On pre-nominal classifying adjectives in Polish 229
(16) a. nocny dyżur
night.adj duty
‘night-call duty’
b. dyżur nocny
duty night.adj
‘night-call duty’
(17) a. ciężarowy samochód
cargo.adj car
‘a truck’
b. samochód ciężarowy
car cargo.adj
‘a truck’
(18) a. pośpieszny pociąg
fast train
‘a fast train’
b. pociąg pośpieszny
train fast
‘a fast train (slower than an express train)’
While the contrast in the meaning of N+A and A+N combinations is evident and easy
to state in the case of examples quoted as (4)–(6), such as aktor komiczny ‘a come-
dian’– komiczny aktor ‘an amusing actor’, the pairs of noun phrases in (16)–(18) can be
regarded as roughly synonymous.^6
Thus, given that pre-nominal adjectives can also be classifying ones (and do
not always need to be QAs), a purely derivational approach would be insufficient to
account for them. Therefore, a representational model as an alternative to the theory
presented by Rutkowski & Progovac (2005), or Rutkowski (2007, 2012 ) is employed
here (see CPT 2011a, b). It is based on the approach put forward by Bouchard (1998,
2002 , 2009 ), which will be presented briefly in the next section.
- Bouchard’s (2002) representational theory
Bouchard (2002) outlines a representational approach to adjectival modification in
order to account for the distribution and interpretation of French adjectives and to
contrast them with the position of adjectives in English. As was observed already by
- This is the view expressed, among others, by Willim (2001) and CPT (2011a). It will be
shown in the next sections, that there is some subtle contrast in the semantic interpretation of
the two distinct word orders within each pair (such as those in (16)–(18)).