Abstract
This article attempts to account for the distribution of Icelandic adjectival inflection in a manner that also captures a problematic case that has not been satisfactorily analyzed in the literature. It is argued that weak inflection is triggered if the adjective is c-commanded by a feature [definite]. Strong inflection occurs precisely if weak inflection is not triggered. This implementation accounts for the occurrence of strong inflection on predicative adjectives and adnominal adjectives in indefinite noun phrases, but moreover allows us to account for an unexpected pattern in Icelandic where a strongly inflected adjective occurs in a definite noun phrase. It is argued that, in this case, the adjective is not c-commanded by the definite article, but, in fact, merged outside DP. This rather unorthodox assumption motivated on morpho-syntactic grounds makes a number of syntactic and semantic predictions. In particular, adjectives that are merged outside DP are expected to modify not simply an NP (of type \({<}\hbox {e,t}{>}\)), but actually a referential expression/an individual of type e. The discussion of four instances of that strongly inflected pattern—appositives, expressives, positional predicates and little partitives—provides various kinds of evidence and shows that these expectations are indeed borne out.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adger, David. 2013. A syntax of substance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Alexiadou, Artemis. 2001. Adjective syntax and noun raising: Word order asymmetries in the DP as the result of adjective distribution. Studia Linguistica 55 (3): 217–248.
Alexiadou, Artemis. 2012. On the syntactic reality of restrictive adjectival modification, talk given at the Workshop on Semantic and Pragmatic Properties of (Non-) Restrictivity. University of Stuttgart, 19–20 March 2012.
Alexiadou, Artemis, and Chris Wilder. 1998. Adjectival modification and multiple determiners. In Possessors, predicates and movement in the DP, ed. Artemis Alexiadou, and Chris Wilder, 303–332. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Anderson, S.R. 1969. An outline of the phonology of modern Icelandic vowels. Foundations of Language 5 (1): 53–72.
Árnason, Kristján. 1980. Íslensk málfræði. Kennslubók handa framhaldsskólum. Fyrri hluti. Reykjavík: Iðunn.
Árnason, Kristján. 1983. Íslensk málfræði. Kennslubók handa framhaldsskólum. Seinni hluti, 2nd ed. Reykjavík: Iðunn.
Bjorkman, Bronwyn, and Hedde Zeijlstra. 2014. Upward agree is superior. Ms., available at http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/002350.
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Step by step: Essays in minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, ed. R. Martin, D. Michaels, and J. Uriagereka, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2010. The syntax of adjectives: A comparative study. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Delsing, Lars-Olof. 1993. The internal structure of noun phrases in the Scandinavian languages. PhD diss, University of Lund.
Gallmann, Peter. 1998. Case underspecification in morphology, syntax and the lexicon. In Possessors, predicates and movement in the determiner phrase, eds. Artemis Alexiadou and Chris Wilder, 141–176. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Halle, Morris. 1997. Distributed Morphology: Impoverishment and fission. In MIT working papers in linguistics 30, eds. Benjamin Bruening, Yoonjung Kang and Martha McGinnis, 425–449.
Halle, Morris, and Alex Marantz. 1993. Distributed Morphology and the pieces of inflection. In The view from building 20, eds. Kenneth Hale and Samuel Jay Keyser, 111–176. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Harðarson, Gísli Rúnar. 2016. Cycling through grammar on compounds, noun phrases and domains compounds, noun phrases and domains. PhD diss, University of Connecticut.
Heim, Irene, and Angelika Kratzer. 1998. Semantics in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.
Ingason, Anton Karl. 2016. Realizing morphemes in the Icelandic noun phrase. PhD diss, University of Pennsylvania.
Jackendoff, Ray. 1977. X-bar syntax: A study of phrase structure. Linguistic inquiry monograph no. 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Julien, Marit. 2002. Determiners and word order in Scandinavian DPs. Studia Linguistica 56 (3): 265–315.
Julien, Marit. 2005. Nominal phrases from a Scandinavian perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kayne, Richard. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kester, Ellen Petra. 1993. The inflectional properties of Scandinavian adjectives. Studia Linguistica 47 (2): 139–153.
Kiparsky, Paul. 1973. ‘Elsewhere’ in phonology. In A festschrift for Morris Halle, eds. Paul Kiparsky and Steven Anderson. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Leffel, Timothy James. 2014. The semantics of modification: Adjectives, nouns, and order. PhD diss, New York University.
Leu, Thomas. 2008. The internal syntax of determiners. PhD diss, New York University.
Lohrmann, Susanne. 2008. On the structure of the Scandinavian DP. In Sinspec (1), ed. Florian Schäfer. Working Papers of the SFB 732, Stuttgart. Working Papers of the SFB 732, Stuttgart.
Lohrmann, Susanne. 2010. The structure of the DP and its reflex in Scandinavian. PhD diss, University of Stuttgart.
Magnússon, Friðrík. 1984. Um innri gerð nafnliða í íslensku. Íslenskt mál 6: 81–111.
Morzycki, Marcin. 2008. Nonrestrictive modifiers in nonparenthetical positions. In Adjectives and adverbs: Syntax, semantics, and discourse, ed. Louise McNally, and Chris Kennedy, 101–122. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Norris, Mark. 2012. Towards an analysis of concord (in Icelandic). In Proceedings of the 29th west coast conference on formal linguistics (WCCFL), eds. J. Choi, E.A. Hogue, J. Punske, D. Tat, J. Schertz and A. Trueman, 205–213. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Norris, Mark, Line Mikkelsen, and Jorge Hankamer. 2013. Licensing trouble. Linguistic Inquiry 45: 617–653.
Núria, Martí Girbau. 2003. Partitives: One or two nouns. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 27: 45–58.
Orešnik, Janez. 1972. On the epenthesis rule in modern Icelandic. Arkiv för nordisk filologi 87: 1–32.
Partee, Barbara H. 1975. Montague grammar and transformational grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 6 (2): 203–300.
Pfaff, Alexander. 2007. Tvennt en samt eitt. Ákveðinn greinir í íslensku. BA thesis, University of Iceland.
Pfaff, Alexander. 2009. Structural relations between free and suffixed articles in Icelandic. Master’s thesis, University of Tübingen.
Pfaff, Alexander. 2014. Inside and outside—Before and after. Weak and strong adjectives in Icelandic. In Adjectives in Germanic and Romance, eds. Petra Sleeman, Freek Van de Velde, and Harry Perridon, 217–244. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pfaff, Alexander. 2015. Adjectival and genitival modification in definite noun phrases in Icelandic – a tale of outsiders and inside jobs. PhD diss, University of Tromsø.
Piñón, Christopher. 2005. Comments on Morzycki & Katz. Ms., available at http://pinon.sdf-eu.org/covers/cmk.html.
Potts, Chris. 2005. The logic of conventional implicatures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Potts, Chris. 2007a. The centrality of expressive indices. Theoretical Linguistics 33: 255–268.
Potts, Chris. 2007b. Conventional implicatures, a distinguished class of meanings. In The Oxford handbook of linguistic interfaces, ed. Gillian Ramchand, and Charles Reiss, 475–501. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roehrs, Dorian. 2006. The morpho-syntax of the Germanic noun phrase: Determiners move into the determiner phrase. PhD diss, Indiana University.
Roehrs, Dorian. 2009. Demonstratives and definite articles as nominal auxiliaries. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Roehrs, Dorian, and Marit Julien. 2014. Adjectives in German and Norwegian. Differences in weak and strong inflection. In Adjectives in Germanic and Romance, eds. Petra Sleeman, Freek Van de Velde, and Harry Perridon, 245–261. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur. 1984. Af lýsingarorðsviðurlögum. Íslenskt mál 6: 57–80.
Schoorlemmer, Erik. 2009. Agreement, dominance and doubling: The morphosyntax of DP. PhD diss, Leiden University.
Schoorlemmer, Erik. 2012. Definiteness marking in Germanic: Morphological variations on the same syntactic theme. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 15 (2): 107–156.
Selkirk, E.O. 1977. Some remarks on noun phrase structure. In Formal syntax, ed. P.W. Culicover, T. Wasow, and A. Akmajian, 285–316. New York: Academic Press.
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 1993. The structure of the Icelandic NP. Studia Linguistica 47 (2): 177–197.
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 2006. The Icelandic noun phrase. Central traits. Arkiv för nordisk filologi 121: 193–236.
Sproat, Richar, and Chilin Shih. 1991. The cross-linguistic distribution of adjective ordering restrictions. In Interdisciplinary approaches to language. Essays in honor of S.-Y. Kuroda, eds. C. Georgopoulos and R. Ishihara, 565–593. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Sternefeld, Wolfgang. 2006. Syntax: Eine morphologisch motivierte generative Beschreibung des Deutschen, vol. 2. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
Svenonius, Peter. 2006. The emergence of axial parts. In Nordlyd, Tromsø working papers in language and linguistics: 33.1, special issue on adpositions, eds. Peter Svenonius and Marina Pantcheva, 49–77. Tromsø: University of Tromsø.
Svenonius, Peter. 2010. Spatial P in English. In Mapping spatial PPs: The cartography of syntactic structures, eds. Guglielmo Cinque and Luigi Rizzi, Vol. 6, 127–160. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2001. Íslensk setningafræði. Couse manuscript, University of Iceland. http://notendur.hi.is//~hoski/islensksetn.html.
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2005. Setningar. Handbók um setningafræði. Íslensk tunga III. Almenna bókfélagið: Reykjavík.
Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 2007. The syntax of Icelandic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Travis, Lisa, and Greg Lamontagne. 1992. The case filter and licensing of empty K. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 37 (2): 157–174.
Vangsnes, Øystein Alexander. 1999a. A configurational approach to interpretation. Ms., University of Bergen.
Vangsnes, Øystein Alexander. 1999b. ‘Identification’ and the role of morphology in the Scandinavian noun phrase. Ms., University of Bergen.
Vangsnes, Øystein Alexander. 2004. Rolling up the Scandinavian noun phrase. Ms., University of Tromsø.
Wiltschko, Martina. 2011. Descriptive relative clauses in Austro-Bavarian German. Ms., University of British Columbia.
Wiltschko, Martina. 2012. What does it take to host a (restrictive) relative clause? Working Papers of the Linguistics Circle 21(2): 100–145.
Wurmbrand, Susi. 2011. On agree and merge. Ms., University of Connecticut.
Wurmbrand, Susi. 2014. The merge condition: A syntactic approach to selection. In Minimalism and beyond: Radicalizing the interfaces, ed. Peter Kosta, Steven L. Franks, Teodora Radeva-Bork, and Lilia Schürcks, 139–177. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2012. There is only one way to agree. The Linguistic Review 29: 491–539.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pfaff, A. Adjectival inflection as diagnostic for structural position: inside and outside the Icelandic definiteness domain. J Comp German Linguistics 20, 283–322 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-017-9091-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-017-9091-3