Stacked Adjectival Modification and the Structure of Nominal Phrases

Abstract

Abstract This article is a preliminary attempt to look at adjectival ordering restrictions (henceforth AOR) and aspects of the syntax of stacked adjectives across several languageswithin a broad Principles and Parameters (P&P) framework. I will be examining the notion of “fixed order” and proposing that it be considered part of Universal Grammar (UG). As a working strategy, I will attempt to explore the hypothesis that adjectival distribution follows the pattern of adverbial distribution along the lines of Cinque’ s Universal Hierarchy of Clausal Functional Projections(Cinque 1999, 106). I will argue for a framework that treats adjectives not as adjuncts, but as specifiers of distinct functional projections that are intrinsically related to aspects of their seman¬tic interpretation. At present, attributive adjectives are usually analyzed as recursively stacked adjunct specifiers of extended A’ IN’or even recursive NP projections. Yet if all adjectives had the same categorial status, the syntax, being unable to distinguish the ungrammatical from the grammatical strings, would inevitably generate fragments like *a red heavy good table.Following Zwarts (1992), this article will attempt to demonstrate how the standard lexical/functional dichotomy may be approached through a rich semantic ontology, and how the semantic universe may be studied via an independently motivated system of syntactic categories.

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