Predicative/attributive - position and function

Moon-Ryul Jung moon at saint.soongsil.ac.kr
Mon Jan 22 09:53:29 EST 2001


Dear Iver, 
thanks for your insightful comments. Let me ask some questions.

[Iver]
> How could the default
> order DENDRON KALON be made specific by use of the article? The obvious thing to
> do is to repeat the article before the adjective to indicate that in this case
> the adjective is part of the NP, so we get
> TO DENDRON TO KALON for "the good tree".
>

[Moon]
How does repeating the article before the adjective indicate
that the adjective is part of the NP?

Moon
Moon-Ryul Jung
Associate Professor
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea

> In this analysis there is no need to talk about two NPs in apposition. In fact,
> that kind of analysis bears the risk of wrong implications. If I say "the tree,
> the good one" in English there is some emphasis on the good tree in contrast to
> a bad tree. But this kind of emphasis is the opposite of what happens in Greek.
> The GOOD tree in Greek would be TO KALON DENDRON, and not TO DENDRON TO KALON.
> Furthermore, a construction like "the tree, the good one" is highly unnatural in
> English. And to posit so many NPs in apposition in Greek strikes me as being
> highly unnatural and therefore an inadequate analysis. (I am not denying the
> existence of appositional NPs in Greek, but I am uncomfortable with the
> hypothesis that the constructions we are talking about here involve apposition.)
> 
> All for now,
> 
> Iver Larsen
> Kolding, Denmark
> alice-iver_larsen at wycliffe.org



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