earlier practice (Jackendoff 1983; 1990a), notated modification as (8a). The tree notation for conceptual structure
might notate it as (8b), where the dotted line stands for a modification relation.
In basic predicate logic, modification is taken to be equivalent to predicate coordination; for example, a red car is
something that is a car and is red. However, many cases of modification cannot be so easily paraphrased. For one
thing, modification is possible with many combinations of modifier and host, in many different grammatical and
conceptual categories, for instance (9).
(9) a. run slowly [verb/Event, modified by adverb/Property]
b. a house on the hill [noun/Object, modified by PP/Place]
c. extremely fat [adjective/Property, modified by adverb/Degree]
d. somewhat slowly [adverb/Property, modified by quantifier/Degree]
e. high on the wall [PP/Place, modified by adjective/Property]Eachofthese requiresa differentadjustmentinpredicatelogicnotation;I willnotdwellon details. By contrast, they all
map uniformly into the conceptual structure notation. (10) showshigh on the wall, where the APhighmodifies the PP
andtheis taken to be a modifier contributing a conceptual feature of definiteness (as in Chapter 1).