The place of reduced relative clauses in adjectival...

The place of reduced relative clauses in adjectival modification

Zoë Belk

Zoë Belk - UCL PhD Day 2016

The plan

•  Are there two sources of adnominal adjectives? •  What is a (real) reduced relative clause? •  RCs vs. RRCs vs. As •  The semantics of attributives •  The semantics (and syntax) of relatives •  Conclusions

2 Zoë Belk - UCL PhD Day 2016

Two sources of adjectives?

•  Cinque 2010: Adnominal adjectives have two sources, direct modification and reduced relative clauses (RRCs)

Direct modification RRCs •  ordering requirements or

preferences •  individual-level •  nonintersective •  absolute reading (among other properties)

•  free ordering with respect to each other

•  stage-level •  intersective •  relative (to a comparison

class) reading (among other properties)



stage-level > individual-level > N > stage-level (Larson 1998 pp.155–6)

•  Every VISIBLE visible star •  *Every visible VISIBLE star •  Every visible star VISIBLE (Cinque 2010, p.19)

individual-level > N > individual-level > stage-level •  una posizone invidiabile (oggie anco più INVIDIABILE

a position enviable (today even more) enviable •  *una posizione (oggi ancor più) INVIDIABILE invidiabile •  un invidiabile posizione (oggi ancor più) INVIDIABILE

(Cinque 2010 p.21)



Germanic order: Prenominal As base-generated. Romance order: Derived through roll-up movement of the noun through the direct modification adjectives and the reduced relative clauses.

However, if we can’t tell when a given adjective is DM or RRC, we can’t make good predictions about their behaviour:

The bus is big. The bus is red. the big red bus *the red big bus 5 Zoë Belk - UCL PhD Day 2016

Adjectives as (reduced) relative clauses

•  Smith 1964: Adjectives are derived from relative clauses (RCs): the man who is boring à the man who is boring à the boring man t –  This analysis was somewhat problematic, but then…

•  Larson 2000: Adjectives can be derived from reduced relative clauses via QR and along the lines of ACD:

•  [CP Mary PST interview [DP every candidate [ OPi possible[CP ∅] ] ] ] à

•  [DPi every candidate [ OPi possible [CP ∅ ] ] ] [CP Mary PST interview ti] à

•  [DPi every candidate [ OPi possible [CP for Mary to interview ti ]]] [CP Mary PST interview ti]

•  Explains why possible has the same reading pre- and postnominally.


What is a RRC?

•  Like a relative clause, but smaller…. •  A lot like RCs, but not exactly the same: •  Can be conjoined (Sag1997) :

–  The only people [being added to our group] and [who were at Harvard] are Jones and Abrams.

•  Or modify the same noun with no conjunction: –  The only people [who were at Harvard] [being added to our

group] are Jones and Abrams. •  But they don’t always share the same interpretation:

–  The people living here are dead ≠ The people who were living here are dead (see Stanton 2010 for more differences)


RCs vs. RRCs vs. As

a. a proud (*of his son) man a. elke [voor gehandicapten

ongeschikt*(-e)] villa b. a man who is proud (of his

son) b. elke villa die voor gehandicapten

ogeschikt(*-e) is c. a man proud *(of his son) c. ?elke villa [ongeschikt(*-e) voor

gehandicapten]

a. the utter/*afraid fiend

a. de op zo’n soort parcours waarchijnlijkst (*het) snelst-e marathonloper

b. the fiend who is *utter/afraid

b. de marathonloper die op zo’n soort parcours waarschinlijk *(het) snelst is

c. the fiend more *utter/afraid than any other

c. ? de marathonloper waarschijnlijk *(het) snelst op zo’n soort parcours


RCs vs. RRCs vs. As •  As ≠ (R)RCs:

As (R)RCs Allow a wider range of predicates (including APs, PPs and participles)

Only allow AP and participial forms

May or must take complements Disallow complements in English Disallow non-predicative adjectives (intersective or nonintersective)

Allow non-predicative adjectives

Require particular determiners or quantifiers in English

Not restricted in terms of the determiners they may appear with

Do not have to satisfy the head-final filter in Dutch

Must satisfy the head-final filter in Dutch

Do not take a declensional schwa in Dutch

Must take a declensional schwa in the appropriate contexts

Require or preferably appear with het-superlatives

Disallow het-superlatives 9

Visible stars: Does that mean…?

•  But what about the visible stars visible?

•  …I don’t think the second visible is an RRC. –  No complement (normally required in RRCs) –  Restricted to –a/ible adjectives (?) and fixed expressions –  Only possible with certain determiners

•  Every/*a/*the/*three/the three star(s) visible •  Every/a/the/three/the three man/men proud of his/their son(s)

–  (R)RCs are actually ambiguous! •  We looked at every star that was <generally> visible <that night>


A brief introduction to adjectival semantics

•  The crux of the problem is that adjectives can be both predicates (type <e,t>) and attributes (not type <e,t>, probably functors of type <<e,t>,<e,t>>)

•  Two options: we could add a new semantic operation, or change the denotation of adjectives

•  If the latter, we probably don’t want to list all adjectives that can be both predicative and attributive twice, so one should be derived from the other.

•  Which way is best?


Attributive As do not involve θ-identification •  Higginbotham 1985: A red ball is something that’s

a ball and is red. Adjectival modification involves a new operation: θ-identification (essentially intersective).

•  Truswell 2004: Attributive modification isn’t (always) intersective –  While non-modal adjectives + noun describe a subset of

entities denoted by noun, modal adjectives + N describe a subset of a superset: e.g. apparent problem

–  Scope matters for at least some adjectives •  chopped frozen chicken vs. frozen chopped chicken 12

Attributive As do not involve θ-identification

•  θ-identification involves conjunction and is essentially symmetrical – it won’t be able to derive scope between adjectives

•  We need an operation that combines things asymmetrically (that reflects the syntax?)

•  Truswell 2004: JOIN (see also Chierchia and Turner 1988 and Baker 2003) –  Changes semantic type for an attributive adjective –  Ensures semantic scope matches syntactic scope


Relative clauses do involve θ-identification?

•  (R)RCs don’t look like adjectives. Maybe we could use θ-identification for them?

•  Do they allow modal adjectives? –  *This problem is only apparent. –  *These thieves are allegèd. (Nothing was proven.)

•  Do they exhibit scope? –  Well…


Relative clauses do involve θ-identification?

•  What exactly is chopped frozen chicken?

•  Introducing… –  “Our (new/finest/whatever) chicken frozen in the Arctic

tundra, chopped by Japanese masterchefs” –  An order of events, but not the same as scope –  Compare: our (new/finest/whatever) chicken frozen in

the Arctic tundra and chopped by Japanese masterchefs


Back to syntax

•  (R)RCs don’t exhibit semantic scope effects, but what about syntax?

•  (Pass me a) chicken breast frozen in the arctic tundra chopped by Japanese masterchefs and one shredded by Italian grandmothers.

•  (Pass me the) chicken breast frozen in the arctic tundra and salmon fillet preserved in Himalayan sea salt chopped by Japanese masterchefs.


Back to syntax

•  But is there always syntactic scope?

•  Interpretation of (R)RCs suggests coordination •  Intonation also suggests coordination?

–  Up-step at beginning of second conjunct (Selkirk 2005)

•  Maybe both options are possible? –  Difficult to tell given intersection meaning


Conclusion(s)

•  Adnominal adjectives are not (reduced) relative clauses –  And neither are postnominal bare adjectives

•  Adnominal adjectives do not involve θ-identification – they need an asymmetric operation

•  RRCs and RCs do


References

•  Baker, M. (2003). Lexical categories: Verbs, nouns and adjectives. Cambridge: CUP

•  Chierchia, G. and R. Turner (1988). Semantics and property theory. Linguistics and Philosophy 11, 261–302.

•  Cinque, G. (2010). The Syntax of Adjectives: A comparative study. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

•  Higginbotham, J. (1985). On semantics. Linguistic Inquiry 16, 547–593.

•  Larson, R. K. (1998). Events and modification in nominals. In D. Strolovitch and A. Lawson (Eds.), Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) VIII, pp. 145–168. Cornell University Press.

•  Larson, R. K. (2000). ACD in AP? Paper presented at the 19th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 19), Los Angeles.


References

•  Sag, I. A. (1997). English relative clause constructions. Journal of Linguistics 33(2), 431–483.

•  Selkirk, E. Comments on Intonational Phrasing in English. In S. Frota, M. Vigario, M. J. Freitas (Eds.), Prosodies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

•  Smith, C. S. (1964). Determiners and relative clauses in a generative grammar of English. Language 40(1), 37–52.

•  Stanton, T. Are Reduced Relatives Reduced Relatives? BA diss., UCL.

•  Truswell, R. Attributive Adjectives and the Nominals They Modify. MPhil diss., University of Oxford.


Appendix: What’s up with these determiners?

a)  *We looked at the stars visible. b)  ??We looked at three stars visible. c)  We looked at every star visible. d)  *We looked at no star(s) visible. e)  ?We looked at all stars visible. f)  *We looked at a star visible. g)  We looked at the three stars visible. h)  *We looked at more stars visible. i)  *We looked at some stars visible (marginally

acceptable with stress on some

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a)  The members present came to this conclusion. b)  Three members present came to this conclusion. c)  Every member present came to this conclusion. d)  No member present came to this conclusion. e)  All members present came to this conclusion. f)  *A member present came to this conclusion.7 g)  The three members present came to this conclusion. h)  More members present came to this conclusion. i)  Some members present came to this conclusion.

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•  Other facts: –  Stress (évery stár vísible) –  Only positive –a/ible adjectives: *every candidate

impossible; *every candidate easy

•  Symmetric determiners play a role (Yasu Sudo, p.c.)? Why?

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