Eckhard Bick - VISL

Ignoring semantic incompatibilities (*pouco poucos, *menos poucos), the intensifier
pre-adject function is so basic to all the above groups, that it can be used to define a
common umbrella-group for all of them on formal grounds. Better still, certain
intensifier adject words (nada, algo) 143 never appear as prenominals (@>N), so the
criterion cannot only be used to define adjp’s, advp’s and detp’s as one group category,
but also to distinguish it from the np category. I will call the new group type for
adpositional group (ap), since its prototypical functional distribution covers “adposed”
elements, adjects, adjuncts and the attributive function of predicative. Prototypical
heads and substitution word classes are ad-words, i.e. adjectives and adverbs, which
also explains the CG-icons for the groups adject dependents, @>A and @AA
field allows only adverbs and certain quantifier pronouns or “pronominal np’s” (‘algo’,
‘um tanto’), and the @A< field allows only prepositional groups and – in the special
comparative structures – comparandum ACL’s and FS’s. The head field can be defined
negatively, as the position that has or allows adject intensifiers (nada, algo) to its left.
Note that it is the co-occurrence or grammaticality of certain types of pre-adjects
that defines np’s and ap’s, not the heads word class. Thus, articles remain @>N even
with adjective or pronoun heads, building np’s, and intensifier adjects remain @>A
even with noun heads, building ap’s. In the examples, np-heads are in bold face, apheads
are in italics.
(o azul (tão claro ) do céu)
@>N ADJ @>A @N< @N<
(o bem) e (o mal)
@>N ADV @CO @>N ADV
(o pouco (que sobra))
@>N DET @N<
(um comunista (muito ateista ))
@>N N @>A N @N<
In the flat dependency notation used here, a chain of prenominals (@>N) is regarded as
sisters pointing to an np-head to the right of the whole chain, rather than to each other.
143 But not muito or pouco, which both can appear preonominally.
- 227 -