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This article sheds new light on the puzzling phrase structure of complex adjectival phrases which are common in Semitic, specifically in Hebrew, and which are equivalent to Indo-European phrases such as 'swift of foot.' The article draws a clear distinction between these constructions and adjectival compounds such as 'swiftfooted', which are prevalent in major Indo-European languages but are absent from Semitic languages. The Hebrew construction under discussion is a genitival construct consisting of an adjective followed by a modifying noun in genitive status. The adjective is the head of the construction, but agrees in number and gender with a noun outside the construction. This construction has invited controversial analyses by different scholars, most recently in the framework of generative grammar. The present study construction is anchored in the framework of Construction Grammar. It nevertheless advances a morphosyntactic and semantic analysis of its inner composition. Functional aspects and the speaker's perspectival choice in construing such attributive phrases are taken into account as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to describe the differences between à la mode de (SN) 'in the fashion of ' and à la mode 'fashionable'. These two constructions are characterised by the fact that in the first one, the noun mode must be modified by a prepositional phrase, an adjective or a relative clause, whereas in the second one, modification is impossible. In contemporary French, these constructions appear in different syntactic contexts : à la mode de (SN) works both as an adjectival or a verbal modifier, whereas à la mode behaves as an adjectival modifier only. Though à la mode first appears as an ellipsis of à la mode de (SN), the noun mode has different meanings in these two constructions : it must be understood with its ancient meaning of 'manner' in the first case, but with a more recent meaning of 'fashion' in the second one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within minimalism, we may assume derivations to involve subderivations, connected by the interface components dealing with sound and meaning (layered derivations). If so, complex adjectival constructions involving predicates like tough/easy (as in John is easy to please) receive a natural account in terms of re- analysis taking place at these interface components, turning a complex adjectival construction into a simplex adjective which can be merged in predicative or attributive position in the next derivation layer. Arguments against reanalysis address earlier, more complicated conceptions of reanalysis, and fail to distinguish plain and expanded tough-constructions, the latter not showing any reanalysis characteristics. In a layered-derivation cum reanalysis approach, the arguments for empty operator movement in the embedded infinitival clause disappear, and the reanalysed construction shows the properties of an adjectival passive instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the unified account of the cross-linguistic variation in the encoding of adjectives in prediative and attributive constructions using a unified optimality theoretic account. Accordingly, languages might be dissimilar in the encoding strategy of adjectives in the predicative domain, and there are instances that the strategy could be changed in the attributive domain. The interaction on faithfulness to the semantic class of a lexical root, and the faithfulness to discourse functions is also discussed in details.

Two recent hypotheses which support the theory of full access to Universal Grammar have been proposed in order to account for variant data supplied by L2 learners. The Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis (Goad, White & Steele 2003) suggests that non-target-like behaviour by L2 learners is partially due to the differences in prosody between the L1 and L2 and the ensuing prosodic constraints; whilst the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (Prévost & White 2000) proposes that problems are due to the learners’ variability in mapping abstract syntactic features onto morphological forms. This paper discusses a study of Japanese native speakers acquiring L3 German adjectival inflection in light of these two hypotheses. Data are provided from a written gap-filling task and from two oral production tasks. The results indicate stronger support for the MSIH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]