Types of syntactic N–A relations

Given the assumptions adopted earlier, we expect to find basically two types of syntactic relations between nouns and adjectives (for the time being, I leave aside internal Merge for reasons of focalization):

(a) There is a structure in which adjectives are recursively adjoined to nP – a functional phrase that perhaps may simply be called FP – as in (1); this is the case of non-predicative adjectives.

(b) There is a configuration obtained by the merging of adjectives as predicates of N within the c-command domain of the N head, as in (2) – this is the case of predicative adjectives.

I would also like to claim that the difference between languages in which adjectives may be both pre- and postnominal and languages like English, where adjectives occur only pronominally, is due to the lack of overt N-movement in languages of the latter type (a question I will not consider in this chapter). Similarly to what occurs with V to I movement, this type of movement might ultimately be related to the morphophonological content of the functional head. Still, this assumption is controversial since I am claiming that N to n – as opposed to V to v – is not universal.

Now let us consider the reasons for the two representations just proposed.