Modifiers that Qualify

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  Noun Phrases in Australian Languages

  A Typological Study

  • Dana Louagie(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  3  Qualification

  The second survey chapter discusses the domain of qualification, which is reasonably well-analysed in the Australian literature, but not to the same extent as classification. Qualifiers can be defined functionally as modifiers in the NP which describe a property of the referent, like tall in the English structure in (46).

  (46)

  English

  the tall man

  In English, an element like tall belongs to a word class that is specialised in this function, viz. adjectives, and it can qualify the head of the NP directly, as shown in (46). Not all languages, however, have a specialised word class for qualification or allow direct qualification of the head noun. These two issues, viz. word class and syntactic realisation, are interrelated, and at the same time they are the most prominent questions in the literature on the typology of qualification. They will be discussed in sections 1 and 2 respectively.

  1  Adjectives as a word class

  The question of identifying a word class of adjectives has been tackled in many different ways in the literature, using various combinations of criteria, relating to meaning (‘adjectives denote properties’), morphology (‘adjectives have distinct morphological potential’) and syntax (‘adjectives can serve as modifiers in referential phrases’) (e.g. Dixon [1982d , 2004 , 2010 ], Hengeveld et al. [2004] , Schachter & Shopen [2007] amongst many others; see also Haspelmath [2012] for an overview of the literature). For some languages there is a clear consensus on the existence (or not) of a separate adjective class, whereas for others there is serious debate (many Australian languages belong to the last category, as shown in this section).

  There are three basic typological options in this respect (following the analysis of Hengeveld et al. [2004 : 530–541] and Hengeveld & Rijkhoff [2005 : 407]; see van Lier & Rijkhoff [2013] for an excellent overview of this approach and others). The first two both involve languages with rigid classes, in which each lexeme is associated with one specific function. The first option is then that a language has a differentiated class of adjectives, which is associated only with the function of attribution (this can be an open class or a closed one); in this case, the language normally also at least has differentiated classes of verbs and nouns (following the hierarchy proposed in Hengeveld et al. [2004] ). The second option is that a language has rigid classes of verbs and nouns, but no distinct class of adjectives. If there is no adjective class, this means that elements from other classes, with other basic functions, will take over the adjectival function using special constructions, e.g. a relative clause in languages that only have a rigid class of verbs. The final option does not include rigid word classes, but flexible ones. With flexible classes, lexemes are not specialised in one single syntactic function, but are flexible between functions (or, in other words, they are category-neutral [van Lier & Rijkhoff 2013 ]). For example, the typical attributive function of modification is one of the functions of a broader word class that has other functions as well, e.g. there is a class of ‘nominals’ (or ‘non-verbs’ in Hengeveld’s terminology, as opposed to the class of verbs) that can serve directly, i.e. without any morphological or other changes, as the head and as the modifier of a referential phrase. Both Hengeveld & Rijkhoff (2005 : 414) and McGregor (2013 : 243–245) characterise flexible items as semantically vague, but the meaning components attributed to these items differ. Hengeveld & Rijkhoff, on the one hand, attribute a larger set of meaning components to each lexeme, where their use in one function highlights the meaning components relevant to that function (inspired by Wilkins’ [2000] analysis of classification constructions [see chapter 2 , section 2

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  The Lexicogrammar of Adjectives

  A Systemic Functional Approach to Lexis

  • Gordon H. Tucker(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  A speaker's referent may be anything between a class of Thing and a unique, definite instance of some subclass. The grammar of determiners, both quantifying and deictic determiners, allows the speaker to select out from increasingly small sets. One major function of the grammar of modifiers is to provide additional means of subclassification beyond that which is lexically available. This subclassification may be simply a straight subclassification of the class of Thing denoted by the noun, or may interact with definiteness and quan-tification as a means of identification or as an ad hoc expressive device through which the speaker communicates his or her allocation of a referent to an inter-personally motivated class. The function of modification itself (either pre-modification through modifiers or post-modification through qualifiers) does not encroach upon definiteness or quantification, although qualifiers function cataphorically to help the process of recoverability signalled by the deictic determiner the, as in the girl with the red hair. What modification does is narrow the denotational scope of the class of Thing at the head of the group. On this basis, the ele-ment^) of structure recognized to realize this function can be considered to be different from the determinative elements which serve the other functions. A referring expression may simply be a reference to a subclass, however narrowly subclassified it is, as is shown in (18). (18) modern lightweight vacuum cleaners with extendable leads The functional syntax of the nominal group, as described here, therefore recognizes four basic types of element of structure: d(eterminer), m(odifier), h(ead) and q(ualifier). The function of the last of these is similar in nature to the modifier, but is distinguished in terms of its post-head place in structure and by the structures which are found there, i.e. embedded (relative) clauses and prepositional groups.

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  Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

  • Martin J. Endley(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Information Age Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Additionally, I will briefly touch upon two further potential difficulties in relation to ad- jectives, namely participles and compound forms. After this, I will turn to adverbs, limiting my discussion to two main issues: first, the similarities and differences between adjectives and adverbs; and second, the functions per- formed by adverbial expressions. The Adjective Word Class: Morphosyntactic Characteristics In some languages, the adjective class is a small, closed class. And some lan- guages lack such a class entirely, with the meanings expressed by adjectives in English being expressed by other syntactic categories. However, modern Adjectives and Adverbs in Linguistic Perspective  79 English has a rich range of adjectives and they are ubiquitous in the speech and writing of EUEs. Like nouns and verbs, adjectives belong in the open class of words in English and it is not uncommon for new adjectives to be added to the language. What, then, is an adjective? Students are often taught that an adjective is a word that “describes” or modifies a noun. This is a reasonable start- ing point, insofar as many adjectives are found in close association with nouns, but, once again, there is a great deal more that needs to be said. In fact, as we will see shortly, only some adjectives are modifiers. Others are better understood as complements. The use of such labels is not always a straightforward matter. For our purposes, we can say that a modifier is an optional element; on the other hand, a complement is grammatically required. The Position of Adjectives: The Prenominal Position In English, there are two main positions that an adjective may occupy in a construction. One position is within a noun phrase, immediately pre- ceding the noun. I will follow the conventional designations, referring to adjectives in the prenominal position as attributive adjectives, and adjectives in post-verbal position as predicative adjectives.

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