Chapter published in:
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16: Selected papers from the 47th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Newark, DelawareEdited by Irene Vogel
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16] 2020
► pp. 171–186
The syntax of superlative phrases in Romance
Nicoletta Loccioni | UCLA
In this paper, prenominal and postnominal superlatives in Romance are argued not to differ as a result of NP-movement (or lack thereof) to cross the adjective, but to result from two different derivations. In prenominal superlatives, the adjective is attracted to a high scope position in the DP-area of numerals where it can’t be bypassed by the NP. In postnominal superlatives, the superlative starts out as a predicate (a maximalizing relative clause over degrees) and it ends up postnominal (as any other relative clause in Romance).
Keywords: superlatives, French, Italian, adnominal modification, DP structure, degree phrases, definiteness
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Prenominal superlatives
- 2.1Cinque’s (2010) dual source model
- 2.2A movement analysis of prenominal superlatives
- 2.3Elliptical superlatives as attributive superlatives
- 2.4Attributive superlatives are individual-based superlatives
- 2.5Summary
- 3.Postnominal superlatives
- 3.1Kayne’s (2008) analysis
- 3.2My current proposal: Postnominal superlatives as predicates
- 3.3Why not a null noun
- 3.4The composition of postnominal superlatives
- 3.5Summary
- 4.Conclusion
-
Notes -
References
Published online: 21 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.16.11loc
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.16.11loc
References
Cardinaletti, Anna
Cinque, Guglielmo
Grasso, Daniele
2007 “Innovazioni sintattiche in italiano alla luce della nozione di calco.” PhD thesis. Université de Genève.
Kayne, Richard S.
Krasikova, Sveta
Rohena-Madrazo, Marcos
2007 Superlative Movement in Puerto Rican Spanish and General Spanish. Tech. rep. NYU Working Papers in Linguistics.
Roy, Isabelle
2006 “Non-verbal Predication: A Syntactic Account of Predicational Copular Sentences.” Ph.D. thesis. University of Southern California.
Sharvit, Yael, and Penka Stateva
Sleeman, Petra
1996 “Licensing Empty Nouns in French.” Holland Academic Graphics/HIL Dissertations nr 19.