A discourse referent-related restriction on prenominal adjectives in Spanish?
Louise McNally
January 2025
 

The unacceptability of relational adjectives in prenominal position in Spanish (??un lingüístico problema vs. un problema lingüístico) lacks a convincing explanation. In this contribution I suggest that we can explain this incompatibility if we adopt an ap- proach that assigns a formal status to discourse referents, such as Discourse Representa- tion Theory (Kamp, 1981). The semantics of relational adjective modification in McNally and Boleda (2004) can then be recast as crucially unmediated by any discourse referent, while all cases of prenominal modification are arguably necessarily mediated by a dis- course referent, thus explaining the incompatibility.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/008874
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Silvia Gumiel Molina, Ignacio Bosque Muñoz, and Cristina Sánchez López (eds.), Buceando entre palabras. Inmersiones en la gramática de la mano de Manuel Leonetti. Alcalà de Henares: Editorial Universidad de Alcalà.
keywords: adjective order, modification, discourse reference, relational adjectives, spanish, semantics, syntax
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