Watanabe, Akira. 2011. Adjectival Inflection and the Position of Measure Phrases. Linguistic Inquiry. Vol. 42-3: 490-507.

Adjectival Inflection and the Position

of Measure Phrases

Watanabe (2011)

Corver (2009): accounts for the postadjectival placement of the measure phrase in Romance by preposing the adjectival phrase over the measure phrase. avoid violating locality when the T head tries to enter into a multiple agreement relation with the adjective as well as with the subject.Watanabe also suggest that the feature content of the potentially intervening measure phrase influeces the range of parametric options.

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1 Introduction

Corver (2009): the parametric variation in the placement of

measure phrases that accompany dimensional adjectives

(1) German: m+d

(2) Romance: d+m

(1) a. John is six feet tall. English

b. Dit brood is drie dagen oud. Dutch

this bread is three days old (Corver 2009:(42a))

John 은키가 6 척이다 . (2)

이빵은사흘된것이다 .

(2) a. La voiture est longue de deux me French

the car is long of two meters (Corver 2009:(33a))

b. Gianni è alto due metri. Italian

Gianni is tall two meters (Corver 2009:(89))

이차는길이가 2 미터이다 . (2)

Gianni 는키가 2 미터이다 .

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2 Corver 2009

The measure phrase is a nominal predicate whose syntactic subject is the adjective, forming a small clause:

(3) a. [XP tall [X six feet]]

subj predicate undergoes Predicate Inversion, landing in the Spec, FP, the

next higher projection

b. [FP six feet [F +X [XP tall [X six feet]]]] X head is adjoined to the F head

(1a,b), in the Dutch and English.

For Romance, further movement has to take place; in French, XP in (3b) is raised to Spec, DegP.(4) [DegP [XP tall [X six feet]][Deg+F+X [FP six feet [F +X [XP tall [X six feet]]]]

=(5) [DegP [XP longue [X deux mètres]][Deg+ [F de]+X [FP deux mètres[F +X [XP longue [X deux mètres ]]]]]]

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Italian has no overt functional head: in Italian, the adjective, as well as the X head, undergoes head movement to F as in (6b).

(Corver 2009)

(6) a. [XP alto [X due metri]]

b. [FP due metri [F +alto+X [XP alto [X due metri]]]] c. [DegPDeg+F+alto+X [FP due metri [F +alto+X [XP alto [X due metri]]]]]

The possessor precedes the head noun in English; whereas it follows it in French and Italian.

(7) a. John’s car (English) b. une voiture de Jean (French) a car of Jean c. casa Rossi (Italian) house Rossi

(8) a. [DP D [FP F [XP casa [X [PP P Rossi]]

b. [DP D [FP [PP P Rossi] F+casa+X+P [XP casa [X+P [PP P Rossi]]]]] c. [DP D+F+casa+X+P [FP [PP P Rossi] F+casa+X+P [XP casa [X+P [PP P Rossi]]]]]

In (8b), P is adjoined to X and then the resulting complex head together with casa is adjoined to F, and furthermore, PP is raised to Spec,FP.The final touch is adjunction of the complex F+casa+X+P to D, as in (8c).

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In French, head movement creates D+ [F de]+casa+X+P, while phrasal movement raises PP to Spec,FP and the remnant XP to

Spec,DP, as in (9) . (Corver 2009)

(9) [DP [XP une voiture [X+P [PP P Jean]]] D+ [F de]+X+P [FP [PP P Jean] F+X+P

[XP une voiture [X+P [PP P Rossi]]]]]

In English, movement of the remnant XP to Spec,DP does not take place.

(10) [DP D [FP [PP P John] F+X+P [XP car [X+P [PP P John]]]]]

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3 Agreement of Predicative Adjective

3.1 Romance Adjectives

Predicative adjectives are marked for number and gender in Romance, but not in Dutch:

(English)

(11) a. L’uomo è furbo. (Italian) (12) a. Tu es loyal. (French) the man is crafty.M.SG you are loyal.SG

b. La donna è furba. b. Vous êtes loyaux.

the woman is crafty.F.SG you.PL are loyal.PL

c. Gli uomini sono furbi. (13) a. De jongen is lang. (Dutch)

the men are crafty.M.PL the boy is tall (Kester 1993:(3a))

d. Le donne sono furbe. b. De meisjes zijn lang.

the women are crafty.F.PL the girls are tall (Kester 1993:(4a))

(Maiden and Robustelli 2000:46)

The agreement behavior of predicative adjectives in Romance can be captured in terms of

Multiple Agree, as proposed by Hiraiwa (2005) (see also Chomsky 2004).

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In Icelandic, the participle agrees with an in-situ nominative object with respect to case, number, and gender, as in (14a).

(14) a. Okkur höfðu verið sagðar sögurnar áður. (Icelandic)

us.DAT had.3PL been told.NOM.F.PL stories.the.NOM.F.PL before

‘We had been told the stories before.’ (Sigurðsson 1991:334)

b. T … PastPrt Obj

The T head, acting as the probe, agrees with the participle and the object simulaneously: (14b)

The same analysis can be applied to predicative adjectives: (15)

(15) T … Subj … Adj

If the measure phrase precedes the adjective, Once the adjective is put in front of the measureit intervenes between the probing T head and phrase, however, the T head can probe both thethe adjective, blocking the agreement relation subject and the adjective without any localitybetween the two: (16) problem: (17)

(16)T … Subj MP Adj (17) T … Subj Adj MP t

x

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3.2 Notes on Predicate Inversion

Cover (2009) Predicate Inversion

The crucial step in the derivation:

(18)a. [F [XP tall [X six feet]]] the predicative adj. is devoid of

b. [FP six feet]]] [F+X [XP tall [X six feet]]] φ-features, in Dutch & English

A-movement + Locality (Chomsky, 1993): the small clause head X is raised to F:

to avoid minimality violation; the equidistance effect

Why is the measure phrase, rather than the adjective, raised to Spec, FP in French?

(18)a. [F [XP longue [X deux mètres]]]

b. [FP deux mètres [F+X [XP longue [X deux mètres]]]]

In French, the φ-features of the adj. are eligible for agreement; the adj. can be raised to Spec,FP.

It also requires a stretch of the imagination to treat the adj. as the subject of a small clause.

-->Direct merger of a measure phrase into the specifier of the relevant functional projection: (Cover 1997)

(20) [FP six feet [F tall]]

(21) a. [FP due metri [F alto]] In D & F: adj. itself can be raised to

b. [GP alto [G [FP due metri [F alto]]]] the specifier of a higher projection, GP.

de in French & the absence of its counterpart in Italian: to have a phonological content or not 8

4 Japanese Connection

(22) Parametric options for the placement of the measure phrase and the adjective

a. Adjectives with φ-feature inflection

i. *[GP G [FP MP F AP]]

ii. OK[GP AP G [FP MP F tAP]] (e.g., French, Italian)

b. Adjectives without φ-feature inflection

i. OK [GP G [FP MP F AP]] (e.g., Dutch, English)

ii. OK[GP AP G [FP MP F tAP]] (e.g., Japanese)

4.1 Raising of the Adjective without φ-feature inflection

(23) Kono biru-wa takasa ni-juu-meetoru da. (nominalization of the adj. involved)

this building-TOP height two-ten meter COP Adj. (Watanabe)

‘This building is twenty meters tall.’ 이건물은 *?높이 /Ok높이가 20 층이다 .

(24) Kono biru-wa takasa-ga ni-juu-meetoru da. -NOM

this building-TOP height-NOM two-ten meter COP

(25) Taroo-wa musuko*(-ga) isha da T- 는 아들 *(- 이 ) 의사다 .

Taroo-TOP son-NOM doctor COP

‘As for Taro, his son is medical doctor.’9

4 Japanese Connection

(26) a. [FP ni-juu-meetoru [AP takasa] F]]

b.[GP [AP takasa][[FP ni-juu-meetoru [[AP takasa] F]] G]]

Japanese adjectives do not have any number-sensitive morphology. (cf. 23 & 27)

(27) Kono biru-to ano biru-wa tomoni takasa ni-juu-meetoru da.

this building-and that building-TOP both hight two-ten meter COP

‘This building and that building are both twenty meters tall.’ 이건물과저건물은둘다 ?높이 /Ok높이가 20 층이다 .

Therefore, raising of AP is not linked to potential locality violation.

However, the version without mvnt is ill-formed: (28)

(28) *Kono biru-wa ni-juu-meetoru takasa da.

this building-TOP two-ten meter height-COP OK 이건물은 20 층높이다 .

(29) Kono biru-wa ni-juu-meetoru takai 이건물은 20 층높다 this building-TOP two-ten meter high

‘This building is twenty meters taller. *This building is twenty meters tall.’

(30) Kono biru-wa (totemo) takai (31) Taroo-no kuruma

this building-TOP very tall Taroo-GEN car

‘This building is very tall.’ ‘Taro’s car’ 10

4.2 Agreement behind Raising of the Adjective

(32) a. *Kono kontena-wa omosa go-meetoru da.

this container-TOP weight five-meter COP

‘*This container weighs five meters.’ * 이컨테이너는무게 5 미터다 .

b. *Kono kontena-wa omosa go-meetoru da.

this container-TOP weight five-meter COP

‘This container weighs five tons.’ 이컨테이너는무게 5 톤이다 .

(33) *This container is five tons heavy.

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