Focused adjectives in DP

Let us turn to the cases of (epithetic) appositive adjectives like la blanca paloma ‘the white dove, or the case of contrastively stressed restrictive adjectives.

I propose that what we have here is raising of a predicative adjective from Spec of NP up to a Focus position above nP (see 2).

Bolinger wrote of examples like Los españoles que vinieron en opuesta direcció ‘the Spaniards who came in the opposite direction,’ where it is not expected for a restrictive adjective like opuesta to appear in such a position, that “when [somebody] says it, [he/she] de-accent[s] dirección” (1967: 91). I share this assessment and claim that focalization (coupled with previous de-stressing of other focused constituents) is deeply bound up with the marked meaning of certain prenominal adjectives that appear postnominally (when they are restrictive instead of nonrestrictive).¹

At this point, we may ask whether the configuration in (2) is also used to derive nominal predications with exclamative meaning, as in (3a), similar to English (3b):

The construction in (46b) has been analyzed as movement of a DP modifier to a Focus position at the edge of DP (Dikken 1998). At first sight it might be claimed that the Spec-FocP at the edge of nP in (2) could be the same position where adjectives are found in (3). Now, the ban against degree modifiers in constructions like the ones in (1) (∗la muy ESPANTOSA triste jornada), but not in cases like (3a) indicates that we are dealing with two different configurations. The focused A(P) in (3a) and (3b) could be the predicate of a small clause predicative DP structure (Trombetta 2002) and be, in fact, moved to a FocP at the edge of a PredP. In a similar vein, these cases of “extraposed” degree adjectives are analyzed by many authors as constituent fronting to the left periphery of the noun phrase:

Consequently, the facts in (3) show that there could be two Focus positions within DP, a lower one related to the nP domain, where qualitative adjectives move past nP, and a higher one related to degree evaluation. In (5) both possibilities are attested:

But there is still another set of facts that falls within the hypothesis that Merge of A at a FocP plays a significant role in accounting for the position and interpretation of adjectives within DP. Cinque (1994) identified a class of “predicative” adjective structures which appear after a series of adjectives, or after a PP complement of N, with a contrastive interpretation. Italian, Spanish, and French are similar in this regard. English has the same construction, with the specific condition that this position is restricted to “heavy” adjectives. Observe the series in (6). (6a–c) are taken from Laenzlinger (2005: 671) and the postposed adjective in (6d) is not supposed to be a contrastive focus).

The usual analysis for this construction (see Bernstein 1991 or Campos and Stavrou 2003) is the Cinquean one, that is, it is assumed that a predicative projection (a PredP to the right of a postnominal adjective) hosts the contrastively marked adjectives in (6). We can extend this analysis to Spanish (6c), which will simply add another structural position to the one already proposed. However, I would like to highlight two distinctive properties of the phrases in (6a–c). One is the fact that, like (1), they receive a contrastive interpretation. The other is that this position is usually restricted to evaluative gradable adjectives generally carrying subjective meaning.

I agree, then, with Laenzlinger (along the lines of Bernstein 2001) in that there is a specific predicative/focus projection in a very high position within the noun phrase. However, I differ from Laenzlinger in not assuming the piedpiping/ snowballing FPAgr(NP) movement within NP. Given my analysis, a FocP in the higher part of the DP (recall 5) could host the contrastive predicates in (6). The process yielding this result is an external Merge that strands an XP constituent on the right of DP. As a result, we have, as usual, two types of focus: one resulting from internal Merge, and another coming from external Merge.

To summarize, the three derivations for adjectives modifying N in DP appear to be just those which are possible according to general principles of constituent structure formation, and they adapt straightforwardly to interface conditions. They also adapt correctly to the types of adjective meanings.

1 Scott (2002) also claims that certain adjectives may be preposed into some sort of Focus phrase within DP.