletti and Maria T. Guasti, 132–152. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Stassen, Leon. 1997. Intransitive Predication. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Suñer, Avellina. 1990. La Predicación Secundaria en Español. Ph.D. dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Svenonius, Peter. 2010. “Spatial P in English”. In The Cartography of Syntactic Structures 6, ed.by Guglielmo Cinque and Luigi Rizzi, 127–160. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tenny, Carol. 1987. Grammaticalizing Aspect and Affectedness. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Washio, Ryuichi. 1997. “Resultatives, Compositionality and Language Variation”. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 6: 1–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Fábregas, Antonio & Rafael Marín
2020. The Internal Structure of Perfective Adjectives: States and Blocking. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 13:2 ► pp. 331 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Morphologically Derived Adjectives in Spanish [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 30], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.