A Cross-Linguistic Investigation of the Order of Attributive Adjectives Paul James Flanagan A thesis submitted to the Department of English and History, Edge Hill University, in fulfilment of the EHU requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2014 1 Contents: List of Figures and Tables …………………………………………………………………………………………… 4 List of Abbreviations …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6 Declaration …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8 Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 9 Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 10 Chapter 1: Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 11 1.1 Poly-adjectival Nominal Phrases (PNPs) 1.2 Key Concepts and Theorists 1.3 Focus Languages 1.4 Structure of Thesis Chapter 2: The Adjective Class ………………………………………………………………………………....... 18 2.1 Identifying the Adjective Class 2.2 The Universality of the Adjectival Category 2.3 Cross-linguistic Variation in Property Concepts 2.4 The Syntax of Poly-adjectival Nominal Phrases 2.5 Summary Chapter 3: Research Design ………………………………………………………………………………………… 38 3.1 Research Questions, Aims and Outcomes 3.2 Methodology 3.3 Sampling 3.4 Ethical Considerations Chapter 4: The Adjective Class in English: Background ………………………………………………… 58 4.1 Identification and Morphosyntax 4.2 Subclassification into Functional/Semantic Sets 4.3 Ordering of Multiple Adjectives 4.4 Summary Chapter 5: English Data ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 85 5.1 The Questionnaire 5.2 Quantitative Results 5.3 Qualitative Data and Discussion 5.4 Summary and Conclusions Chapter 6: The Adjective Class in Northern Sotho: Background ………………………………….. 156 6.1 The Northern Sotho Language 6.2 Problems of Classification 6.3 The Morphological Behaviour of Northern Sotho Adjectival Nouns 2 6.4 Relative and Enumerative Nouns and Periphrastic Constructions 6.5 Adjective Strings and Subclassification in Northern Sotho 6.6 Summary Chapter 7: Northern Sotho Data ………………………………….……………………………………………… 184 7.1 Collocational Restrictions and Semantic Variation 7.2 Corpus Data 7.3 Fieldwork Data 7.4 Summary Chapter 8: The Adjective Class in Welsh ……………………………………………………………………… 206 8.1 The Welsh Language 8.2 Morphosyntax and Poly-adjectival Nominal Phrases 8.3 Corpus Data 8.4 Fieldwork Data 8.5 Summary and Discussion Chapter 9: Poly-adjectival Nominal Phrases in Chinese, Polish and Tagalog ………………… 242 9.1 Focus Languages 9.2 The Adjective Classes of Tagalog, Mandarin Chinese and Polish 9.3 Data Analysis 9.4 Summary and Conclusions Chapter 10: Discussion and Final Conclusions …………………………………………………………….. 271 10.1 Adjective Order and Universality Theory 10.2 Semantic Order Theory in Cross-linguistic Perspective 10.3 Function-based Order Theory in Cross-linguistic Perspective 10.4 Final Remarks and Conclusions Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 280 Appendices …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 296 A1: The Socio-historical Context of the Northern Sotho Language A2: English Questionnaire A3: Northern Sotho Questionnaire A4: Welsh Questionnaire A5: Mandarin Chinese Questionnaire A6: Polish Questionnaire A7: Tagalog Questionnaire 3 List of Figures: Figure 2.1: Intersective and Non-intersective Adjectives Figure 3.1: Structure of Multiple Choice Questions in Section A of the Welsh Questionnaire Figure 3.2: Structure of Questions in Mandarin Chinese Questionnaire Figure 4.1: The Scale of Permanence of Adjectival Concepts Figure 4.2: Adjectival-Verbal Continuum for Participial Adjectives Figure 4.3 : Bache’s (1978: 28) Modifications Zones Figure 4.4: Muir’s (1972: 30) Secondary Structures Figure 4.5: Bache’s Functional Explanation of Mod-II Sequencing Figure 4.6: Multi-functionality of Adjectives in Distinctive Reversible Order Figure 7.1: Adjectives Most Commonly Heading Modification Strings Featuring –pedi Figure 7.2: Percentage of Tokens with Numeral in String-initial Position Figure 8.1: Welsh Speakers Aged 3 and Over 1911-2011 Figure 8.2: Welsh Speakers by Age Group 1991-2011 List of Tables: Table 2.1: Criteria for Central and Peripheral Adjectives Table 2.2: Antonymic Adjectives in Igbo Table 4.1: Graded Antonymy Across Grammatical Categories Table 4.2: Common Semantic Subsets of Adjectives Table 4.3: Quirk et Al’s (1985: 1338) Zones Table 4.4: Levi’s (1975) Taxonomy of Mod-III Adjectives Table 4.5: Ghesquière’s (2009) Sequence Model Table 5.1: Frequency of Tokens of APs in the BNC Table 5.2: Example of Participant Responses Table 5.3: Participant Responses to ‘How difficult was it to suggest a natural order?’ Table 5.4: Average Difficulty Indices for Different Question Types Table 5.5: Summary of Responses to ‘What factors do you think affect your choice of order?’ Table 5.6 Variable Order of Bache’s (1978) Zones of Modification Table 6.1: The Adjective Roots of Northern Sotho 4 Table 6.2 Morphosyntax of Adjectival Nouns Table 6.3: Properties of Adjectival Constructions in Northern Sotho Table 6.4: Semantic Sets of Central Adjectives in Northern Sotho Table 6.5: Semantic Sets of Peripheral Adjectives in Northern Sotho Table 6.6: Properties of Central and Peripheral Adjectives in Northern Sotho Table 7.1: Antonymous Adjectives of Size and Age in Northern Sotho Table 7.2: Collocations with –ngwe in PNPs in the PSC Table 7.3: Percentage of Tokens Featuring Size Adjectives in String-initial Position Table 7.4: Morphological Types in the Northern Sotho Word Class ‘Adjective’. Table 8.1: Prenominal Adjectives in Welsh Table 8.2: Adjectives with Semantic Contrast in Pre- and Post-nominal Position Table 8.3: Welsh Mutations Table 8.4: Graded Adjectives in Welsh Table 8.5: Welsh Bi-adjectival NPs with the Same Linear Order as English Table 8.6: The Morphosyntactic Forms of Participial Adjectives in Welsh Table 8.7: Ordering in Welsh PNPs in the CEG Corpus Table 8.8: Preferred Orders in Welsh PNPs Table 9.1: Modification Patterns of Marker de Table 9.2: Adjective Suffixes in Polish (nominative case, class 2) 5 List of Abbreviations: ACC Accusative case ADI Average difficulty index ADJ Adjective ADJ-BIG Adjective bigram ADJN Adjectival noun ADV Adverb ART Article CMX Concordial morpheme (X indicates noun class) COL Colour term CONJ Conjunction CSM Construct state marker DE Chinese descriptive indicator de DEF Definiteness marker DeN Denominal adjective DET Determiner DeV Deverbal adjective DP Descriptive possessive FEM Feminine FOCUSSED Focus marker HEAD Phrasal head IMPERF Imperfective aspect marker INT Interrogative particle LIG Ligature/Linking particle LOC Locative MASC Masculine MOD Modifier MOD-I Adjective from Bache’s (1978) first modification zone MOD-II Adjective from Bache’s (1978) second modification zone MOD-III Adjective from Bache’s (1978) third modification zone N Noun NOM Nominative case NP Noun phrase NTMC National Trust Micro-Corpus PAST Past tense verb PC Possessive concord PL Plural PNP Poly-adjectival nominal phrase 6 POS Possessor POSS Possessive Particle PP Prepositional phrase PREMOD Pre-modification PREP Preposition PRES Present tense verb PROG Progressive/continuous aspect PSC Pretoria Sepedi Corpus PST Past tense QPX Qualificative particle (X indicates noun class) RDP Reduplication REL Relative marker RELN Relative noun REMOTE Remote aspect REPD Reported verb form S Subject SC Subject concord SG Singular TOP Topic VB Verb VREL Verbal relative WALS World Atlas of Language Structures Ø Zero marker 1PS First person singular 3PS Third person singular 7 Declaration: I hereby declare that this thesis is all my own work and has not been submitted at any other institution or for any other academic award. Paul Flanagan, 2014 8 ABSTRACT Abstract of doctoral thesis: A CROSS-LINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION OF THE ORDER OF ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVES Paul J. Flanagan, March 2014 This thesis examines the order in which attributive adjectives are placed when appearing in a string modifying the same head noun. Noun phrases featuring more than one adjective are examined in six languages, all of which have modification patterns which exhibit distinctive patterns of syntax and morphology. Northern Sotho is a Bantu language with postnominal adjectives, agglutinative morphology and qualificative particles which link modifier and head; Welsh also has predominantly postnominal adjectives but less complex adjectival morphology. Polish and English adjectives typically appear before the noun, and the order in which they are sequenced is compared with Chinese, in which all modification appears before the noun, including relative clauses. I also examine the syntax of adjective strings in Tagalog, an Austronesian language in which adjectives can appear both before and after the noun, and in which the nature of lexical categories is particularly complex. The universality of the adjective class has generated considerable debate among linguists, with much discussion in the last decade with regard to whether adjectives constitute a independent lexical category across all languages. Chinese, Tagalog and Northern Sotho are all languages in which the nature of the adjectival category has been questioned, and this comparative analysis of a syntactic phenomenon which is an essential characteristic of adjectives adds a new dimension to the debate surrounding the universality of the adjective class. Based on a combination of corpus data and field- based methods, I analyse the patterns which appear across the languages in my sample. I evaluate the various explanations of the different factors which affect the order in which English adjectives are placed ahead of a noun,