Providing a formal account for the differences between predicative and attribu-tive adjecattribu-tives becomes especially important when considering arguments of ad-jectives. Recall that certain adjectives are known to have arguments of their own, as shown in (63):
(63) a. Liz is proud [PPof her husband].
b. Mary is afraid [PPof snakes].
In the examples above, the adjectivesproudandafraid take the bracketed PPs as their arguments. However, adjectives with PP complements are not allowed in an attributive position, as shown in (64):
(64) a. * Liz is a proud [PPof her husband] woman.
b. Liz is a proud woman.
c. Liz is a woman proud [PP of her husband].
As demonstrated by the data above, the appearance ofproudwith its PP com-plement is ungrammatical in the attributive position, as shown in (64a), despite the fact thatproudcan otherwise appear in this position, as shown in (64b). It is of course possible to have the adjective together with its PP argument in a postnominal position, as in (64c).
The same pattern can be observed in the case of inherently predicative-only adjectives, see (65):
(65) a. * Mary is an afraid [PPof snakes] girl.
b. Mary is a girl afraid [PPof snakes].
The ungrammaticality of (65a) is expected since the appearance of the adjective afraid in an attributive position would be ungrammatical anyway; again, the postnominal position leads to an acceptable construction, as in (65b). It seems that the ungrammaticality of (65a) is truly due to a problem with the particular position.
The explanation for this relies on the observation that PPs are invariably [–nom]
in English. This is straightforward as they cannot be attributes. Consider the ex-amples in (66):
(66) a. The ladder is [PPbehind the house].
b. * The [PPbehind the house] ladder is green.
c. The ladder [PPbehind the house] is green.
As can be seen, the PPbehind the housecan naturally appear in a predicative position but is excluded as the attribute of the nounladder, as shown in (66b).
However, it is grammatical for the PP to appear post-nominally, as in (66c).
One apparent counterexample is the case ofinside, which can appear as an attribute, see (67):
(67) a. The robbery was an inside job.
b. He was keen to get an inside look.
However,insidein these cases is an adjective and not a preposition. The avail-ability ofinsideas an adjective is demonstrated by the possibility of comparative and superlative forms, see (68):
(68) a. The trip gave us a more inside look at the area.
b. The guide promised to give us the most inside look at the area.
The question arises whether PPs could function as attributes at all. Interest-ingly, Hungarian postpositional phrases seem to allow this. Consider the exam-ples in (69):
(69) a. A the
létra ladder
[PPa the
ház house
mögött]
behind van.
is.
‘The ladder is behind the house.’
b. * A the
[PPház house
mögött]
behind létra ladder
zöld.
green
‘The ladder behind the house is green.’
In (69a), the PPa ház mögött ‘behind the house’, headed by the postposition mögött ‘behind’, is in a predicative position. By contrast, in (69b) it appears as an attribute within the nominal expression, and the result is ungrammatical. The only possibility for the PP to appear in an attributive position is when it is em-bedded in a phrase headed by the suffix -i:6
6Note that the suffix -iis attached to the entire PP, not only to the P head. As pointed out by Kenesei (1995: 163), the -isuffix derives an AP from the PP but the attachment of this suffix to a bare P head would be ungrammatical, as shown in (i):
(i) * a the
mögött-i behind-aff
létra ladder
‘the ladder behind’
(70) A
‘The ladder behind the house is green.’
I will not venture to examine the exact status of the suffix -ihere; suffice it to say that PPs in themselves cannot function as attributes in Hungarian either.
In any case, the point is that in English, there is no construction such as (70) available for PPs either, and therefore PPs in English are never attributive in nature.
The problem regarding the position of attributive APs taking PP complements is also indicated by German word order differences (cf. Haider 1985: 202), as was partly discussed in connection with Lechner (1999; 2004). Consider the examples in (71):
‘Liz is (really) proud of her husband.’
b. Lisa
‘Liz is (really) proud of her husband.’
c. Die
‘The woman proud of her husband is Liz.’
d. * Die
‘The woman proud of her husband is Liz.’
In (71a), the adjectivestolz‘proud’ takes a PP complement and may optionally be modified by an adverb such aswirklich‘really’. In (71b), the adjective and the PP complement appear in the reverse order. Recall that since the adverbwirklich can intervene between the two, it is obviously not the underlying order. This is crucial because while in predicative structures both orders converge, in the case of attributive adjectives only the inverse order, that is, where the PP has moved
The reason for this is that the P head must have a complement and cannot stand on its own.
If the -isuffix were attached to the P head directly, however, then the stringmögöttiwould be an adjective as such and should be allowed to appear as a modifier. Since this is not the case, it should be clear that the suffix -iis attached to the entire PP.
to the left, is grammatical, as in (71c), and the adjective taking its PP complement in its base position leads to ungrammaticality, as in (71d).
The reason for all this is that head-complement agreement between the adjec-tive and its PP complement rules out a feature mismatch between the head and the PP. This makes two important predictions. First, inherently [+nom] adjec-tives do not take PP complements. Second, adjecadjec-tives that otherwise allow both for [+nom] and [–nom] may take a PP complement, but if the QP functions as an attribute, the PP has to escape from this position prior to PF transfer. This is possible in German, where the PP can be moved to the left. Therefore, the lower copy (the complement of the adjective head) can be deleted. In English, by con-trast, there is no such movement available; as a consequence, PPs cannot be taken by attributive adjectives.
The fact that the behaviour of PP arguments is directly linked to the structure of degree expressions by way of applying the same features renders an optimal explanation for the interrelated phenomena considered here.