On pre-nominal classifying adjectives in Polish 233
As Bouchard (1998, 2002 ) claims, the contrast between the position of adjectival mod-
ifiers in French and English follows from a difference in the way semantic Number is
encoded in nominal expressions in both languages. In French semantic Num(ber) is
encoded on the Det(erminer) while in English it is encoded on the N(oun).^9
An English noun forms a complex expression [N(oun)+Num(ber)], thus the post-
nominal adjective can target only the whole [N+Num] complex, as is the case of the
stage-level adjective in (24d). In order to modify the N alone, the adjective must be
placed pre-nominally, since this follows from the Elsewhere application^10 of the Cen-
tral Linearization Parameter (CLP). When put in a position in disagreement with the
CLP, the adjective modifies a part of the [N+Num] complex, which corresponds either
to the whole network of N, as in the case of intersective adjectives, or to a subpart of N
(as in the case of subsective or intensional adjectives).
In French, a post-head adjective modifies the N as a whole (all its subcompo-
nents). A pre-head adjective modifies a subpart of N, which follows from the Else-
where application of CLP. As illustrated in (25c) and (25d) above, this is the case of
French intensional and subsective adjectives.
Since Bouchard (2002) developed his theory specifically to account for the posi-
tion and semantic reading of French adjectives, one could wonder whether it is appro-
priate for investigating adjectives in Slavonic languages, such as Polish. This question
will be dealt with in the next section.
- Bouchard’s representational theory applied to adjectival modification
in Polish (CPT 2011a,b)
Trugman (2010, 2011 ) shows how Bouchard’s approach can be employed to account
for the adjectival modification in Russian and emphasizes the distinction between
- Deprez (2006: 67) discusses the role of semantic Number in the process of Individuation,
defined as “an operation that maps a nominal concept to the individual objects that materi-
alize it”, on the basis of data from Haitian Creole. Halmøy (2010) adopts Bouchard’s frame-
work to investigate semantic Number assignment in Norwegian nouns. - The term “Elsewhere application” in Bouchard (2002) should be kept distinct from the
Elsewhere Principle (known also as the Subset Principle), which is proposed by Kiparsky
(1973) and is adopted by proponents of Distributed Morphology. Kiparsky’s Elsewhere Prin-
ciple regulates competition between phonological rules, or between morphological variants.
It predicts that the most general (i.e. the most productive) form is used in the “Elsewhere
manner”, thus it should be employed only when a specific form (e.g. an irregular plural) is not
available. In Bouchard (2002), the principle of “Elsewhere application” (renamed as the Prin-
ciple of Other Value in Bouchard 2009) links the usage of an unexpected and non-dominant
adj-N or N-adj order with the occurrence of a distinct semantic interpretation.