Revue de linguistique

34
L' adjectif

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Roger Schwarzschild

Measure phrases as modifiers of adjectives

Abstract

In some languages, measure phrases can appear with non-compared adjectives : 5 feet tall. I address three questions about this construction: (a) Is the measure phrase an argument of the adjective or an adjunct? (b) What are we to make of the markedness of this construction *142lbs heavy? (c) Why is it that the markedness disappears once the adjective is put in the comparative (2 inches taller alongside 2lbs heavier)? I claim that because degree arguments are ‘functional’, the measure phrase has to be an adjunct and not a syntactic argument of the adjective. Like event modifiers in extended NPs and in VPs, the measure phrase predicates of a degree argument of the adjective. But given the kind of meaning a measure phrase must have to do its job in comparatives and elsewhere, it is not of the right type to directly predicate of a degree argument. I propose a lexically governed type-shift which applies to some adjectives allowing them to combine with a measure phrase.

Pour citer cet article

Roger Schwarzschild, «Measure phrases as modifiers of adjectives», Recherches linguistiques de Vincennes, 34, L' adjectif, [En ligne], mis en ligne le 22 décembre 2006. Consulté le 17 mai 2008.
URL : http://rlv.revues.org/document1401.html.

Roger Schwarzschild

Rutgers University


 
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