The Adjective (with Alexandra Cornilescu)

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© John bEnJAmins PublishinG comPAny

Chapter 7

The adjective

Alexandra Cornilescu & Ion Giurgea (§§1–4), Ion Giurgea (§5)

1. Introduction. The adjective compared to the other lexical categories

Adjectives are characterized by the following distributional and morphological proper-ties: (i) they can function as noun modifiers (adjuncts: optional constituents of the NP); (ii) they are inflected for gender, number and case (with very few exceptions), receiving a value for these features by agreement with the head noun; (iii) beside the adnominal use, some of them are also allowed in predicative positions, in which case they agree with the subject; (iv) adjectives may combine with degree words such as mai ‘more’, foarte ‘very’. This property, which distinguishes adjectives from nouns and verbs, is also found with adverbs and some prepositions.

The inflections of adjectives are shared by nouns and determiners. Due to this morphological similarity between adjectives and nouns in languages such as Greek, Latin and Romance (including Romanian), adjectives have been included among the nominal categories in traditional grammars (the term adjective comes from the Latin nomen adiectiuum ‘added name (noun) (i.e. noun added to another one)’, itself a translation of the Greek ónoma epítheton). The inflection of adjectives is presented in a general chapter on nominal inflection (Chapter 16).

In the generative tradition, adjectives used to be described as [+N +V]. They share with nouns variation for gender, number, case; also, like verbs, they have argument struc-ture and assign θ-roles. More recently, it has been proposed that adjectives had better be negatively defined as non-nouns and non-verbs. In a binary system of categorial features using [± N] and [± V], adjectives would thus be defined as [–N, –V]. This characteriza-tion is supported by the comparison with nouns and verbs, which we will develop in the rest of this section. Adjectives differ from both nouns and verbs in that they have a poorer functional structure: they can be governed neither by nominal functional categories, in particular by determiners (presumably because they do not introduce identifying proper-ties, see §1.1) nor by verbal functional categories such as Tense, Mood and Aspect.

On the other hand, adjectives do have one positive property, the ability to take degrees of comparison, which is shared with adverbs and some prepositions, but is not found with nouns and verbs.

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356 Alexandra Cornilescu & Ion Giurgea (§§1–4), Ion Giurgea (§5)

1.1 Adjectives and nouns. The nominalization of adjectives

Unlike nouns, adjectives cannot combine with determiners in order to yield referential or quantificational expressions:

(1) a. Fiecare /Oricare câine latră. every any dog barks ‘Every/any dog barks’ b. *Fiecare/ *Oricare [înalt]AP este acceptat în echipă. every any tall is accepted in team

(2) a. Profesorul / Un profesor / Fiecare profesor va sosi diseară. professor-the a professor every professor will arrive tonight b. *Minunatul / *Un minunat va sosi diseară. wonderful-the a wonderful will arrive tonight

(3) a. Vom coopta nişte persoane bune la engleză. will.1pl co-opt some persons good.fpl at English ‘We’ll co-opt some people (who are) good at English.’ b. *Vom coopta nişte bune la engleză. will.1pl co-opt some good.fpl at English

The possibility to take determiners, yielding referential and quantificational expressions, is a distinctive property of nouns which has been correlated to a semantic property of the concepts denoted by nouns, that of having criteria of identity, whereby they can serve as standards of sameness. Thus, only nouns have a component of meaning that makes it legitimate to ask whether some X ‘is the same N as Y’. Adjectives and verbs are uniformly excluded in this frame:

(4) a. Acesta este acelaşi om cu cel pe care l-ai this is same.msg man with the.msg dom which him-have.2sg văzut ieri. seen yesterday ‘This is the same man as you saw yesterday.’ b. Francezii vor să aibă aceleaşi libertăţi ca cele Frenchmen-the want subj have.3 same.fpl freedom.fpl as the.fpl pe care le au americanii. dom which cl.acc have.3pl Americans-the ‘The French want to have the same rights as the Americans have.’

(5) *Acela este acelaşi lung ca acesta. that is same long as this

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Chapter 7. The adjective 357

The criteria of identity associated with nouns allow them to be counted, since an essential pre-condition for counting is the ability to distinguish which things are the same and which are different. Since nouns support counting, many languages have developed num-ber morphology. Romanian belongs to the languages where number only appears as an interpretable features on nominal elements. Number on adjectives is not interpreted, but is the result of agreement.

Adjectives can appear after determiners either if they are nominalized or if the noun is empty (in which case it is normally interpreted by ellipsis, see Chapter 3, Section 3). In Romanian, nominalized adjectives cannot be distinguished from true adjectives by their form because of the identity between nominal and adjectival endings. There is however a possibility to formally distinguish between a nominalized adjective and an adjective with an empty noun: some determiners, such as the definite and indefinite article, have special forms when they precede an empty N (see Chapter 3 §3): cel and unul. Thus, for adjec-tives which are normally postnominal (i.e. the great majority of Romanian adjectives), we can tell whether the determiner takes an empty N or it is the adjective itself which is nominalized:

(6) a. A sosit un tânăr / tânărul. : nominalized adjective has arrive a young young-the ‘A/The young man has arrived.’ b. A sosit unul [Ne] tânăr / cel [Ne] tânăr. : empty N + adjective has arrive one.augm young the young ‘A/The young one has come.’

The idea that adjectives combining with the enclitic definite article and the short indefinite article un are nominalized is supported by the fact that in this environment they lose some typical adjectival properties, first of all the ability to take degree words:

(7) a. *foarte tinerii very young-the.mpl b. *un mai tânăr a more young

Compare the corresponding examples with an empty N: since here the adjective is not nominalized, but modifies an [Ne] inside an NP which is the complement of the deter-miner, the examples are acceptable:

(8) a. cei foarte tineri the.mpl very young.mpl ‘the very young (ones)’ b. unul mai tânăr one.msg-augm more young.msg ‘a younger one’

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Another difference, found with some nominalized adjectives, is the loss of their subcatego-rization frame. ((9a) shows that gelos in the adnominal use may take a pe-PP complement; b–c show the same use, but with an empty N; d–e show that the nominalized adjective cannot take the PP complement):

(9) a. un om gelos pe fericirea altuia a man jealous on happiness-the another.gen ‘a person jealous of somebody else’s happiness’ b. unul gelos pe fericirea altuia one.msg.augm jealous on happiness-the another.gen ‘one/somebody jealous of somebody else’s happiness’ c. cel gelos pe fericirea altuia the jealous on happiness-the another.gen ‘the one jealous of somebody else’s happiness’ d. gelosul (*pe fericirea altuia) jealous-the on happiness-the another.gen e. un gelos (*pe fericirea altuia) a jealous on happiness-the another.gen

The nominalization of adjectives is a very widespread phenomenon. It is productive with adjectives typically applied to humans – e.g. tânăr ‘young’, bătrân ‘old’, deştept ‘intel-ligent’, gelos ‘jealous’ etc. This can be explained by the fact that nominal concepts are identifying concepts: since the concept human is an identifying concept, the [+human] feature (implication) of these adjectives provides the identifying concept needed for the nominal use.

Other nominalized adjectives express names of properties – e.g. frumosul ‘the beau-tiful’, meaning ‘beauty’, roşul ‘the red’ meaning the color. The form used in this case, the masculine singular, probably represents a default form lacking gender. Evidence in favor of lack of gender comes from bun ‘good’, which is the only adjective that has a spe-cial genderless form, bine, used when qualifying propositional contents (see Chapter 3 Section 8). The fact that bine is a genderless form is suggested by examples (10b–c), which show that when the subject does not have gender, being a clause or a clausal pro-form (the ‘neuter demonstrative’ asta), the adjective meaning ‘good’ must take the form bine. In the nominalized use with the meaning ‘the good’, it is this genderless form (bine) which is used (see (11)).

(10) a. Acest lucru e bun. this.msg thing(neut) is good.msg ‘This thing is good.’ b. Asta e bine. this is bine ‘This is good.’

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c. E bine să întrebi întâi. is bine subj ask.2sg first ‘It’s good to ask first.’

(11) Nu distinge binele şi răul. not distinguishes bine-the and evil-the ‘He can’t tell right from wrong.’

Besides lack of gender, the nominalized adjectives expressing names of properties normally also lack number:

i. a. *frumosurile beautiful.pl-the b. ??aceste roşuri these red.pl

Some speakers allow the plural with names of colours, when used for varieties of the same colour: aceste galbenuri ‘these yellow.pl’, meaning ‘these shades of yellow’.

Besides these general patterns, nominalized adjectives can have particular meanings, resulting from the conventionalized ellipsis of a noun, which also explains the gender – e.g. naţionala ‘national-the.fsg’ = echipa naţională ‘team(f)-the national’ “the national team”, engleza ‘english-the.fsg’ = limba engleză ‘language(f)-the English’ “the English language” etc.

Although this is not their normal use, nouns can also function as NP-modifiers, resembling adjectives (see (12), (13b) and Chapter 14 §3.3). In this use, they differ from adjectives in that they do not show gender agreement – gender is an inherent property of nouns – and cannot appear in prenominal position (in (13b) the gender agreement on the determiner shows which noun is the head of the NP):

(12) a. oraş reşedinţă de judeţ city(n) residence(f) of county b. femeie medic woman(f) doctor(m)

(13) a. această [(frumoasă) femeie (frumoasă)] this.fsg beautiful.fsg woman(f) beautiful.fsg b. această [(*medic) femeie (medic)] this.fsg doctor(m) woman(f) doctor(m)

The nominal modifier normally does not take plural marking. Sometimes, plural marking is completely excluded:

i. o geantă diplomat a bag diplomat ii. genţile diplomat / *diplomaţi bags-the diplomat / diplomats

In such cases, we are probably dealing with an instance of compounding. This type of compounding is gaining ground in contemporary Romanian.

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1.2 Adjectives and verbs

Verbs and adjectives are predicative categories endowed with argument structure. Verbs differ from adjectives by the functional categories they combine with and the licensing of arguments correlated to these functional categories. Thus, verbs have the categories of Mood, Tense and Aspect, which allow them to occur as the main predicate of a sentence. Adjectives lack these categories and therefore they may occur as main predicates of a sentence only if they combine with a verbal support, the copula (the verb a fi ‘to be’). The category of Tense licenses nominative case on the external argument of a predicate. Transitive verbs in the active Voice license their internal argument as accusative. Since they lack these functional categories (Tense and Voice), adjectives can only mark their internal arguments by subcategorized prepositions or inherent cases (as for the external argument, see §1.2.1):

(14) a. demn de laudă worthy of praise b. drag nouă dear us.dat

1.2.1 The external argument of adjectivesThe external argument of adjectives is not case-licensed in the extended projection of the adjective (i.e., by a functional category associated to adjectives, as is Tense for verbs). As can be seen in the various examples in (15), it can be introduced as a subject of a small clause (i.e. a subject-predicate construction without a copular verb), being assigned different cases depending on the context: the nominative is assigned by the Tense of the copula (see (15a)) (the copula is analyzed as taking a small clause as a complement, whose subject raises to the specifier of the copula), the accusative is assigned by the verb of the main clause (the so-called ECM construction) (see (15b)). In (15c–d) the subject is a null pronominal PRO coreferential with an argument of the clause in which the small clause is embedded.

(15) a. Femeia era tânără. (predicative, after copula) woman-the was young.fsg ‘The woman was young.’ b. El o considera încă tânără. (predicate of object small clause) he her considered still young.fsg ‘He considered her still young.’ c. Încă tânăr, George nu obosea deloc. (predicate of adjunct still young.msg George not got-tired at-all small clause) ‘Still young. George didn’t get tired at all.’ d. L-am cunoscut tânăr. him-have.1 known young.msg ‘I’ve known him young.’

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As to the precise position of the subject of small clauses, there are two current formalizations: specifier of AP or specifier of a functional category Pred. Adopting the second alternative, the structural representations of the Examples (15) are the following (for details, see Volume II, chapter on Small Clauses):

(15) a. [femeiai era [PredP ti [Pred [AP tânără]]]]] b. [el oi considera (ti) [PredP ti [Pred [AP tânără]]]] c. [TP[PredP PROi [(încă) Pred [AP tânăr]]][TP Georgei…]] d. [li-am cunoscut proi [PredP PROi [Pred [AP tânăr]]]

Even when used as an adjunct, a small clause based on an adjective requires a case licensor for an overt subject. Thus, the insertion of the copula (in the Gerund form) is needed in (16a) in order to case-license the subject. In (16b), it is not necessary to insert the copula, since the preposition cu ‘with’, which introduces the small clause, can case-license the sub-ject (as accusative):

(16) a. Copilul *(fiind) bolnav, am plecat mai târziu. child-the being sick have.1 left more late ‘The child being sick, we left later.’ b. Se mai ceartă pentru fleacuri, cu copilul bolnav! refl still fight.3 for trifles with child-the sick ‘They are still fighting over nothing, with their child sick!’

In the adnominal use, adjectives that can have a predicative use (called ‘intersective’) introduce a property that is conjoined with the property denoted by the NP (see §2 for details); the term “external argument” is sometimes used for the open (unsaturated) position of the adjective and of the noun. As these open positions are saturated by the same variable, which is bound by the determiner (Det (λx.(N(x) and A(x))), an identification relation is assumed to hold between the external argument of the adjective and the external argument of the noun.

1.2.2 Semantic correlates of the adjective/verb distinction. The aspectual properties of adjectives

The most obvious semantic distinction between verbs and adjectives is that verbs may express dynamic predicates (processes, accomplishments, achievements), while primary (underived) adjectives can only express states. Thus, in order to refer to joy, one may use the adjective vesel ‘cheerful’ to refer to the state, but for the process of getting into this state, one must use a verbal construction – either an inchoative verb derived from the adjective, a se înveseli ‘to cheer up’, or the verb become: a deveni/se face vesel ‘to become/get cheerful’. States include dispositions, so that adjectives can also denote dispositional properties which are manifested in dynamic events – for instance abil ‘skillful’, iute ‘fast’. Many adjectives derived from dynamic verbs have a dispositional meaning – e.g. nori aducători de ploaie ‘clouds(m) bring-adj.mpl of rain’ “clouds which can/will probably bring rain”.

Because causation implies a dynamic event, the argument structure of adjectives lacks a Causer or Agent.

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On the other hand, there is an aspectual distinction that is manifest even in adjec-tives: the distinction between stage-level and individual-level predicates. Stage-level predicates are temporary predicates, which apply to an individual only in a circum-scribed situation (a stage of its existence), while individual-level predicates do not make reference to any situation, being permanent properties or extending over very long periods in an individual’s life-span. For adjectives, the syntactic manifestation of this distinction is illustrated in contrasts such as (17)–(18): individual-level predicates can-not occur in perceptual reports (see (17a)) or temporal clauses introduced by when, whenever (see (18)).

(17) a. #L-am văzut pe băiat englez. (unless refering to cl.acc-have.1 seen dom boy English a part in a play, etc.) b. L-am văzut pe băiat furios. cl.acc-have.1 seen dom boy angry ‘I saw the boy angry.’

(18) a. {Când / Oridecâteori} este {nervos / *inteligent / *ruşinos} Ion se when whenever is mad intelligent shy Ion refl comportă ciudat. behaves oddly ‘When(ever) he is angry/intelligent/shy, Ion behaves oddly.’ b. Oridecâteori este *înaltă/ *modernă/ curată/ vopsită proaspăt whenever is tall modern clean painted freshly clădirea arată foarte bine. building-the looks very good ‘Whenever it is tall/modern/clean/recently painted, the buiding looks very

good.’

1.2.3 Verbal forms with adjectival distribution. Participles vs. adjectives.Participles, at least in some of their uses, have an adjectival distribution (this holds for the Romanian passive participle, illustrated in (19); the same form is used as a ‘past participle’ in perfective compound tenses):

(19) a. scrisorile citite cu voce tare (adnominal, agreeing letters(f)-the read.fpl with voice loud with the head noun) ‘letters read out loud’ b. Scrisorile erau citite cu letters(f)-the were read.fpl with voce tare. (predicative, postcopular position, voice loud agreeing with the subject)

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c. O voi face iubită her will.1sg make loved.fsg de toţi. (predicate of object small clause, agreeing by all with the subject of the small clause) ‘I will make her loved by everyone.’ d. Ascultată cu atenţie, melodia devenea listened.fsg with attention melody(f)-the became mai interesantă. (predicate of adjunct small clause) more interesting ‘Listened carefully, the song became more interesting.’ e. El a venit însoţit de prieteni. (predicate of adjunct he has come accompanied.msg by friends small clause) ‘He came accompanied by friends.’ f. Munca era făcută în grabă. work(f)-the was done.fsg in hurry ‘The work was being done in a hurry/had been done in a hurry.’

The gerund is only exceptionally used as an active participle (see Chapter 9 §3.5).

Besides their distribution, passive participles also resemble adjectives morphologically – they have the same number-gender-case inflections as adjectives, subject to the same agreement rules.

Participles are therefore considered a dual/mixed category in traditional grammar, both ver-bal and nominal/adjectival, whence their name: Latin participium is derived from particeps “partaking”, translating the Greek metochē.

In spite of these adjectival properties, the participles illustrated in (19) are standardly ana-lyzed as verbal rather than adjectival projections. Participles are analyzed as verbal when they have an eventive interpretation (as opposed to stative/resultative; this interpretation is reflected in the use of cu voce tare in (19a–b), cu atenţie in (19d)) and when they license agent-PPs (see (19c and e)). The main reason for analyzing participles as verbal is the full productivity of these forms, which can be built on all active verbs.

Nevertheless, passive participles can also appear in configurations where they have even fewer verbal properties, in which case they are considered to be adjectivized. Adjectiv-ized participles cannot be fewer distinguished from verbal ones. The distinction is based on a number of syntactic tests. Thus, only adjectives allow degrees of comparison (such as mai…decât ‘more…than’, foarte ‘very’). This diagnostic shows that adjectivized participles have only the stative readings – they are either built on stative verbs or have a resultative reading, if they are built on dynamic verbs (therefore, resultative past participles are also known as adjectival participles). Thus, (20a) has two readings: ‘the boy is being beaten now’ (the eventive/dynamic verbal reading) and ‘the boy has been beaten (still bears/suffers the

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effects of the beating)’. In (20b), where the participle is modified by the degree word mai ‘more’, only the second reading survives. This example cannot mean ‘the boy is being beaten harder’. No such contrast can be seen in (21), where the verb is stative.

(20) a. Băiatul e bătut. boy-the is beaten ‘The boy is beaten.’ b. Băiatul e mai bătut. boy-the is more beaten ‘The boy is more (severely) beaten.’

(21) a. Sonata asta e mai cunoscută. sonata-the this is more known ‘This sonata is better known.’ b. Maria e foarte iubită. Maria is very loved ‘Maria is very loved.’

Secondly, adjectival participles do not allow the agent PP headed by de către ‘by’ (lit. ‘of towards’). This test shows that participles derived from stative verbs with an experiencer subject can be verbal (see iubit in (22a–a′)), but participles derived from non-agentive uses of experiencer object verbs are adjectival (see (22b–b′)):

(22) a. Toţi o iubesc pe Maria. all.mpl cl.acc love.3pl dom Maria ‘All love Maria.’ a′. Maria e iubită de către toți. Maria is loved of towards all.mpl ‘Maria is loved by everybody.’ b. Muzica o încântă pe Maria. music-the cl.acc charms dom Maria ‘Music charms Maria.’ b′. Maria e încântată de (*către) Ion. Maria is charmed of towards Ion ‘Maria is delighted with Ion.’

With dynamic verbs, a further test which distinguishes resultative from eventive partici-ples is the possibility to appear as predicates after rămâne ‘remain’; participles which occur after rămâne exclude the agent PP, which confirms the adjectival status of these participles:

(23) a. Uşa a rămas deschisă (*de către Ion). (resultative) door-the has remained opened of towards Ion ‘The door remained opened (*by Ion).’

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b. Uşa {a fost / *a rămas} deschisă de (eventive) door-the has been has remained opened of către Ion. towards Ion

1.3 Adjectives and adverbs

By the property of functioning as modifiers and by allowing degrees of comparison adjectives resemble adverbs. The two categories differ by the type of constituent they modify – adjectives are modifiers in nominal projections, adverbs are modifiers in verbal or adjectival projec-tions. Correlatively, adverbs lack nominal features (gender, number, case). Furthermore, unlike adjectives, adverbs cannot appear in copular configurations and small clauses.

However, because many properties can apply both to entities (individuals) and events, there is a large number of lexical bases (roots) that build both adjectives and adverbs. In some languages, a special morphology is used to derive adverbs from adjectives (French -ment, English -ly). In Romanian, like in e.g. German, no systematic morphol-ogy distinguishes adverbs from adjectives. In their adverbial form, adjectives appear in an unmarked form, the masculine singular:

(24) a. om frumos / urât / prost / rău human-being(m) beautiful ugly stupid bad b. El scrie frumos / urât /prost /rău. he writes beautiful ugly stupid bad ‘He writes beautifully/uglily/stupidly/badly.’

As we have seen in 1.1 above (see (10)), the adjective bun ‘good’ has a distinct unmarked form bine. Expectedly, it is bine which is used as an adverb meaning ‘well’.

For a minority of adjectives, the adverbial form is distinct: those adjectives that end in the suffix -esc obligatorily add an -e, yielding -eşte by a regular phonetic alternation:

(25) a. accent moldovenesc accent Moldavian b. vorbeşte moldoveneşte speaks Moldavian-eşte

The string -eşte has been reanalyzed as an adverbial suffix, which can attach to nouns:

(26) a. E american şi vorbeşte americăneşte. is American(m) and speaks American-eşte ‘He is American and speaks with an American accent.’ b. Se poartă prieteneşte. refl behaves friend-eşte ‘(S)he behaves friendly.’

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The adverbial suffix -mente, a modern borrowing, is used with very few adjectives (e.g. necesarmente ‘necessarily’, absolutamente ‘absolutely’; for the latter, the unmarked form absolut can also be used adverbially).

Like adjectives, adverbs allow degrees of comparison:

(27) a. Ion aleargă repede/ mai repede/ mai puţin repede/ foarte Ion runs fast more fast more little fast very repede/ cel mai repede. fast the more fast ‘Ion runs fast/faster/less fast/very fast/the fastest.’ b. copil(ul) deştept/ mai deştept/ mai puţin deştept/ foarte child(the) smart more smart more little smart very deştept/ cel mai deştept smart the more smart ‘(a/the) smart/smarter/less smart/very smart/the smartest child’

Besides adjectives and adverbs, degree constructions are also found with some spatial PPs which function as adverbs (see (i)) and PPs with an idiomatic meaning corresponding to a quality adjective (see (ii)).

i. e mai în faţă / cel mai în faţă is more in front the more in front ii. Asta e mai fără perdea. this is more without curtain ‘This is more indecent.’

2. Classes of adjectives

The adjective is not a unitary category from either a semantic or a syntactic point of view. Because the distributional classes of adjectives are correlated with their semantics, we will describe the major classes of adjectives considering their semantics and their distribution at the same time.

2.1 Distributional classes

i. Adnominal and predicative positionsAdjectives can appear either adnominally or in predicative positions (for predicative posi-tions, see §1.2.1 above). No adjective seems to be restricted to the predicative position, but some adjectives are restricted to the adnominal position. Most adjectives allow both distributions:

a. both adnominal and predicative: (28) a. Acest proiect este frumos. this project is beautiful

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b. un proiect frumos / un frumos proiect a project beautiful a beautiful project

b. only adnominal: (29) a. *Acest proiect este fost. this project is former b. un fost proiect a former project

ii. Classes of adnominal adjectives:

a. only postnominal: (30) un profesor universitar / *un universitar professor a professor academic a academic professor

b. only prenominal: (31) un fost profesor / *un profesor fost a former professor a professor former

c. allowing both orders: (32) un amplu proiect / un proiect amplu an extended project a project extended

The position before or after the noun almost always correlates with semantic differences (see Section 3.1 below).

iii. Gradability

Adjectives allow degree words or not depending on whether they have scalar semantic properties or not:

(33) a. o casă mai mare / foarte mare a house more big very big b. *o hotărâre mai guvernamentală / foarte guvernamentală a decision more governmental very governmental

Gradable adjectives and the degree constructions they allow will be examined in Section 4.

2.2 Intersective and non-intersective adjectives

In this section we establish certain correlations between the distribution described above and the semantics of adjectives.

Why is it that some adjectives can appear in predicative positions, and others are restricted to the adnominal position?

Constituents which appear in predicative positions denote, by definition, properties of entities: they must combine with an entity-denoting expression, the subject, to yield a complete proposition – in technical terms, they denote functions from entities (type ⟨e⟩) to propositions (or truth values, type ⟨t⟩). This denotational type is notated ⟨e, t⟩.

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We can thus conclude that when they appear in predicative positions, adjectives, more precisely adjectival phrases – APs – denote properties of entities:

(34) Cuţitul este roşu knife-the is red roşu = λx.red (x): the property of being red Cuţitul este roşu = roşu(cuţitul) = (λx.red(x)) (the knife) = red(the knife)

These adjectives keep this semantics when they appear in adnominal positions:

(35) a. Am folosit un cuţit roşu. have.1 used a knife red ‘I used a red knife’ b. Pe masă e un cuţit roşu. on table is a knife red ‘There is a red knife on the table’

The meaning of these examples can be paraphrased by (36), where the properties expressed by the adnominal adjective and the noun are independently predicated of the referent, and related by conjunction:

(36) a. Am folosit ceva care e cuţit şi este roşu. have.1 used something which is knife and is red ‘I used something that is a knife and is red.’ b. Pe masă e ceva care e cuţit şi care e roşu on table is something which is knife and which is red ‘On the table there is something that is a knife and is red.’

In other words, for adjectives denoting properties of entities, the meaning of [[NP][AP]] is a complex property formed by relating the two properties by conjunction. Writing the two properties in lambda-terms, we have:

(37) If the denotation of [NP] is λx.N(x) and the denotation of [AP] is λx.A(x), the denotation of [NP][AP] is λx.(N(x) ∧ A(x))

Properties are currently represented, in set-theoretical terms, as sets of objects, composed of all and only the objects which have that property – thus, cuţit ‘knife’ denotes the set of knives, and roşu ‘red’ the set of red objects. Adopting this representation, the complex property formed by conjoining two properties is the intersection of the two sets denoted by the two properties:

(38)

Knife

Red

Red knife

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In sum, intersective adjectives denote properties of entities, also called first order prop-erties, as opposed to properties of properties, called second order properties. Intersective adjectives can occupy both in adnominal and predicative positions.

Adnominal-only adjectives are non-intersective. Thus, the inference in (39) is not valid, unlike the inference from (35) to (36):

(39) El e un fost profesor |≠ El e fost şi el e profesor ‘He is a former professor’ |≠ ‘He is former and he is a professor’

Generally speaking, an adjective is non-intersective if (N+A)(x) is not paraphrasable by (N(x) ∧ A(x)).

Non-intersective adjectives denote properties that apply to other properties (rather than to entities. Thus, fost ‘former’ applies to the property profesor ‘professor, teacher’, and yields the complex property ‘λx. there is a previous time t so that x was a professor at t’. Fost thus denotes a function notated ⟨⟨e, t⟩, ⟨e, t⟩⟩, which says that fost applies to a property of entities (type ⟨e, t⟩) and yields a property of entities (type ⟨e, t⟩).

Since they apply to properties rather than to entities, non-intersective adjectives denote second-order properties.

Some researchers proposed the names intensional (for non-intersectives) and extensional (for intersectives). Following a more recent terminology, we will restrict here the term ‘intensional’ to a sub-type of non-intersective adjectives (see §2.4.4).

2.3 Quality adjectives

2.3.1 General propertiesIntersective adjectives roughly correspond to the class of ‘quality’ or ‘qualitative’ adjec-tives in the grammatical tradition: adjectives denoting various properties of entities – physical properties such as shape, size, color, age, temperature (e.g. solid ‘solid’, rece ‘cold’, lung ‘long’, scurt ‘short’, înalt ‘tall, high’, greu ‘heavy’, rotund ‘round’, alb ‘white’), mental and moral properties, states and dispositions (e.g. inteligent ‘intelligent’, trist ‘sad’, modest ‘modest’), evaluative properties (e.g. bun ‘good’, rău ‘bad’, frumos ‘beautiful’) etc. Most underived adjectives belong to this type. This class thus constitutes the prototypical type of adjectives. Crosslinguistically, if a language has adjectives at all, it will have quality adjectives.

Quality adjectives are often gradable (i.e. the referent does not merely have a certain property or not, but rather it has that property to a certain degree, which is specified using various degree constructions, discussed in §4 below).

Quality adjectives can appear both prenominally and postnominally. The postnomi-nal position is normal, the prenominal one is exceptional and yields special readings (see §3).

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2.3.2 Quality adjectives with a qua-N readingFor some quality adjectives, the intersective status is less certain. Consider the following sentences:

(40) Bărbulescu e un profesor bun. Bărbulescu is a professor good ‘Bărbulescu is a good professor.’

(41) Bărbulescu e un profesor şi Bărbulescu e bun. Bărbulescu is a professor and Bărbulescu is good ‘Bărbulescu is a professor and Bărbulescu is good.’

The adjective bun in (40) has two readings: ‘good as a professor’ and ‘good as a person, kind-hearted’. Only in the second reading does this example allow the paraphrase in (41), so it looks as if this adjective was intersective on only one of its readings. However, bun in the first reading does not appear to be non-intersective: the meaning ‘which performs well its function’ can appear in predicative positions (see (42)) and does not seem to depend on the nominal concept, like in the case of relational adjectives (discussed in §2.4 below).

(42) Acest cuţit este bun. This knife is good

Moreover, in a context where we know that Bărbulescu and Popescu are professors, we can use the adjective good in predicative position with the reading ‘good as a professor’:

(43) Bărbulescu e mai bun decât Popescu. Bărbulescu is more good than Popescu ‘Bărbulescu is better than Popescu.’

All these facts indicate that the meaning ‘good as a X’ belongs to the intersective type even when applied to humans. Thus, the ambiguity of (40) is not due to the presence of two distinct denotational types of the AP. We can instead assume that good is provided with a hidden additional argument, which specifies the domain in which that entity is good – the function which it performs well. Note indeed that this argument can be overtly expressed by phrases such as ca X ‘as an X’:

(44) Bărbulescu e bun ca profesor. Bărbulescu is good as professor ‘Bărbulescu is good as a professor.’

A final argument for the intersective status of bun in the reading ‘good as a X’ is the fact that this meaning can be found in the double definiteness construction (see (45a)), a construction which is impossible with non-intersective adjectives in Romanian (see (60) below and (45b)):

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(45) a. profesorul cel bun professor-the the good ‘the good professor’ b. *profesorul cel fost / pretins / universitar professor-the the former alleged academic

We may conclude that the ambiguity in (40) is due to the possibility to interpret this additional argument as profesor ‘professor’ or om ‘human being’, the special meaning ‘kind-hearted’ being a conventionalized meaning for ‘good as a human being’, as illustrated in (46b):

(46) a. Bărbulescu e bun ca profesor. Bărbulescu is good as professor ‘Bărbulescu is good as a professor.’ b. Bărbulescu e bun ca om. Bărbulescu is good as man ‘Bărbulescu is good as a human being.’

The adjectives with a qua-NP reading are evaluative: bun, mare ‘great’, excepţional ‘excep-tional’, remarcabil ‘remarkable’, deosebit ‘special’ and their antonyms (rău, prost ‘bad’, exe-crabil ‘execrable’, etc.).

These adjectives keep only the reading ‘good as a N’ in prenominal position:

(47) Bărbulescu e un bun profesor. ‘Bărbulescu is a good professor.’ = Bărbulescu e bun ca profesor. ‘Bărbulescu is good as a professor.’ ≠ Bărbulescu e profesor şi bun ca om. ‘Bărbulescu is a professor and he is a good man.’

It is likely that in this case they are assimilated to the class of non-intersective prenominal adjectives (the type former, see §2.4.4), and thus take the NP as an argument. This may explain why they are the only prenominal quality adjectives which may be restrictive, as proven by the possibility to have generic readings (see §3.1.2 for details):

(48) Marii bucătari sunt greu de găsit astăzi. great-the.mpl chefs are hard sup find.sup today ‘Great chefs are hard to find nowadays.’

Summing up, quality adjectives are intersective, except for those with a special ‘qua NP’ reading when they occur prenominally.

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2.4 Non-intersective adjectives

2.4.1 Two types of non-intersective adjectives: Relational and intensional adjectivesAmong non-intersective adjectives, we can distinguish two types:

(i) Relational adjectives are adjectives which cannot function independently as predicates of entities because their meaning is strongly dependent on the meaning of the noun they modify. Usually derived from nouns, these adjectives have a very general meaning ‘related to N’ (where N is the noun they are derived from) (hence the term ‘relational’). This mean-ing becomes fully specified only when the adjective is applied to a noun. For example, atomic ‘atomic’ means (a) ‘which is about atoms’ when it is applied to abstract objects such as teorie ‘theory’, as in teorie atomică, (b) ‘characterizing atoms’ when applied to physical properties such as energie, as in energie atomică ‘atomic energy’; (c) ‘which uses the energy involved in transformations of atoms’ when applied to artifacts such as bombă ‘bomb’, in bombă atomică ‘atomic bomb’.

The way in which the adjective is to be understood is thus specified by the noun. This can be represented by treating these adjectives as some sort of complements, which characterize an implicit variable provided by the lexical-conceptual representation of the noun – for instance, the instrument of an artifact in bombă atomică, the content of an abstract entity in teorie atomică etc. The complement status is clear when the noun has complements and the adjective provides a characterization of these complements, in which case we talk about thematic adjectives:

(49) a. atacul german = atacul germanilor attack-the German attack-the Germans-the.gen ‘the German attack’ ‘the Germans’ attack’ b. fecior împărătesc = fecior de împărat / al unui împărat boy imperial boy of emperor gen a.gen emperor ‘imperial son’ ‘son of an emperor’ c. creaţia peisagistică = creaţia de peisaje creation landscape.adj creation of landscapes ‘landscape (depicting) creation’ ‘creation of landscapes’

(ii) Intensional adjectives, such as fost ‘former’ differ from relational adjectives in that: (i) their meaning is totally independent of the noun and (ii) they are functions which take the NP as an argument, whereas relational adjectives can be viewed as arguments or quasi-arguments of the N. Intensional adjectives modify the time and world variables of the predicate denoted by the NP: thus, fost ‘former’, viitor ‘future’, prezent ‘present’ specify the time variable, other adjectives such as posibil ‘possible’, probabil ‘probable’, pretins ‘alleged’ specify the world variable:

(50) a. fost (NP) at time t = λx. x is not NP at t and there is t′ previous to t such that x is NP at t′

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b. alleged (NP) = λx. x is NP in worlds w which are according to what somebody (contextually specified) says

Unlike intensional adjectives, relational adjectives support the inference from (A+N)(x) to N(x):

(51) a. x is an atomic theory/bomb |= x is a theory/bomb b. x is a former/possible candidate |≠ x is a candidate

Adjectives which allow the inference from (A+N)(x) to N(x), but not the inference from (A+N)(x) to A(x), are called subsective. This term reflects the idea that the adjective, applied to the NP, creates a set included in the NP-class, a ‘sub-section’ of this class: thus, an atomic bomb (or theory) is still a bomb (or theory), although it is not something atomic (it makes no sense to apply the adjective ‘atomic’ directly to the referent).

This property can explain why some relational adjectives can appear in predicate positions, provided the subject contains the noun to which they semantically apply. Con-sider Examples (52)–(53). According to the intersectivity test applied in (52), naţional is non-intersective. Yet it can appear in predicative positions, as shown by (53).

(52) Ardealul este un teritoriu naţional ≠ Ardealul este un teritoriu şi Ardeal-the is a territory national Ardeal-the is a territory and Ardealul este naţional Ardeal-the is national

(53) Acest teritoriu este naţional. this territory is national

How can we explain this fact? First, notice that these adjectives cannot appear in predicate positions with just any kind of subject:

(54) ??Acesta este naţional. this is national

The difference between (54) and (53) is that the noun teritoriu appears inside the subject in (53). We can thus explain the wellformedness of (53) as follows: when the nominal concept to which the adjective naţional must (semantically) apply (here, teritoriu) appears inside the subject, it can be recovered inside the predicate – see Example (53), which is thus interpreted as

(55) Acest teritoriu este (un) teritoriu naţional. This territory is a territory national ‘This territory is a national territory.’

In other words, the apparent predicative use in (53) is due to ellipsis. Whether this is regu-lar noun ellipsis or the result of a special interpretative strategy characteristic of relational adjectives is a complex issue which will not be addressed here.

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Why can’t this strategy rescue an adjective such as fost ‘former’ in predicative position? The reason may be that for this adjective, (N+A)(x) does not imply N(x) – a fost candi-date ‘former candidate’ is not a candidate. Therefore, the noun cannot be used without the adjective in the subject position, as in (53).

The two sub-classes of non-intersective adjectives also differ in placement: relational adjectives are always postnominal, intensional adjectives are mostly prenominal (see §2.4.4 for details).

A common property of most non-intersective adjectives is the lack of gradability:

(56) a. *E o bombă foarte/ mai atomică. is a bomb very more atomic b. *un mai/ foarte pretins profesor a more very alleged professor

For relational adjectives, this is due to the fact that the bases they are derived from, mostly nominal, are not gradable (so that one cannot say, for example, that a certain theory is about a type of entities which are more atomic than others, etc.).

For intensional adjectives, the lack of gradability is sometimes motivated by the mean-ing (as in pretins ‘alleged’ or fost ‘former’). However, intensional adjectives do not allow degree expressions even when their semantics is compatible with gradation. Thus, when applied to sentences, the modal modifier probabil allows gradation, the scale being consti-tuted by the ordering of worlds based on the similarity with the real world:

(57) Cel mai probabil va veni mâine. the more likely will come tomorrow ‘It is most likely that he will come tomorrow.’

However, when used as an adjective with the non-intersective reading ‘entity which is likely to have the property NP’, probabil does not allow gradation:

(58) a. Ionescu şi Popescu vor fi foarte probabil candidaţi Ionescu and Popescu will be very likely candidates anul ăsta. year-the this ‘Ionescu et Popescu will be most likely candidates this year.’ b. *Foarte probabilii candidaţi sunt aşteptaţi să very probable-the.mpl candidates are expected subj dea declaraţii. give declarations

On the other hand, as can be seen in (59), the adjective probabil can also modify the event expressed by the DP, if the noun is eventive. In this case, it is intersective, as proven by the possibility to be used as a predicate (see (59b)). Correlatively, gradation is possible in this case (see (59a)):

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(59) a. Foarte probabila majorare a taxelor va apăsa very probable-the raise gen taxes-the.gen will press şi mai mult economia. even more much economy-the ‘The very likely tax raise will affect the economy even more.’ b. Majorarea taxelor este (foarte) probabilă în acest moment. raise-the taxes-the.gen is very probable in this moment ‘The tax raise is very likely right now.’

Another property which groups together relational and intensional adjectives, opposing them to quality adjectives, is the impossibility to combine with the article cel ‘the’ in postnominal position, in the double definiteness construction (for this construction, see Section 3.3):

(60) a. candidatul cel tânăr / înalt / nou candidate-the the young tall new ‘the young/tall/new candidate’ b. *candidatul cel posibil / fost candidate-the the possible former c. societatea cea veche / nouă society-the the old new ‘the old/new society’ d. *societatea cea astronomică / comercială society-the the astronomical commercial

2.4.2 Relational adjectivesAs mentioned above, relational adjectives operate on the lexical conceptual structure of the (head-)noun, characterizing implicit variables of this structure. Let us now illustrate this idea with more examples.

The clearest case is when the noun is a predicate with more than one place, thus hav-ing internal arguments (see also (49) above). Since semantic arguments are also referred to as thematic-roles, such adjectives are called thematic. Here are some examples of the thematic roles to which adjectives can be related, for nouns with a verbal basis or an even-tive reading:

(61) a. propunerea rusească Agent proposal-the Russian ‘the Russian proposal’ b. producţia cerealieră Theme production-the cereal.adj ‘cereal production’

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c. locuinţă lacustră Place lodge lake.adj ‘lake lodge’ d. drum aerian Path way air.adj ‘air way’ e. dispută politică Theme (=about x) dispute political ‘political dispute’ f. politica europeană a Rusiei Theme (= with regard to x) policy-the European of Russia-the.gen ‘Russia’s European policy’ g. critic eminescian Theme critic Eminescu.adj ‘critic specialized on Eminescu’

With nouns denoting properties, the adjective can express the bearer of that property (which can also be considered an instance of the Theme role):

(62) a. echilibru sufletesc (=echilibrul sufletului) balance soul.adj balance-the soul-the.gen ‘peace of mind’ (= balance of the soul) b. putere corporală (=puterea corpului) power body.adj power-the body-the.gen ‘body power’ (=power of the body)

Thematic adjectives block the realisation of the corresponding thematic role by a DP. How-ever, they do not introduce a discourse referent themselves: they cannot be referred back by anaphors, don’t allow relative clauses and cannot act as binders.

(63) a. *propunerea rusească a lui Kiseleff proposal-the Russian gen obl Kiseleff b. *opinia americană despre ei înşişi opinion-the American about they themselves c. *Propunerea ruseascăi nu a fost acceptată, aşa că eii proposal-the Russian not has been accepted so that they s-au retras de la conferinţă. refl-have withdrawn from conference

We can conclude that thematic adjectives are not complements. This is in line with the canonical syntactic status of adjectives, which is that of a modifier (adjunct).

It is interesting to notice that with several thematic adjectives, the order of the adjec-tives corresponds to the order of the respective thematic roles – thus, themes are closer to the noun than agents:

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(64) producţia cerealieră bulgară production-the cereal.adj Bulgarian ‘Bulgarian cereal production’

Nouns which denote one-place predicates can also have a complex lexical conceptual structure which contains predicates and arguments of these predicates. For example, an artifact is an entity produced by somebody and which has a certain purpose. Physical objects are constituted of a certain material, and so on. These elements of the concep-tual structure of a noun are known as qualia (singular quale, a Latin word meaning ‘what sort of ’). Four qualia have been proposed, corresponding to the four Aristotelian ‘causes’ (modes of explanation) – formal (the formal or structural quale), material (the constitutive quale), efficient (the agentive quale) and final (the telic or functional quale).

Relational adjectives may modify various components of the qualia structure of a noun. Thus, artifacts have a telic quale – the purpose for which the object is built, the function it performs. Adjectives which can be paraphrased by ‘for N’ are adjectives which modify the telic quale:

(65) a. construcţie industrială construction industrial ‘industrial construction’ b. material didactic material didactic ‘teaching material’ c. utilaj agricol tool agricultural ‘agricultural tool/device’

The adjective can also refer to participants to the event by which the entity came into being (the so-called agentive quale) – the agent who made the object (see (66a)) or the procedure by which the object was made (66b)):

(66) a. maşină chinezească machine Chinese ‘Chinese machine’ b. băutură sintetică drink synthetic ‘synthetic drink’

The adjective can also refer to the instrument by which the noun realizes its function:

(67) a. aparat electric machine electric ‘electric machine’ b. motor pneumatic engine pneumatic ‘pneumatic engine’

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With nouns expressing propositional or informational objects, adjectives can specify the theme or content, what the propositional object is about:

(68) a. teorie muzicală / literară theory musical literary ‘musical/literary theory’ b. hartă maritimă / economică map sea.adj economical ‘economy/sea map’ c. studiu financiar study financial ‘financial study’ d. dicţionar mitologic dictionary mythological ‘dictionary of mythology’ e. chimie biologică chemistry biological ‘chemistry dealing with the substances of living organisms’

The same nouns can be modified by adjectives specifying the agent who produced them:

(69) a. teoria kantiană theory-the Kantian ‘Kant’s theory’ b. hartă veneţiană map Venetian ‘Venetian map’ c. studiu american study American ‘study whose author is an American’

Adjectives referring to origin can also appear with things not made by man:

(70) a. munte vulcanic mountain volcanic ‘volcanic mountain’ b. rocă sedimentară rock sedimentary ‘sedimentary rock’ c. produs biologic product biological ‘biological product’

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The ‘constitutive’ quale yields the following readings of adjectives: the composing parts, with nouns denoting collections or groups (see (71)), the material, for physical objects (see (72)):

(71) a. orchestră studenţească orchestra student.adj ‘student orchestra’ b. buchet floral bouquet floral ‘bouquet of flowers’

(72) a. obiect metalic object metallic ‘metal-made object’ b. calotă glaciară cap ice.adj ‘ice cap’

Another feature which has been included in the constitutive quale is location. Adjectives may specify the spatial (see (73)), temporal (see (74)) or abstract (see (75)) location:

(73) a. străzi moscovite streets Moscow.adj ‘streets of Moscow’ b. faună marină fauna sea.adj ‘sea fauna’ c. curent oceanic current ocean.adj ‘ocean current’

(74) a. activitate matinală activity morning.adj ‘morning activity’ b. plimbare nocturnă walk nocturnal ‘nocturnal/night walk’ (75) a. personaj mitic character mythical ‘character from a myth’ b. metodă ştiintifică method scientific ‘method used in science, scientific method’

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Sometimes the basis of the adjective, or a noun derived from the adjective denotes itself a sub-domain or sub-kind of the modified noun, or a wider domain yielding a sub-kind of the modified noun by intersection. These adjectives display the implication x is (N+A) → x is NA, where NA is the noun that A is related with.

(76) a. literatura epică = genul epic, epicul ‘epic literature’ ‘the epic genre, the epic’ b. religia creştină = creştinismul ‘Christian religion’ ‘Christianism’ c. teorie filozofică = teorie care face parte din filozofie, este ‘philosophical theory’ ‘theory which belongs to philosophy, is filozofie philosophy’ d. creaţie artistică = creaţie care face parte din artă, care este artă ‘artistic creation’ ‘creation that belongs to art, is art’ e. rol agentiv = rol care este agentul ‘agentive role’ ‘role that is the agent’ f. speculaţie metafizică = speculaţie care face parte din metafizică, este ‘metaphysical speculation’ ‘speculation that belongs to metaphysics, is metafizică metaphysics’

Relational adjectives often yield established sub-classes or sub-kinds of the modified noun. Therefore they have been called classificatory or classifying adjectives. Note that even quality adjectives may be used with a classificatory function – as in pepene verde ‘melon green’ = “water melon” / pepene galben ‘melon yellow’ = “yellow melon”. These are however instances of idiomatic meaning. That’s why the adjective in this case does not behave as a quality adjectives (it doesn’t allow gradation and cannot be placed before the noun, behav-ing thus like relational adjectives): *un pepene mai verde ‘a melon more green’, *galbenul pepene ‘yellow-the melon’.

Relational adjectives may enter into collocations, especially when they are used as classificatory:

(77) a. lanţ muntos chain mountain.adj ‘chain of mountains’ b. glob ocular globe ocular ‘ocular globe’ c. curent electric current electric ‘electric power’

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d. pol magnetic pole magnetic ‘magnetic pole’

We have seen in §2.2 (Example (53)) that due to sub-sectivity, relational adjectives can in principle appear in predicative position, provided that the noun to which they apply can be contextually recovered. This possibility is excluded with thematic adjectives that specify obligatory arguments of relational nouns (see (78a)) and with adjectives that form collocations with the noun (see (78b)), because in these cases the noun in subject position is not sufficiently specified to be able to be used alone:

(78) a. *Această producţie este cerealieră. this production is cereal.adj b. *Acest curent este electric. this current is electric

The close semantic relation between relational adjectives and the noun has the conse-quence that these adjectives are closest to the noun. They precede postnominal quality adjectives:

(79) a. producţie cerealieră bogată production cereal.adj rich a′. *producţie bogată cerealieră production rich cereal.adj b. creaţie simfonică imensă creation symphonic huge b′. *creaţie imensă simfonică creation huge symphonic c. un atac german violent a attack German violent ‘a German violent attack’ c′. *un atac violent german a attack violent German

Possibly because of their quasi-complement status, relational adjectives are always postnominal:

(80) a. *cerealiera producţie cereal.adj-the production b. *un german atac a German attack

Several relational adjectives may be stacked, in which case the order is sometimes fixed: those that delimit sub-kinds, form collocations or express lower arguments such as the

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Theme must come before the others; those expressing the agent (or causer) or the location are attached higher:

(81) a. lanţ muntos vulcanic chain mountain.adj volcanic ‘chain of volcanic mountains’ a′. *lanţ vulcanic muntos chain volcanic mountain.adj b. criza economică mondială crisis-the economic global ‘global economic crisis’ b′. ??criza mondială economică crisis-the global economic c. energie electrică eoliană energy electric eolian ‘eolian electric energy’ c′. ??energie eoliană electrică energy eolian electric

Sometimes the relative order of relational adjectives is established according to the context: if the class [N A1] constitutes a discourse topic, and a further adjective A2 is added, the order N-A1-A2 will be used, even if in a neutral context the other order is preferred:

(82) a. scrierea hieroglifică hittită (OK if hieroglyphic writing is a writing-the hieroglyphic Hittite discourse topic, and in ‘the Hittite hieroglyphic writing’ neutral contexts) b. scrierea hittită hieroglifică (OK if Hittite writing is a writing-the Hittite hieroglyphic discourse topic) ‘the hieroglyphic Hittite writing’

(83) a. literatura franceză medievală (OK if French literature is a literature-the French medieval discourse topic) ‘the medieval French litterature’ b. literatura medievală franceză (OK if medieval literature is a literature-the medieval French discourse topic) ‘the French medieval litterature’

The class of relational adjectives is vast, a lot of its members are technical terms and new members are often added, especially in technical discourse. They represent a way of creating new concepts (under the classifying use).

Most relational adjectives are denominal. Sometimes the derivation took place not in Romanian, but in a foreign language from which Romanian borrowed the term (e.g. militar ‘military’, a modern borrowing from Latin militaris, derived from miles ‘soldier’). Exceptionally, the adjective does not ultimately come from a nominal base (thus, catolic

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‘catholic’, non-analyzable in Romanian, comes from Greek katholikós ‘universal’, which is derived from the PP kath’hólou ‘in general, universal(ly)’, from hólos ‘entire, whole’).

Let us now briefly illustrate the semantic composition involving a relational adjective. For simplicity, let us take an adjective derived from a proper name, which means that the nominal base (N2) is a constant of the entity type: eminescian, derived from Eminescu, the name of a poet. Applied to the noun poezie ‘poem, poetry’ (poezie eminesciană) which designates an artistic object, the adjective will refer to the agentive relation. The adjective modifies thus the agentive quale. Let’s assume that this quale is interpreted as a relational part of the meaning of N, contextually activated:

i. poezie = λyλx(poem(x) ∧ Agent(y, x))

The adjective eminescian is treated as containing an unspecified relation, Q. This relation is applied to the qualia structure of the noun: in this particular case, Q is identified with the Agent relation:

ii. eminescian = λQλx[Q(Eminescu)(x)] iii. poezie eminesciană = λQλx[Q(Eminescu)(x)] (λyλx(poem(x) ∧ Agent(y, x)))= = λx[ (λyλx(poem(x) ∧ Agent(y, x))) (Eminescu)(x)] = λx[ λx(poem(x) ∧ Agent(Eminescu, x)))(x)] = λx[(poem(x) ∧ Agent(Eminescu, x)]

Since the relational part of the meaning of N (the quale) combines with the nominal predicate by conjunction (see the entry in (i)), we obtain the implication (N+A)(x) → N(x) (‘subsectivity’), which, as we have seen, distinguishes relational adjectives from the other type of non-intersective adjectives, the intensional ones.

2.4.3 Non-relational denominal adjectivesNot all denominal adjectives are relational, according to our criteria (which include non-intersectivity). Some denominal adjectives have a meaning which is less dependent or even independent of the meaning of the modified noun:

(i) Adjectives derived from names of places, regions, nations and periods: they refer to the origin or the location of the object, or to the country or people who produced or pos-sess the object. In this case denominal adjectives develop intersective readings (⟨e, t⟩). The existence of an intersective reading is signaled by the possibility of applying the adjective (by predication or modification) to an indefinite pronoun that lacks any nominal concept, such as (tot) ceea ce ‘(everything/something) that…’, ceva ‘something’, nimic ‘nothing’, orice ‘anything’.

(84) a. Îmi place tot ceea ce este japonez / medieval. me.dat likes everything that is Japanese / medieval ‘I like everything that is Japanese/medieval.’ b. Pare a fi ceva metalic. seems to be something metallic ‘It looks like something metallic.’

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In (84a), japonez ‘Japanese’ is understood as ‘produced in Japan/by Japanese’, for concrete objects, or ‘characteristic of Japanese culture or customs’, for abstract as well as concrete objects. Medieval ‘medieval’ refers to the time when a concrete object was produced, or when an institution existed, etc. These adjectives cannot be understood as having a meaning specific to particular classes of nouns, such as theme (subject matter) of a propositional/informational object – thus, tot ceea ce este japonez ‘everything Japanese’ does not include studii japoneze ‘Japanese studies’ with the meaning ‘studies about Japan’.

This type of intersective denominal adjectives differs from prototypical quality adjec-tives in that it is not gradable and in that it is always postnominal. Correlatively, it does not allow the prenominal position (see 3.1.2 for the gradability condition on prenominal quality adjectives).

(ii) Some denominal adjectives, especially origin adjectives, can also develop purely quality readings – ‘typical of …’ , ‘having the characteristic properties of …’ . In this case, they are gradable:

(85) a. mai catolic decât papa more catholic than Pope-the b. comportament foarte francez behavior very French

With some bases, there is more than one derived adjective, one form being also used as a noun and often borrowed as such (militar in (86) ‘military’ is a modern borrowing from Latin militaris, French militaire; this adjective is related in Latin to a nominal base – miles, militis ‘soldier’) and the other one being derived by adding a common adjectival suffix to it, such as -esc. In this case, there is often a meaning difference between the two forms: the form derived by -esc and similar suffixes tends to have a quality reading:

(86) a. cercul militar / *milităresc circle-the military military b. comportament milităresc / ??militar behavior military military

(87) a. literatura română / românească literature-the Romanian Romanian b. comportament foarte românesc / *român behavior very Romanian Romanian

(iii) There are denominal adjectives which only express properties independent of the noun they are applied to, thus being purely intersective: this is the case of adjec-tives describing the shape of objects (dreptunghiular ‘rectangular’, sferic ‘spherical’ etc.),

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adjectives denoting composition, which can be gradable (nisipos ‘sandy’), and adjectives denoting a resemblance with the base noun, which are also normally gradable (uleios ‘oily’ < ulei ‘oil’, băţos ‘stiff, rigid, arrogant’ < băţ ‘stick’; the resemblance is often in color – vişiniu ‘cherry-coloured’ < vişină ‘sour cherry’, cenuşiu ‘(dark) gray’ < cenuşă ‘ash’).

2.4.4 Intensional adjectivesIntensional adjectives directly take the NP property as their argument and refer to the tem-poral and modal coordinates under which the NP property is predicated on the external argument of the noun phrase (the ‘referent’ of the DP). Because these coordinates are gen-eral and do not depend on the particular nominal concept denoted by N or NP, such adjec-tives are not dependent on the meaning of the modified noun (as are relational adjectives), but can attach to any NP constituent, at any level (i.e. before or after the combination of the NP with other modifiers):

(88) a. un fost [profesor bogat] a former professor rich b. un [fost profesor] bogat a former professor rich c. un pretins [excelent doctor de copii] an alleged excellent doctor of children

The exact representation of temporal adjectives such as fost ‘former’, viitor ‘future’ must take into account the time intervals at which the properties are applied. The denotation of the NP, before as well as after the application of fost, is not simply ⟨e, t⟩, but ⟨i, ⟨e, t⟩⟩, a property of entities relativized to time (an individual can be a professor at a time t and may not be a professor at a different time t’). Temporal adjectives are functions from properties relativized to time into properties relativized to time, or ⟨ ⟨i, ⟨e, t⟩⟩, ⟨i, ⟨e, t⟩⟩ ⟩, as illustrated in (89).

(89) fost ‘former’ (NP) = λt ∈ D⟨i⟩. λx ∈ D⟨e⟩.(¬NP(x, t) ∧ ∃t’∈ D⟨i⟩, t’<t. NP (x, t’))

fost = λP. λt ∈ Di. λx ∈ D⟨e⟩. [ ¬P(x, t) ∧ ∃t’∈ Di, t’<t. P(x, t’)]

The time variable of NPs is normally contextually saturated: the interval of the clause in which the NP is embedded is included in the interval internal to the NP – e.g. in Acolo am întâlnit un profesor ‘There I met a teacher’, the person I met was a professor at the time I met him.

Modal adjectives such as: posibil ‘possible’, probabil ‘probable’, aparent ‘seeming’, pretins ‘alleged’, aşa-zis ‘so-called’ can be represented as in (90).

(90) pretins ‘alleged’ (NP) = λw. λx. x is NP in worlds w’ which correspond to what someone says in w

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This class includes a few adjectives which express subjective comments on the applica-tion of the property NP to the referent of the DP, such as simplu ‘mere’, adevărat ‘real’: they resemble temporal and modal adjectives in that they are always prenominal with this meaning (in postnominal position they have other meanings, see Section 3.1) and are not intersective, but take the NP property as their argument instead:

(91) simplu (soldat) = λw. λP. λx. [MAX(λw’. P(w’)(x))(w)](soldat) = λw. λx. MAX(λw’. soldat(w’)(x))(w)

x is a soldier and the property of being a soldier is the strongest one that makes the sentence true from a pragmatically salient set of alternatives (where the alternatives order properties on a scale of value/ importance). This is the asserted component: x does not have a higher military rank. The meaning of simplu ‘mere’ also includes a presupposed condition, MIN(λw’. soldat(w’)(x))(w), saying that the property under consideration has a low position on the scale of value.

Intensional adjectives are paraphrasable by adverbs, modal verbs or tense forms inside a relative clause which has the NP as its predicate:

(92) a. un posibil candidat = cineva care poate fi candidat ‘a possible candidate’ ‘someone who can be a candidate’ b. un simplu junghi = ceva care e doar un junghi ‘a simple ache’ ‘something that is merely an ache’ c. o adevărată nenorocire = ceva care e cu adevărat o nenorocire ‘a real disaster’ ‘something that is really a disaster’ d. foştii amici = cei care au fost amici ‘the former friends’ ‘those that have been friends’ e. probabilul câştigător = cel care probabil va câştiga ‘the probable winner’ ‘the one who will probably win’

This clearly shows that the adjective translates as a functor operating on the property denoted by the NP.

We have seen that an NP containing intersective modifiers translates as a conjunction of predicates. Interestingly, an intensional adjective attached above a complex NP of this type may be understood as referring not only to both predications, but also to the predication expressed by the modifier alone. Thus, ‘former’ in (i) can be understood as applying either to ‘flourishing city’ or to ‘flourishing’ alone (i.e. the entity can still be a city, but not flourishing any longer).

i. un fost oraş înfloritor a former city flourishing

If the semantics of fost is like in (89), this possibility follows from the semantics of conjunction: what is negated is the conjunction of oraş (x, t) ∧ înfloritor (x, t), and it is enough that one of the conjuncts is not true for the negated conjunction to be true.

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This ambiguity can be observed not only with intersective adjectives, but also with possessor DPs:

ii. fosta maşină a lui Victor former-the car gen obl Victor ‘Victor’s former car’

Most intensional adjectives are always prenominal. Only the adjectives corresponding to adverbs with modal meaning posibil ‘possible’, probabil ‘probable’ may also appear after the noun:

(93) Un candidat posibil/ probabil la preşedinţie este Florescu. a candidate possible probable to presidency is Florescu ‘A possible/probable candidate for presidency is Florescu.’

With nouns denoting events or facts/states-of-affairs, adjectives referring to time or modality can be found in postnominal position as regular intersective (quality) adjectives: since the external argument of the noun is an event or fact, and these adjectives are predicates of events or facts, they can combine with the noun by predicate intersection. See also (59b), repeated below as (ic), for the predicative use of these adjectives, which shows that they are intersective.

i. a. întâmplările trecute şi viitoare events-the past and future ‘past and future events’ b. cazuri posibile cases possible ‘possible cases’ c. Majorarea taxelor este (foarte) probabilă în acest moment. rise-the taxes-the.gen is very probable in this moment ‘A tax rise is very likely right now.’

3. Adjective placement inside the DP

This section is concerned with two major issues: (i) the principles which determine the placement of adjectives with respect to the noun and (ii) the principles which determine the relative order of several adjectives in case of stacking. We will also suggest a syntactic account of the observed facts.

3.1 Prenominal vs. postnominal adjectives

From the description of the semantic classes of adjectives in the previous section we can already establish a generalization which will be further supported in this section: the prenominal position of adjectives is marked, being related to special interpretations. Based on this, we propose that postnominal adjectives are adjuncts, and the linearization parameter for adjuncts is set head-first in Romanian nominal projections. By contrast, the special interpretations which the prenominal position imposes can be accounted

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for by analyzing prenominal adjectives as specifiers of optional (minor) functional projections.

We will argue in favor of analyzing postnominal adjectives as adjuncts in Section 3.2, where we discuss the relative order of stacked adjectives.

3.1.1 Classes of prenominal adjectivesPrenominal adjectives belong to the following classes:

a. Intensional adjectives (see Section 2.4.4), most of which are always prenominal (fost ‘former’, pretins ‘alleged’, aşa-zis ‘so-called’).

Some of the adjectives that can have an intensional meaning may also be used in post-nominal position, but with a significant meaning difference:

(94) a. o poveste adevărată a story true ‘a true story’ (the content of the story is true) b. o adevărată tragedie a true tragedy ‘a real tragedy’ (something that really is a tragedy)

(95) a. o întrebare simplă a question simple ‘a simple (easy) question’ b. o simplă întrebare a simple question ‘a mere question’

In the (a) examples of (94)–(95), the adjectives are postnominal and have intersective meanings, whereas in the (b) examples, the same adjectives have intensional meanings, which correlate with their prenominal position.

b. Adjectives with meanings related to the determiner system. As for intensional adjectives, the same form may also appear postnominally as a quality adjective, with a different, although related, meaning:

– reference to other members of the class (the type of meaning found with the alterna-tive, the identity determiner and ordinals):

(96) a. o nouă carte a new book ‘a new book’ = ‘(yet) another book’ b. o carte nouă a book new ‘a new book’ = ‘a book that is new’

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(97) a. diferite poveşti different stories ‘various stories’ b. poveşti diferite stories different ‘different stories’

– expressing quantity:

(98) a. numeroasele familii numerous-the families ‘the many families’ b. familiile numeroase families-the numerous ‘the families with many members’

(99) a. o bună parte a good part ‘a great deal’ b. o parte bună a part good ‘a part which is good’

– focal particle meaning:

(100) a. singura femeie / o singură femeie single-the woman a single woman ‘the only woman/only one woman’ b. femeia singură / o femeie singură woman-the single a woman single ‘the lonely woman/a lonely woman’

Sometimes the postnominal form is a relational (classifying) adjective with an idiomatic meaning:

– ordinal adjective (in prenominal position):

(101) a. un prim rezultat a prime result ‘a first result’ b. un număr prim a number prime ‘a prime number’

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– quality-deictic/anaphoric:

(102) a. o asemenea zi a such day ‘such a day, a day like this’ b. triunghiuri asemenea triangles similar ‘similar triangles’

c. Quality adjectives with a qua-NP reading that becomes obligatory in prenominal position, which suggests that in this case, they are non-intersectively construed, being assimilated to type (a):

(103) a. un bun profesor a good professor only: ‘(somebody) good as a teacher’ b. un profesor bun a professor good ‘(somebody) good as a teacher/a teacher who is a good person’

Some adjectives which probably belong to this class are restricted to particular meanings, which may be found as an option in postnominal position, alongside a more concrete meaning (see (104)) or may be absent altogether (see (105)):

(104) a. marii poeţi, marile opere great-the.mpl poets great-the.fpl works of art ‘the great poets / works of art’ b. operele mari works of art-the great ‘the great/big works of art’

(105) a. un înalt demnitar a high official ‘a high official’ b. un demnitar înalt a official high ‘a tall official’

The use of înalt in (105a) is restricted to certain nouns, so that this construction may be analyzed as a collocation. This represents an exceptional case in Romanian. Noun- adjective collocations, which are frequent, almost always involve postnominal adjectives, as we have seen in the section dedicated to relational adjectives (2.4.2 above).

The adjectives vechi ‘old’ and nou ‘new’ have a special non-intersective reading in which they express the time elapsed since the referent has the property NP. As for most

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adjectives of this class, this reading is available both in pre- and postnominal position. What is important is that in this reading they may appear in prenominal position with-out being non-restrictive (on the non-restrictive reading of standard quality (first-order) adjectives in prenominal position, see 3.1.2 below):

(106) a. un vechi prieten a old friend ‘an old friend’ b. o maşină veche a car old ‘an old car’

d. Quality adjectives which retain their ⟨e, t⟩ type reading, but are interpreted as non-restrictive (appositive):

(107) a. funcţionarii bogaţi civil-servants-the rich ‘those officials (civil servants) which are rich’ b. bogaţii funcţionari rich-the civil-servants ‘(the) officials (civil servants), which are rich’

(108) a. Toţi fericiţii pacienţi ai doctorului au fost vindecaţi. all happy-the patients gen doctor-the.gen have been cured ‘All the doctor’s patients, who were/are happy, were cured.’ b. Toti pacienţii fericiţi ai doctorului au fost vindecaţi. all patients-the happy gen doctor-the.gen have been cured ‘All those of the doctor’s patients who were/are happy were cured’.

3.1.2 Non-restrictive (appositive) vs. restrictiveThe term ‘non-restrictive’ (or ‘appositive’) refers to modifiers which are properties of enti-ties (type ⟨e, t⟩) and are interpreted outside the restriction of the determiner, as indepen-dent predicates of the entity denoted by the DP, forming an independent assertion; they are equivalent to side-remarks or parentheticals:

(109) Casa Poporului, construită de Ceauşescu, este house-the people-the.gen built by Ceauşescu is astăzi sediul Parlamentului României. today residence-the Parliament-the.gen Romania-the.gen ‘The People’s House, built by Ceauşescu, is nowadays the residence of the

Romanian Parliament.’ = Casa Poporului este astăzi sediul house-the people-the.gen is today residence-the

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Parlamentului României şi a fost Parliament-the.gen Romania-the.gen and has been construită de Ceauşescu. built by Ceauşescu (= Casa Poporului este astăzi sediul house-the people-the.gen is today residence-the Parlamentului României; ea a fost Parliament-the.gen Romania-the.gen she has been construită de Ceauşescu) built by Ceauşescu ‘The People’s House is nowadays the residence of the Romanian Parliament and

has been built by Ceauşescu.’(= ‘The People’s House is nowadays the residence of the Romanian Parliament; it has been built by Ceauşescu.’)

A non-restrictive modifier can be omitted without changing the truth-value of the clause. Thus, if (110a) is true, (110b) is also true. Compare the restrictive use in (111): here, the (a) example does not imply (b).

(110) a. Celebrele muzee florentine atrag întotdeauna vizitatori. famous-the museums Florentine attract always visitors ‘The famous Florentine museums always attract visitors.’ |= b. Muzeele florentine atrag întotdeauna vizitatori. museums-the Florentine attract always visitors ‘Florentine museums always attract visitors.’

(111) a. Muzeele florentine celebre atrag întotdeauna vizitatori. museums-the Florentine famous attract always visitors ‘Famous Florentine museums always attract visitors.’ |≠ b. Muzeele florentine atrag întotdeauna vizitatori. museums-the Florentine attract always visitors ‘Florentine museums always attract visitors.’

This is because (110a) is equivalent to the sentential conjunction (110′), which is not the case for (111), where the conjunction of predicates occurs under the determiner, as shown in (111′).

(110′) Muzeele florentine sunt celebre şi atrag întotdeauna vizitatori. museums-the Florentine are famous and attract always visitors ‘Florentine museums are famous and always attract visitors.’

(111′) (the maximal sum of x: [x is a Florentine museum and x is famous]) always attract visitors

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The term ‘restrictive’ is used here for any modifier which is interpreted inside the restric-tion of the determiner.

Another acceptation of the term ‘restrictive’ is ‘(modifier) which forms a subset of the modi-fied N(P)’, i.e. which ‘restricts the class denoted by the NP to a certain sub-set’. This defini-tion only applies to subsective modifiers, i.e. those for which the implication (A+N)(x) → N(x) holds. Under this definition, quality adjectives when they are not used non-restrictively, relational adjectives and non-intersective quality adjectives with a qua-NP reading (type (c) in 3.1.1 above) are restrictive, but intensional adjectives are not. Here we do not adopt this acceptation, but take as a starting point the positive definition of ‘non-restrictive’, as predicate of an independent assertion, and call ‘restrictive’ all modifiers which are not non-restrictive, but are interpreted inside the restriction of the determiner. Under this definition, intensional adjectives are restrictive. For modifiers which form a subset of the modified N(P), we use the term ‘subsective’. Another term used in the literature is ‘affirmative’ (as opposed to ‘privative’, which characterizes, in this terminology, intensional adjectives).

The non-restrictive reading is not a lexical semantic property of adjectives, but a contextual property which can be found with any first-order modifier. This property is unambigu-ously marked by the syntax in two ways: by the prenominal position of quality adjectives, which is discussed here, or by the comma intonation before postnominal modifiers (which are usually heavy in this case: complex APs, small clauses):

(112) a. Muzeele florentine, celebre dintotdeauna, atrag mulţi vizitatori. museums-the Florentine famous always attract many visitors ‘Florentine museum, always famous, attract many visitors.’ b. Ion / El, supărat pe prietenii săi, a plecat în grabă. Ion/ He upset with friends-the his has left in hurry ‘Upset with his friends, Ion/he left in a hurry.’

The possibility to combine with personal pronouns and proper nouns (see (112b)) indicates that postnominal non-restrictive modifiers separated by comma are DP-adjuncts. In this case, the non-restrictive interpretation follows from the syntactic structure, because the modifier is not inside the complement of the determiner, but above the [D(NP)] constitu-ent (such modifiers belong to the class of attributive appositions, on a par with appositive relative clauses; see Chapter 14 §2.3). By contrast, prenominal non-restrictive adjectives are a case of syntax – semantics mismatch: although they clearly occur in the complement of D, separating D from the noun, they are interpreted outside the complement of D, above the DP.

The definition of ‘non-restrictive’ we have proposed here (see the test in (109) and the discussion before it) implies that only referential DPs allow such modifiers. Indeed, a good test for establishing whether a modifier is non-restrictive or not is to see whether it is allowed in quantificational DPs. Such DPs do not tolerate non-restrictive modifiers:

(113) a. *Orice student, care e inteligent, învaţă bine. any student who is intelligent studies well

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b. *Orice inteligent student învaţă bine. any intelligent student studies well

As for generic DPs, they allow non-restrictive post-modifiers separated by comma (appositions) (see (114c′′)), but exclude non-restrictive modifiers inside the DP, such as prenominal non-restrictive adjectives. The following examples show that intersective quality adjectives cannot appear before the noun in generic DPs, but only after the noun, where they are necessarily restrictive (unless separated by a comma):

(114) a. *Fidelul discipol ascultă de maestru. faithful-the disciple obeys to master a′. Discipolul fidel ascultă de maestru. disciple-the faithful obeys to master ‘The faithful disciple obeys the master.’ b. *Inteligentul student este cel care învaţă. intelligent-the student is the one who studies b′. Studentul inteligent este cel care învaţă. student-the intelligent is the one who studies ‘The intelligent student is the one who studies.’ c. *Roşul sânge conţine hemoglobină. red-the blood contains hemoglobin c′. Sângele roşu conţine hemoglobină. blood-the red contains hemoglobin ‘Red blood contains hemoglobin.’ c′′. Sângele, care este principalul mijloc de transport blood-the which is main-the means of transportation al substanţelor în organism, conţine hemoglobină. gen substances-the.gen in body contains hemoglobin ‘The blood, which is the main means of substance transport in the body,

contains hemoglobin.’

By contrast, intensional adjectives and quality adjectives with a non-intersective interpretation – types (a) and (c) in the classification in 3.1.1 above – can appear in generic and quantificational DPs, which shows that they are restrictive:

(115) a. Foştii miniştri sunt bogaţi. former-the ministers are rich ‘Former ministers are rich.’ b. Înalţii demnitari sunt bine plătiţi. high-the officials are well paid ‘High officials are well-paid.’ c. Adevăraţii profesori sunt rari. true-the teachers are rare ‘True teachers are rare.’

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d. Un bun student nu face aşa ceva. a good student not does as something ‘A good student never does something like this.’ e. Marii poeţi sunt rari în zilele noastre. great-the poets are rare in days ours ‘Great poets are rare nowadays.’ f. Orice veche cunoştinţă de-a lui îţi poate spune asta. any old acquaintance of-his you.dat can say this ‘Any old acquaintance of his can tell you this.’ g. Niciun nou ministru nu a rezolvat problemele sistemului. no new minister not has solved problems-the system-the.gen ‘No new minister solved the problems of the system.’

Another test which identifies non-restrictive adjectives is the impossibility to appear in contrastive contexts, i.e. under a focus which excludes N: this is because in the non-restrictive reading the N(P) suffices to identify the referent, which means that no other referent in the discourse context can fall under the N(P) concept. A non-restrictive A is thus predicated of all the referents which fall under the N(P) in the context. There is no other referent which falls under N(P) which could receive an adjective A2 but not A, yielding thus a contrast between [A N(P)] and [A2 N(P)]:

(116) a. Calculatorul VECHI se strică des, nu cel nou. computer-the old refl breaks often not the new ‘It is the old computer that goes out of order often, not the new one.’ b. *VECHIUL calculator se strică des, nu cel nou. old-the computer refl breaks often not the new

Although postnominal adjectives are normally restrictive, sometimes the context forces a non-restrictive interpretation of a quality postnominal adjective. In literary texts, adjec-tival modifiers are often used in order to describe already established discourse referents or associative anaphorae, which can be identified without the use of these modifiers. Such modifiers are non-restrictive according to our definition. Sometimes these adjectives are postnominal:

(117) Sus, pe coasta unui deal de la dreapta Murăşului, e mănăstirea minoriţilor, vestita Maria Radna. Din turnurile bisericii mari şi frumoase se văd pe Murăş la deal ruinele acoperite cu muşchi ale cetăţii de la Şoimoş. (Slavici, Mara, I)

‘Up on a hill on the right bank of the Mureş river lies the Minorites’ monastery, the famous Maria Radna. From the towers of the big and beautiful church, one can see uphill on the Mureş the mossed ruins of the Şoimoş fortress.’

In (117), the adjectives which characterize the church are not used to identify the referent, because it is known that monasteries have only one church.

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Here are other examples in which world knowledge forces a non-restrictive reading, even if the adjective is postnominal:

(118) a. Mă privea fix cu ochii săi negri. me looked.3sg straight with eyes-the his black ‘He was looking straight at me with his black eyes.’ b. Văzuse multe în viaţa sa lungă. saw.3sg many in life-the his long ‘He had seen a lot of things in his long life.’

The non-restrictive reading of a postnominal adjective is sometimes hard to obtain. It is facilitated by the presence of a possessive or a demonstrative which indicates the referent as already identified (see (119c), compared to b; (119a) shows that the problem with (119b) is not the fact that the anaphoric DP is introduced by the definite article):

(119) a. Am primit cadou [două romane de Tolstoi]i. Am luat have.1 received gift two novels by Tolstoy have.1 taken cărţilei cu mine în concediu. books-the with me on vacation ‘I was offered two novels by Tolstoy. I took the books with me on vacation.’ b. Am primit cadou [două romane de Tolstoi]i.

??Am luat have.1 received gift two novels by Tolstoy have.1 taken [cărţile foarte bune]i cu mine în concediu. books-the very good with me on vacation

c. Am primit cadou [două romane de Tolstoi]i. Am luat have.1 received gift two novels by Tolstoy have.1 taken [aceste cărţi foarte bune]i cu mine în concediu. these books very good with me on vacation

Another construction that facilitates a non-restrictive reading of a postnominal adjective is the double definiteness construction (N+def – cel – AP), which will be discussed in Section 3.3 below. Thus, if the castle in (120) has only one hall, (120a) seems more appro-priate than (120b).

(120) a. Pe acolo am intrat în sala cea mare (a castelului). on there have.1 entered in room-the cel big gen castle-the.gen ‘We entered the big room (of the castle) that way.’ b. Pe acolo am intrat în sala mare (a castelului). on there have.1 entered in room-the big gen castle-the.gen

This may be due to the fact that adjectives in the double definiteness construction often express background information (see 3.3 below on the familiarity feature expressed by this construction).

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The prenominal placement of quality adjectives (with no qua-NP reading) does not only mark a non-restrictive reading, but involves an additional affective feature, expressing some kind of subjective evaluation. An indication for this is the fact that quality prenomi-nal adjectives must be gradable, and, moreover, they preferably express subjective proper-ties such as size and evaluation (e.g. ‘huge’, ‘small’, ‘beautiful’, ‘ugly’, ‘splendid’, etc.).

(121) Privea la înaltele / imensele / ??rotundele / *circularele turnuri look.impf.3sg at high-the huge-the round-the circular-the towers ale castelului. gen castle-the.gen ‘He was lookingd at the high/huge/round/circular towers of the castle.’

The existence of an affective feature is also supported by the behavior of past participles: while non modified participles are banned from this position, they become acceptable if they are modified by an adverb. Such adverbs usually have a scalar component or at least an inherent superlative meaning (see veşnic ‘always’ in (122d)):

(122) a. *un numit director an appointed director a′. un proaspăt numit director a recently appointed director b. ??o decorată cameră a decorated room b′. o fastuos decorată cameră a sumptuously decorated room c. *un amânat eveniment a postponed event c′. un deseori amânat eveniment an often postponed event d. ?un grăbit profesor a hurrying professor d′. un veşnic grăbit profesor an eternally hurrying professor

A few quality adjectives are restricted to the prenominal non-restrictive use. They all have a clear affective feature: biet ‘poor’ in the sense of ‘pitiful’, cogeamite, ditamai ‘very big’. The latter two are peculiar in that they are uninflected and they always precede the sequence N+suffixal definite article, although they may at the same time follow the indefinite article. All the other adjectives receive the suffixal article themselves when they are prenominal (see Chapter 3 Section 8):

(123) a. un ditamai trofeul a huge trophy-the ‘a huge trophy’

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b. ditamai/ cogeamite băiatul huge huge boy-the ‘a huge boy’

The adjective sărac has the affective meaning ‘pitiful’ when used in prenominal position and the meaning ‘poor’ in postnominal position:

(124) a. băiatul sărac boy-the poor ‘the poor boy’ b. săracul băiat poor-the boy ‘the pitiful boy’

When combining with personal pronouns, prenominal affective adjectives bear the suffixal definite article and require the insertion of de ‘of ’ before the pronoun:

(125) a. bietul/ săracul/ frumosul de el poor-the poor-the handsome-the of him b. biata/ săraca/ proasta de mine poor-the poor-the stupid-the of me

This is probably due to the fact that personal pronouns do not allow any DP-internal (adnominal) material (see Chapter 5 §1.4), but rather constitute a whole DP embedded under the DP introduced by the definite article. Therefore, the binominal qualitative ‘N-de-N’ structure is used (see Chapter 13 §2).

3.1.3 Conclusion. Prenominal adjectives compared with postnominal adjectivesSumming up, the prenominal position correlates with special interpretative constraints: it allows either adjectives which take the NP as their argument, combining by functional application (types (a)–(c) in 3.1.1 above) – including intensional adjectives, quality adjec-tives with an obligatory qua-NP reading and adjectives with a determiner-like meaning – or non-restrictive quality adjectives. It disallows adjectives which combine with the NP by predicate intersection, as well as adjectives with act as quasi-arguments of the N or specify implicit variables of the lexical-conceptual structure of the N (i.e. relational adjectives).

The analysis according to which postnominal adjectives are adjuncts and prenominal adjectives are specifiers of optional functional projections provides an account for this generalization under the assumption that predicate intersection characterizes adjunction structures. As for relational adjectives, their obligatory postnominal placement can be explained as follows: for those specifying variables from the qualia structure, under the analysis proposed in Section 2.4.2 above, the last step of the semantic composition is predi-cate intersection (between the quale predicate and the N), so that they fall under the gen-eralization concerning adjectives combined by predicate intersection. Thematic adjectives

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and adjectives specifying sub-kinds are similar to complements – they are licensed by the argument structure or particular semantic specifications of the head N –, and it is reason-able to assume that this requires that they should be projected inside the lexical projection, the NP. As they are not referential arguments (see 2.4.2), they cannot occupy the SpecNP position, which, if projected, is probably dedicated to arguments. Therefore, they are attached to the N(P) as adjuncts. Since NP-adjuncts are linearized to the right, their obliga-tory postnominal position is explained. Because their meaning is strongly dependent on the meaning of the head N, they cannot occur in functional projections higher than NP. This explains why they cannot be prenominal, if we adopt the proposal that prenominal adjectives are specifiers of functional projections.

The fact that postnominal quality adjectives exceptionally allow a non-restrictive interpretation may be an effect of inferences based on the context and world-knowledge, not encoded in the syntactic/LF structure. Under this view, the adjectives in (117), (118), (119c) are combined with the N by predicate intersection like restrictive adjectives, and the fact that they do not actually restrict the extension of the NP is not reflected in structure.

3.1.4 Formal constraints on the position of adjectivesBesides the semantic principles which govern adjective placement that have been examined, there are also some purely formal constraints, which probably belong to the morpho-phonological component: (i) a general rule also found in other head-initial lan-guages requires pre-head modifiers to end in the lexical head. Thus, adjectives which have complements are totally excluded from the prenominal position (note that the same constraint applies in English, although the normal position of adjectives in this language is prenominal):

(126) a. un mândru soare / mândrul soare a proud/splendid sun proud/splendid-the sun b. *un mândru de fiii săi tată / *mândrul de fiii a proud of sons-the his father proud-the of sons-the săi tată his father

(ii) Postnominal adjectives precede genitives and PPs; they can follow them only if they are ‘heavy’ – i.e. if they have modifiers or complements – or they are preceded by cel in the double definiteness construction; marginally, they may also appear in this position under heavy stress:

(127) a. cartea nouă a Mariei book-the new gen Maria.gen ‘Maria’s new book’ b. *cartea Mariei nouă book-the Maria.gen new

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c. cartea Mariei cea nouă book-the Maria.gen the new d. ?cartea Mariei NOUĂ book-the Maria.gen new

(128) a. partea oraşului plină de gunoaie part-the city-the.gen full of garbage ‘the part of the city full of garbage’ b. un plan al oraşului foarte mare a plan gen city-the.gen very big

This constraint does not apply if the PP is composed by de followed by a bare noun (a noun without determiner):

(129) a. o rochie de seară nouă a dress of evening new ‘a new evening dress’ b. o casă de lemn înaltă a house of wood tall ‘a tall wooden house’

We may conclude that simple adjectives and PPs composed of de+NP are light phrases, while other PPs and genitives count as heavy, and a general ordering principle, which may belong to the linearization module, imposes the order light before heavy in the postnomi-nal field.

3.2 Relative order of stacked adjectives

We speak of stacked modifiers when one of them is attached as a sister to a phrase contain-ing the head noun and the other modifier, as represented below:

(130) [[N (..) A1] A2] a. [[uniunea bancară] europeană] union financial European b. un [fost [mare poet]] a former great poet

In this structure, A2 is said to attach (or be) higher than A1, or to take scope over A1. Conversely, A1 is lower than A2. In this section we are interested in the relative order of adjectives in case of stacking.

First, it should be stressed that the linear order of adjectives in Romanian directly reflects their hierarchical order – i.e. if A2 is higher than A1, A1 is closer to the noun than A2:

(131) a. [A2 [A1 N ]] b. [[N A1] A2]]

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Thus there is no need to use movement operations in order to derive the relative order of adjectives.

Although this may seem evident, this point should be stressed because a number of researchers have proposed that the postnominal position of adjectives in Romance lan-guages is derived from a construction where adjectives are prenominal, like in English, by raising of the noun. If this were true, in the order N-A1-A2, A2 would be lower than A1. But this is never the case: every time we can independently establish the relative scope of A2 and A1 on semantic grounds or based on comparison with English and other languages with prenominal adjectives, we find that A2 is higher than A1 in the N-A1-A2 order. The reader may easily check this claim by examining the semantics and the English translations of the various examples throughout this section.

The relative order of adjectives is sometimes imposed by the semantics. In other cases, the semantic combination or the interpretation do not impose a certain hierarchical order, but still there is a preference for a certain order in case of stacking, depending on finer semantic distinctions among adjectives belonging to the same denotational type. Finally, there are cases in which the order is established according to the context.

(i) Relative order imposed by the semantics. Adjectives belonging to distinct denotational types (see the major semantic types discussed in Section 2, and the contextual classification restrictive/non-restrictive discussed in 3.2 above) can never be coordinated, and show a rigid order in stacking, due to the denotational requirements.

Thus, for the postnominal field, relational adjectives, which specify variables in the argument structure or in the qualia structure of the noun, or express sub-kinds or form collocations with the noun (see 2.4.2 above), are, expectedly, closer to the N (i.e. lower) than quality adjectives:

(132) a. cantină studenţească mare canteen student.adj big a′. ??cantină mare studenţească canteen big student.adj a′′. *cantină mare şi studenţească canteen big and student.adj b. lanţ muntos înalt chain mountain.adj high b′. *lanţ înalt muntos chain high mountain.adj b′′. *lanţ înalt şi muntos chain high and mountain.adj

In Section 2.4.2 we have seen that co-occurring relational adjectives are normally stacked and often rigidly ordered. This is expected, since they refer to different semantic dimensions

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of the noun – for instance, different arguments (in the case of thematic adjectives) or qua-lia. The more the meaning of a relational adjective is dependent on the meaning of the noun, the closer it comes to the noun. Thematic adjectives show the familiar hierarchical relations among argument roles (e.g. agents are higher than themes).

(133) a. sistemul filozofic hegelian system-the philosophical Hegelian a′. *sistemul hegelian filozofic system-the Hegelian philosophical a′′. *sistemul hegelian şi filozofic system-the Hegelian and philosophical b. atacul nuclear american attack-the nuclear American b′. *atacul american nuclear attack-the American nuclear b′′. *atacul american şi nuclear attack-the American and nuclear

In the prenominal field, we find the following order, which is imposed by semantics:

(134) non-restrictive [ intensional [ quality with a qua- NP reading

Thus, bun in (135a) cannot be understood as ‘good as a teacher’. By contrast, in (135b), this is the only possible reading.

(135) a. un bun [fost profesor] a good former teacher b. un fost [bun profesor] a former good teacher

Since non-restrictive adjectives introduce an independent assertion regarding the entity denoted by the DP, they cannot appear inside the NP which is taken as an argument by the intensional adjective (if they were, they would contribute to the complex property denoted by the NP, rather than providing an independent predicate). This also holds for the post-nominal field: if an adjective in this field is used non-restrictively, it must come after all the other adjectives. Moreover, the non-restrictive interpretation requires marking by the definite article cel, in the double definiteness construction:

(136) a. funcţionarii europeni cei bogaţi (± restrictive) civil servants-the European the rich b. funcţionarii europeni bogaţi (only restrictive) civil servants-the European rich

The relative order between intensional and quality adjectives with a qua-NP reading, indi-cated in (134), is due to the fact that the properties expressed by the phrases [intensional

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A + NP] cannot – in the general case – function as qua- arguments; only well established functions and roles can do so: thus, the application of an evaluative adjective to the prop-erty ‘former teacher’ is undefined. There is no excellence criterion for a former teacher. To the extent we can conceive such properties as functions which can be performed in certain ways, the order qua-NP-adjective > intensional is possible. Thus, if to be a ‘former presi-dent’ implies a certain behavior, we can say that ‘X is a good former president’:

(137) Nu ştiu cum a fost ca preşedinte, dar e un bun not know.1sg how has been as president but is a good fost preşedinte. former president ‘I don’t know how he was as a president, but he is a good former president.’

We thus come to another way in which semantics can determine order: with adjectives which take the NP as an argument, the structures [A2 [A1 N]] and [A1 [A2 N]] are not truth-conditionally equivalent – because the properties to which they apply in the two cases are different. Thus the scope of the adjective is part of the intended meaning of the sentence (therefore these adjectives are called scope-taking adjectives), and the speaker chooses the order which reflects the intended scope relation (in the case of adjectives, like for modifiers in general, the scope expressed in the surface structure cannot be reversed by covert operations). Therefore the relative order among co-occurring intensional adjectives is dictated by scope (note that (138a) and b do not express the same judgment):

(138) a. un fost pretins criminal a former alleged criminal b. un pretins fost criminal a alleged former criminal

Likewise, if an intersective adjective is to be understood as being outside the scope of an intensional adjective, it must be attached above it (under the analysis of prenominal adjec-tives proposed in 3.1.1 above, this would be a position of adjunct to the functional projec-tion in which the intensional adjective is introduced):

(139) [[foştii preşedinţi] săraci] former-the presidents poor

(ii) Relative order among intersective adjectives. As we have seen in Section 2, intersective adjectives combine with the modified NP by conjunction of predicates. The order in which conjuncts combine does not yield any meaning difference (conjunction is commutative) – thus, N(x) & A1(x) & A2(x) ↔ N(x) & A2(x) & A1(x) ↔ A1 (x) & N(x) & A2(x) etc. Therefore, semantics does not impose a certain order among several intersec-tive adjectives (neither denotational types nor the intended scope imposes any order). However, it has been noticed that the relative order among quality adjectives is not free,

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but is governed by some general rules which make reference to finer semantic distinctions among quality adjectives. These rules may be derived from a general cognitive principle which seems to be universal.

The research on languages with more rigid order, like English, has led to complex hierarchies of relative order, which make reference to classes inside quality adjectives (the sign ‘>’ should be read ‘takes scope over/is higher than’):

(140) [SPEAKER-ORIENTED Subjective Comment > Evidential] > [SCALAR PHYSIC PROPERTY Size > Length >Height >Speed >Depth > Width]> [MEASURE Weight> Tempera-ture > Age] > [NON-SCALAR PHYSICAL PROPERTY Shape > Colour > Nationality /Origin > Material]

The general principle which underlies these ordering patterns, and which has been shown to hold in various languages which are not directly related, is that adjectives which express more ‘objective’ or inherent properties appear closer to the noun than those that express more ‘subjective’ or external properties. Inherent properties are those which depend less on external considerations such as comparison or evaluation by a sentient being. Thus, size, which involves comparison, is more subjective/external than shape. Gradable properties in general require, as we have seen, comparison classes. Therefore gradable adjectives tend to appear higher than non-gradable ones, as can be seen in (140). Although Romanian does not impose a rigid order among quality adjectives, we find the effects of this general prin-ciple in this language too. Thus, evaluative adjectives (such as ‘beautiful’, ‘good’) and those expressing conventional properties (such as ‘cheap’) are higher in the unmarked order than those which express physical properties:

(141) a. o [[sală uriaşă] splendidă] a room huge splendid b. o [[geantă neagră] scumpă] a purse black expensive

Among physical properties, size, which requires a comparison class, is higher than shape:

(142) o [[sală pătrată] uriaşă] a room square huge

Color adjectives tend to appear lower than those expressing spatial properties, in case of stacking:

(143) a. o [[bluză roşie] lungă] a shirt red long b. o [[pată roşie] rotundă] a spot red round

Adjectives expressing age tend to appear higher than those expressing properties which are more likely to be constitutive for the object, such as color and shape:

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(144) a. [[covor roşu] nou] carpet red new b. [[masă pătrată] veche] table square old

Adjectives expressing origin and material, which constitute an intermediate class between quality and relational adjectives (being non-gradable and always postnominal like relational adjectives, but being intersective like quality adjectives), are normally lower than other intersective adjectives:

(145) a. [[profesor american] blond] professor American blonde b. [[sol nisipos] portocaliu] soil sandy orange

However, it is common for adjectives which are included in different classes in fine-grained hierarchies such as (140) to appear coordinated (either in parataxis or with a conjunction):

(146) a. o minge mare şi roşie a ball big and red b. ochii frumoşi, negri, ai Monicăi eyes-the beautiful black gen Monica.gen ‘Monica’s beautiful, black eyes’ c. Purta o bluză lungă, roşie. wear.impf.3sg a shirt long red ‘She was wearing a long, red shirt.’ d. A adus o geantă scumpă, vişinie. has brought a purse expensive purple ‘She brought an expensive, purple purse.’ e. Era un tânăr înalt şi brunet. was.3sg a young-man tall and dark-haired ‘He was a tall, dark-haired young man.’

Moreover, some of the ordering rules stated above are only preferences, which do not com-pletely exclude the reverse order (see (147a)). Adjectives which are often used to character-ize a certain kind of objects tend to appear closer to the noun than others, even if they are placed higher on the general hierarchy, as can be seen in (147b):

(147) a. o haină veche cenuşie a coat old gray b. o rochie lungă neagră a dress long black

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When adjectives are used in descriptions, rather than to identify a set or an object, it hap-pens often that a higher adjective according to the cognitive principle appears in the pre-nominal position specialized for non-restrictive modifiers:

(148) a. o mică floare roşie a small flower red b. o tânără femeie blondă a young woman blond c. o oribilă rochie veche a horrible dress old d. o veche rochie roşie a old dress red

This complies with the general principle, because it is reasonable to assume that the position dedicated to non-restrictive readings is higher than all postnominal material (see the dis-cussion above on the semantic grounds for the high position of non-restrictive adjectives).

Pragmatic considerations can always trigger exceptions to the ordering preferences stated above: if the class [N A1] is a discourse topic, and a further division is operated on this class by using an adjective A2 (which is discourse-new), then the bracketing [[N A1] A2] may be used even if A2 is lower than A1 on the general hierarchy. This bracketing has the advantage that it keeps the discourse topic as a constituent:

(149) a. rochiile scumpe negre (OK when talking about dresses-the expensive black expensive dresses) b. casele frumoase noi (OK when talking about houses-the beautiful new beautiful houses)

Some researchers have proposed that the ordering relations expressed by hierarchies such as (140) should be encoded in syntax, by treating adjectives as specifiers of functional projec-tions dedicated to the respective semantic types (e.g. SizeP, ColorP etc.), and representing the ordering relations by means of selection (e.g. Size would select Color in (140)). The data of Romanian are problematic for this hypothesis: we have seen that intersective adjectives belonging to different minor classes can be coordinated or disobey the general hierarchy for various reasons. This hypothesis is also unlikely on logical grounds, as the possible properties an object can have depend on its class, so that not all nouns can have size, color, shape, wetness etc. (e.g. winds, ideas do not have color, size or shape, chairs do not have speed, etc.). We have also seen that relational adjectives are strongly dependent on the meaning of the noun, so that their reading as well as the number of co-occurring adjectives is not established indepen-dently of the head noun. Therefore they cannot be accommodated into universal functional projections.

With event nouns, the hierarchical order of adjectives reflects the hierarchical order of adverbs in the clause: thus, manner adjectives are lower than evaluative subject-oriented adjectives, which in turn are lower than evaluative speaker-oriented adjectives:

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(150) a. reacţia grăbită stângace [[.. Manner] Subject-Oriented] reaction-the hasty clumsy a preşedintelui gen president-the.gen

b. stângacea reacţie grăbită a preşedintelui clumsy-the reaction hasty gen president-the.gen

(151) a. reacţia stângace surprinzătoare reaction-the clumsy surprising a preşedintelui [[..Subject-Or. ] Speaker-Oriented] gen president-the.gen b. surprinzătoarea reacţie stângace a preşedintelui surprising-the reaction clumsy gen president-the.gen

3.3 The double definiteness construction

Although the double definiteness construction is not restricted to adjectival modifiers, it is discussed here because its description makes reference to the semantic categories pre-sented in this chapter, and also because it occurs most of the time with adjectives.

In the double definiteness construction, DPs headed by the definite article contain a postnominal modifier preceded by the strong form of the definite article (cel, cea, cei, cele):

(152) a. copacii [cei înalţi] trees-the the tall ‘the tall trees’ b. vremurile [cele de demult] times-the the of a while ago ‘the long gone times’ c. bluza mea [cea roşie] shirt-the my the red ‘my red shirt’

This construction is subject to various constraints.

(i) The modifier must be intersective. Relational adjectives, as well as intensional ones, are excluded:

(153) a. *literatura cea beletristică literature-the the belletristic b. *invazia cea japoneză invasion-the the Japanese

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c. *conceptul cel american concept-the the American d. *preşedinţii cei foşti presidents-the the former

(ii) The noun cannot be preceded by non-restrictive adjectives or determiner-like adjectives:

(154) a. rochia lungă cea nouă dress-the long the new b. *lunga rochie cea nouă long-the dress the new c. *frumoasa rochie cea lungă beautiful-the dress the long d. *singura fată cea săracă only-the girl the poor

Only intensional prenominal adjectives are acceptable:

(155) foştii actori cei bogaţi former-the actors the rich

(iii) Demonstrative determiners, either pre- or postnominal, are excluded:

(156) a. *casele acelea cele vechi houses-the those the old b. *acele case cele vechi those houses the old

Ordinals (although they too can introduce definite DPs) are also excluded:

(157) a. *al doilea copac cel bătrân the second tree the old b. *primele zile cele grele first-the days the hard

(iv) The [cel+Adj/PP] constituent cannot be followed by other adjectives – any other adjec-tival modifiers must appear before cel:

(158) a. casa veche cea frumoasă house-the old the beautiful b. *casa cea frumoasă veche house-the the beautiful old

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(v) More than two definite articles per DP are excluded. In other words, there can be at most one cel- constituent inside a DP. Thus, Romanian has only ‘double’, not ‘multiple defi-niteness’, as has, for instance, (modern) Greek.

(159) a. *casa cea nouă cea mare house-the the new the big b. *ţăranii cei bătrâni cei înţelepţi peasants-the the old the wise

Unlike light adjectives, [cel+A] constituents can appear after genitives and PPs embedding full DPs, but can also precede them:

(160) a. rochia bunicii ??(cea) nouă dress-the grandmother-the.gen the new b. rochia cea nouă a bunicii dress-the the new gen grandmother-the.gen

As we have seen in 3.1.2, cel+AP constituents allow a non-restrictive reading more easily than other postnominal adjectives. However, they may also have a restrictive reading – as shown below, they can appear in contrastive contexts, being used to pick up an individual:

(161) Calculatorul CEL VECHI s-a stricat, nu cel nou. computer-the the old refl-has broken not the new ‘It is the old computer that broke down, not the new one.’

Given that postnominal quality adjectives without cel also allow a restrictive and a non-restrictive reading, although the restricted reading is more limited, one may wonder why there is the possibility to choose between these two constructions (as in (162)). Is there any meaning difference between them?

(162) a. maşina nouă car-the new b. maşina cea nouă car-the the new

Although this issue is not completely clear yet, it seems that the double definiteness con-struction presupposes familiarity with the sub-set which the AP introduced by cel cre-ates inside the NP class. Thus, for (162b) to be used, it is necessary that the speaker and hearer have some shared knowledge about the existence of a car which can be identified as being new, in opposition with other cars. This does not mean that the DPs with double definiteness must be discourse-given: they can be new in the discourse. What seems to be required is shared knowledge about the referent, which is not necessarily active in the context. [Cel-AP] constituents thus resemble demonstratives in their evocative use.

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This may also explain why cel- constituents and demonstratives are mutually exclusive. While the demonstrative indicates the possibility of identifying the referent by its pres-ence in the context (deictic use) or reactivation from the memory (evocative use), the cel-AP constituent indicates at the same time familiarity and the property which serves to identify the referent. This also explains the incompatibility with ordinals: since ordi-nals identify a referent in a series, a further identifying modifier is impossible (it cannot appear above the ordinal, because the referent is already identified; it cannot appear below it, because it yields a referent, and ordinals require a set from which they can select a referent).

When adjectives are applied to humans in order to choose among familiar individu-als, the use of cel is strongly preferred, as in (163). Note that in this example the existence of a single entity satisfying the property is also ensured by world knowledge; even if the referent (the son) is not itself familiar, it still is identifiable by associative anaphora, via the relation ‘son of ’ it entertains with a familiar individual.

(163) fiul lui ?(cel) mic son-the his the little

Because the sub-set created by the adjective is sufficient to identify a familiar individual, it is often the case that there are others properties which can serve to identify familiar indi-viduals inside the NP class – in the simplest case, this may be the absence or the opposite of the property expressed by the adjective. Thus, if maşina cea nouă ‘the new car’ in (162b) is a familiar referent, maşina cea veche ‘the old car’ is probably a familiar referent too. This means that cel- constituents often have a contrastive reading.

But the contrastive reading is not obligatory. As we have shown in 3.1.2 above, cel-constituents may have a non-restrictive reading, in which case contrast is excluded by definition:

(164) patria noastră cea frumoasă country-the our the beautiful

Turning now to the syntactic analysis of the double definiteness construction, the familiarity feature and the restriction to one cel- constituent per phrase suggest that the functional structure of the DP is involved – the D level and possibly minor (optional) functional pro-jections below D, see Chapter 3, are the domain to which referential features belong.

Based on the restriction of this construction to intersective (⟨e, t⟩ type) adjectives (see (153)), cel can be analyzed as a head that introduces a reduced relative and bears an additional demonstrative-related feature (see the familiarity/evocative component of its meaning dis-cussed under (162) above).

This analysis implies that adjectives in the cel-construction are not attributive, but predica-tive, functioning as predicates of the reduced relative.

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4. Gradation. Degree expressions, degrees of comparison

4.1 Gradability. Degrees and scales

Typical quality adjectives are gradable predicates. Semantically, gradable adjectives, e.g. înalt ‘high, tall’, dens ‘dense’, bun ‘good’, scump ‘expensive’ can be informally defined as predicative expressions whose domains can be partially ordered according to some dimen-sion. For example, the domain of the adjective înalt ‘tall’ can be ordered according to the dimension of height, the domain of the adjective dens ‘dense’ can be ordered according to the dimension of density.

Gradable adjectives differ from non-gradable ones by combining with degree words:

(165) a. Materialul acesta este {foarte/ cam / mai / prea} scump. material-the this is very rather more too expensive ‘This material is very/rather/more/too expensive.’ b. *Materialul acesta este {foarte/ cam / mai / prea} lemnos. material-the this is very rather more too woody

Individuals can have a certain quality (tallness, beauty, etc.) to various degrees. Degrees are usually thought of as abstract representations of measurement organized into linearly ordered scales. The model comes from measurable adjectives, where the degree can be specified by a numeric expression (a Measure Phrase):

(166) Acest dulap e înalt de 230 de centimetri. this wardrobe is tall of 230 of centimeters ‘This wardrobe is 230 cm tall.’

Degrees are thus conceptualized as points on a scale. Formally, scales are structures that are fully ordered by an asymmetric ordering relation ≤.

According to one of the analyses of gradable adjectives – the functional approach –, which we will follow here, gradable adjectives do not denote functions from entities to truth-values (type ⟨e, t⟩), but rather functions from entities to degrees (type ⟨e, d⟩). In this approach, (166) is interpreted as:

(167) height(this wardrobe) = 230 cm.

As a consequence, in order to apply to an entity, these adjectives require combining with a degree expression – a degree word or a measure phrase – which turns a function from individuals to degrees into a function from entities to truth values (a property of entities):

(168) de 230 cm. = λA. λx. A(x) = 230 cm. de 230 cm.(înalt) = (λA. λx. A(x) = 230 cm.) (height) = λx.(height(x)

= 230 cm.)

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Degree expressions are thus of the semantic type ⟨⟨e, d⟩, ⟨e, t⟩⟩.An alternative approach analyzes the degree as an argument of the adjective. Gradable

adjectives are thus analyzed as relations between degrees and indiviuals (type ⟨d, ⟨e, t ⟩⟩) – hence the name relational approach (in the following, d, d′ etc. will be used as degree vari-ables, and x, y, etc. as entity variables):

(169) înalt = λd. λx. high (d)(x)

For adjectives which also have internal arguments, such as mândru (de) “proud (of)”, syn-tax shows that the degree specification takes place after the adjective combine with the internal argument, therefore such adjectives have the type ⟨e, ⟨e, d⟩⟩ under the functional approach and ⟨e, ⟨d, ⟨e, t⟩⟩⟩ under the relational approach.

If we analyze degree words as functional heads (Deg) in the extended projection of the adjec-tive (see 4.4 below), the external argument (for predicative adjectives) can be generated in an adjectival functional projection higher than Deg. We may call this projection aP, following the notation vP for the projection in which the external argument of verbs is generated (in the representation below, x stands for the external argument, d for the degree specification and y for the internal argument):

i. [aP x [DegP d [AP proud y]]]

In this chapter, we choose the functional analysis because this analysis captures the fact that entities have a property only to a certain degree (e.g. there is only one degree on the scale of height that corresponds to the height of this wardrobe). Functions are precisely characterized by the fact that each element of their domain is associated to a one and only one element in their range (the value of the function).

When it is not specified (the so-called ‘positive degree’), the degree is understood as bigger than a certain standard, valid for the entity under discussion:

(170) înalt = λx.height(x)>dstandard

When the degree is specified by a measure phrase or by a comparative relation, the stan-dard is no longer involved: thus, a man can be 1m60 tall, although with this height he would not be considered simply ‘tall’. Likewise, he can be taller than another an measur-ing only 1m57. There are also degree expressions which make reference to the standard, expressing proximity to it (almost tall, rather tall).

Depending on the way of establishing this standard, gradable adjectives are of two types – relative and absolute. Relative adjectives require the consideration of a comparison class, a set of entities whose average degree of possessing the property is compared to the degree to which the entity under consideration possesses the property. Thus, înalt ‘tall’ applied to a person means that the height of that person exceeds the average height for his/her sex and age. Most of the time, the comparison class is obvious, remaining therefore unexpressed. Usually, the noun that the adjective modifies or the noun inside the subject to

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which it is predicated, if it is a common noun, provides the comparison class (e.g. o insectă mare ‘a big insect’ is an entity which is big for an insect). But the comparison class can also be overtly expressed, by a PP with pentru ‘for’:

(171) Ionuţ este înalt pentru un copil de vârsta lui. Ionuţ is tall for a child of age-the his ‘Ionuţ is tall for a child of his age.’

The consideration of the comparison class explains why sometimes quality adjectives seem to be non-intersective, or to yield wrong results using inferences based on the intersectiv-ity test:

(172) a. Maria e o fetiţă înaltă ‘Maria is a tall girl’ |= a′. Maria e o fetiţă şi Maria e înaltă ‘Maria is a girl and Maria is tall’ b. George e un bărbat scund ‘George is a short man’ |= b′. George e un bărbat şi George e scund ‘George is a man and George is short’

(173) a. x e un elefant mic ‘x is a small elephant’ |= a′. x e un elefant şi x e mic ‘x is an elephant and x is small’ b. x e un animal ‘x is an animal’ ––– c. x e un animal mic ‘x is a small animal’

If one takes properties absolutely, without considering the comparison class, one may con-clude, putting together (172a′–b′), that since Maria is tall and George is short, George is shorter than Maria. But this is not what (172a–b) say, so it looks as if the adjectives are not intersective. Likewise, from (173a′) and (173b), one can conclude (173c), which is not true. But if we take into consideration the comparison class, and take care that it remains the same in the intersectivity test, this wrong impression disappears:

(172′) a. Maria e o fetiţă înaltă (pentru o fetiţă) ‘Maria is a tall girl (for a girl)’ |= a′. Maria e o fetiţă şi Maria e înaltă (pentru o fetiţă) ‘Maria is a girl and Maria is tall (for a girl)’

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b. George e un bărbat scund (pentru un bărbat) ‘George is a short man (for a man)’ |= b′. George e un bărbat şi George e scund (pentru un bărbat) ‘George is a man and George is short (for a man)’

(173′) a. x e un elefant mic (pentru un elefant) ‘x is an elephant small for an elephant’ |= a′. x e un elefant şi x e mic (pentru un elefant) ‘x is an elephant and x is small for an elephant’ b. x e un animal ‘x is an animal’ ––– c. x e un animal mic pentru un elefant ‘x is an animal small for an elephant’

For absolute adjectives, the standard does not depend on a comparison class. For example, something is characterized as wet or dry depending on the percentage of water it contains, independently on the average wetness of similar entities (see §4.3 below).

4.2 Antonymic pairs and measure phrases

Antonymic adjectives share the same scale, but the ordering relation is reversed, as can be seen from equivalences such as:

(174) Ion e mai înalt decât Maria = Maria e mai scundă decât Ion Ion is more tall than Maria Maria is more short than Ion ‘Ion is taller than Maria.’ ‘Maria is shorter than Ion.’

In comparison relations, the use of the positive term does not imply that the entity has a degree higher than the contextual standard (see (175)). With the comparative of inequality, there is no implication for negative terms either (see (176a)). However, with the compara-tive of equality and in degree questions (see (176b–c)), the negative term does imply that the entity has a degree higher than the standard:

(175) a. Maria e mai înaltă ca Rodica |≠ Maria e înaltă Maria is more tall than Rodica Maria is tall ‘Maria is taller than Rodica.’ ‘Maria is tall.’ b. Maria e la fel de înaltă ca Rodica |≠ Maria e înaltă Maria is equally tall as Rodica Maria is tall ‘Maria is as tall as Rodica.’ ‘Maria is tall.’ c. Cât de înaltă e Rodica? |≠ Rodica e înaltă how-much of tall is Rodica Rodica is tall ‘How tall is Rodica?’ ‘Rodica is tall.’

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(176) a. Maria e mai scundă ca Rodica |≠ Maria e scundă Maria is more short than Rodica Maria is short ‘Maria is shorter than Rodica.’ ‘Maria is short.’ b. Maria e la fel de scundă ca Rodica |= Maria e scundă Maria is equally short as Rodica Maria is short ‘Maria is as short as Rodica.’ ‘Maria is short.’ c. Cât de scundă e Rodica? |= Rodica e scundă how-much of short is Rodica Rodica is short ‘How short is Rodica?’ ‘Rodica is short.’

In an antonymic pair, usually only the ‘positive’ member of the pair can be used with measure phrases:

(177) a. E înalt de 1 metru 60. / *E scund de 1 metru 60. is tall of 1 meter 60 is short of 1 meter 60 b. E vechi de zece zile. / *E nou de zece zile. is old of ten days is new of ten days

Measure phrases are only found with measurable predicates, which are a sub-type of scalar predicates. Only for these predicates is an exact specification of a degree by a numeric value possible.

Expectedly, the abstract noun derived from the positive term denotes the dimension in general, while the negative term only refers to the property of having a degree of the dimension smaller than the standard (the standard can be contextually established).

(178) a. Acest obiect are {lăţimea / lungimea / grosimea} de this object has width-the length-the thickness-the of 40 de centimetri. 40 of centimeters b. *Acest obiect are {îngustimea / scurtimea / subţirimea} de this object has narrowness-the shortness-the thinness-the of 40 de centimetri. 40 of centimeters

A possible explanation for the restriction of measure phrases to positive terms is that measure phrases do not simply specify a point on the scale, but rather measure an interval that has the minimum of the scale as the starting point, and the degree to which the entity possesses the property as the end point:

i.

0 40 cm. ∞tall(x)

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Since the sense of the scale is reversed for negative terms, the starting point is at ∞. Therefore, the intervals between the starting point and the degree to which an entity possesses the property are not finite, and as such they are not measurable:

ii.

0 40 cm. ∞short(x)

For many adjectives expressing measurable properties, neither term can be used with mea-sure phrases:

(179) a. *Carte {scumpă / ieftină} de 100 de lei. book expensive cheap of 100 of lei b. *Apă {caldă/ rece} de 30 de grade. water warm cold of 30 of degrees c. *Sac {greu/ uşor} de 10 kilograme. sack heavy light of 10 kilograms d. *Om {tânăr/ bătrân} de 60 de ani. man young old of 60 of years

Notice that the intended meaning of (179) can be expressed using abstract nouns, based on the root of the adjective or on a different root. Another possibility is to use the measure phrase as a modifier/predicate of the noun, in which case the scalar property which is meant is made clear by the measure unit used (see examples a′, b′ below:

i. a. carte în valoare de 100 de lei book of value of 100 of lei ‘a book worth 100 lei.’ a′. carte de 100 de lei book of 100 of lei ‘a book of 100 lei’ b. apă cu temperatura de 30 de grade water with temperature-the of 30 of degrees ‘water of 30 degrees temperature’ b′. apă de 30 de grade / Apa era de 30 de water of 30 of degrees water-the was of 30 of grade. / Apa avea 30 de grade. degrees water-the has 30 of degrees ‘30 degrees water/The water was of 30 degrees./The water had 30 degrees.’

All adjectives, including those which do not allow direct measure modification, can receive measure phrases in the comparative degree, expresing the difference between the two degrees which are compared (the so-called ‘differential argument’, see 4.5.2 below).

(180) a. carte cu zece lei mai scumpă book with ten lei more expensive ‘a ten lei more expensive book.’

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b. apă cu treizeci de grade mai caldă water with thirty of degrees more warm ‘thirty degrees warmer water.’ c. sac cu zece kilograme mai greu sack with ten kilograms more heavy ‘a ten kilos heavier sack’ d. om cu zece ani mai tânăr man with ten years more young ‘a ten years younger man’

Measure phrases are not restricted to adjectival or adverbial projections. They are introduced by the preposition de ‘of ’ when modifying APs and NPs, and are not introduced by any prepo-sition when modifying VPs:

(181) a. Am înaintat trei sute de metri. have.1 advanced three hundreds of meters ‘I/We moved three hundred meters further.’ b. drum/ turn de trei sute de metri road tower of three hundreds of meters ‘a three hundred meters road/tower’ c. lung/înalt/lat de trei sute de metri long tall wide of three hundreds of meters ‘three hundred meters long/tall/wide’

Measure phrases have the pro-forms atât ‘that-much’ and cât ‘how-much’ (see (224) below).

4.3 Types of gradable adjectives depending on the structure of the scales

4.3.1 Relative vs. absolute adjectivesAs we have seen in §4.1, for some adjectives the standard involved in the interpretation of the positive degree is established contextually, by considering a comparison class. For example, the standard of height for buildings is different from the standard of height for men, which in turn is different from the standard of height of 7 years old children, etc. These adjectives are called relative adjectives. By contrast, for other adjectives, such as full, flat, closed etc. the standard is not dependent on a comparison class. Such adjectives are called absolute adjectives.

Relative adjectives are recognizable by the possibility to overtly express the comparison class, by a pentru- (‘for’) phrase. Such phrases are not allowed with absolute adjectives:

(182) a. Copilul este {înalt / voinic / vorbăreţ} pentru doi child-the is tall robust loquacious for two ani cât are. years how-much has ‘The child is tall/robust/loquacious for his two years of age.’

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b. Masa este {neobişnuită / scundă} pentru o masă de sufragerie. table-the is unusual short for a table of dining room ‘The table is unusual/short for a dining room table.’ c. Problema este dificilă pentru clasa a doua. problem-the is difficult for grade second ‘The problem is difficult for the second grade.’ d. Apartamentul este mic pentru o familie atât de numeroasă. apartment-the is small for a family so numerous ‘The apartment is small for such a numerous family.’

(183) a. *Uşa este închisă pentru o uşă de biserică. door-the is closed for a door of church b. *Paharul este plin pentru un pahar de vin. glass-the is full for a glass of wine

For antonymic pairs {A, B} of absolute adjectives, the negation of A entails B (see (184)); for relative adjectives this is not true (see (185)).

(184) a. Uşa nu este deschisă → Uşa este închisă ‘The door is not open’ ‘The door is closed’ b. Paharul nu este ud → Paharul este uscat ‘The glass is not wet’ ‘The glass is dry’ c. Copilul nu este treaz → Copilul este adormit ‘the child is not awake’ ‘The child is asleep’

(185) a. Musafirul nu este bătrân ≠> Musafirul este tânăr ‘The guest is not old’ ‘The guest is young’ b. Masa nu a fost scumpă ≠> Masa a fost ieftină ‘The table was not expensive’ ‘The table was cheap’

There are however some antonymic pairs of absolute adjectives, such as plin/gol ‘full/empty’, for which the negation of A does not entail B. These are adjectives associated to fully closed scales where both members have a maximum standard (for these notions, see the next sub-section, §4.3.2).

With relative adjectives, it is possible to sequentially describe an object in terms of both members of an antonymic pair in a single context, since the standard of the second adjec-tive is disjoint from the standard of the first adjective:

(186) a. Mercur este o planetă mică, dar este totuşi foarte mare. ‘Mercury is a small planet, but it’s still very big.’ b. Această expediţie a fost foarte scumpă, dar este totuşi ieftină prin

comparaţie cu expediţiile precedente. ‘This expedition was very expensive, but it was cheap compared to the

previous ones.’

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In contrast, antonyms with context independent standards cannot be felicitously predicated of the same object in the same sentence:

(187) a. ??Asta este o sală plină, deşi este încă goală. this is a hall full although is still empty ‘This is a full hall, although it’s still empty.’ b. ??Studenţii sunt treji, dar sunt adormiţi pentru nişte students-the are awake but are asleep for some tineri care ar trebui să fie foarte atenţi. young-men which would must subj be.3 very attentive ‘The students are awake, but are asleep for some young people who should

be very attentive.’

4.3.2 Absolute adjectives and the structure of the scaleThe difference between absolute and relative adjectives is due to a difference in the struc-ture of the scale denoted by the adjective: absolute adjectives have closed scales, i.e. scales with a minimal or a maximal degree (or both) (see figure (188)). It is this distinguished degree that provides a context-independent standard. By contrast, relative adjectives have open scales. The structure of the scale does not provide a distinguished degree, therefore comparison classes are necessary to provide a standard.

(188) : open scale

: lower closed scale

: upper closed scale

: fully closed scale

The existence of a maximum degree means that the scale is upper closed (or upper bounded). A maximum standard adjective is thus always associated with an upper closed scale.

The maximal degree is indicated by the modifiers perfect ‘perfectly’, complet ‘com-pletely’, pe deplin ‘fully’. We can thus establish whether an adjective has a maximum stan-dard by the possibility to combine with these modifiers (which may be called maximality modifiers) (on the difference between perfect and complet, see 4.3.3 below):

(189) a. Sticla e complet plină. bottle-the is completely full ‘The bottle is completely full.’ b. Linia e perfect dreaptă. line-the is perfectly straight ‘The line is perfectly straight.’

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c. corp perfect rotund body perfectly round ‘perfectly round body’

There are also adjectives with a minimum standard. The hallmark for a minimum standard adjective is the possibility to combine with the modifier uşor ‘slightly’, which introduces an interval immediately above the lower bound:

(190) a. Cămaşa e uşor murdară / *curată. shirt-the is slightly dirty clean ‘The shirt is slightly dirty/*clean.’ b. Argumentul este uşor viciat /*valid. argument-the is slightly flawed valid ‘The argument is slightly flawed/ *valid.’ c. Borcanul este uşor crăpat/ *întreg. jar-the is slightly cracked intact ‘The jar is slightly cracked /*intact.’

In an antonymic pair of absolute adjectives, usually one term is a maximum standard adjective and the other one is a minimal standard adjective. This is because antonyms share the same scale and differ only by the ordering relation. Therefore, the maximal degree of one member of the pair corresponds to the minimal degree of the other member. Thus, if in an antonymic pair {A1, A2}, A1 has a maximal degree, A2 will have a minimal degree. This explains why antonymic pairs such as those illustrated in (190) show opposite behavior with respect to the use of uşor ‘slightly’. The contrast is reversed when we use per-fect ‘perfectly’, which is only allowed with maximum standard adjectives:

(190′) a. Cămaşa e perfect curată/*murdară. ‘The shirt is perfectly clean/*dirty.’ b. Argumentul este perfect valid/*viciat. ‘The argument is perfectly valid/*flawed.’ c. Borcanul este perfect întreg/*crăpat. ‘The jar is perfectly intact/*cracked.’

Another test distinguishing maximum from minimum standard adjectives is the modifi-cation by aproape ‘almost’. Aproape is fully acceptable with maximum standard adjectives, whereas with minimum standard adjectives it is acceptable only in restricted contexts:

(191) a. Cămaşa e aproape uscată / ?udă. shirt-the is almost dry wet ‘The shirt is almost dry/?wet.’ b. Băţul e aproape drept / ??strâmb. stick-the is almost straight bent ‘The stick is almost straight/??bent.’

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Given an antonymic pair {Amax, Amin}, x is almost Amax entails x is slightly Amin:

(192) a. Cămaşa e aproape uscată |= Cămaşa e uşor umedă ‘The shirt is almost dry’ ‘The shirt is slightly wet’ b. Băţul e aproape drept |= Băţul e uşor strâmb ‘The stick is almost straight’ ‘The stick is almost bent’

Minimum standard and maximum standard adjectives give rise to special entailments when used in comparatives, which are not found with relative adjectives. Thus, for a mini-mal standard adjective A, x is A-er than y entails that x is A, because for any degree higher than the minimal point of the scale, x is A is true:

(193) Cartea e mai umedă decât caietul |= Cartea e umedă ‘The book is wetter than the notebook’ ‘The book is wet’

For a maximal standard adjective, x is A-er than y entails that y is not A (it can be almost A, but not perfectly A):

(194) Scaunul e mai uscat decât masa |= Masa nu e uscată ‘The chair is drier than the table’ ‘The table is not dry’

Relative adjectives do not allow these entailments:

(195) a. Ion e mai înalt/scund decât Cristina ‘Ion is taller/shorter than Cristina’ |≠ Ion e înalt/scund ‘Ion is tall/short’ b. Ion e mai înalt/scund decât Cristina ‘Ion is taller/shorter than Cristina’ |≠ Cristina nu e înaltă/scundă ‘Cristina is not tall/short’

Scales can be either closed at one end (partially closed scales) or at both ends (fully closed scales). With partially closed scale, since there is only one bound that can serve as an absolute standard, necessarily one member of an antonymic pair is a maximum standard adjective and the other one is a minimum standard adjective. This is the situation illustrated by the contrast in (190)–(191) above repeated below:

(196) a. Cuţitul e perfect/aproape drept / ??strâmb. ‘The knife is perfectly/almost straight/??bent.’ a′. Cuţitul e uşor strâmb / *drept. ‘The knife is slightly bent/*straight.’ drept: maximum standard (upper closed scale) strâmb: minimum standard (lower closed scale)

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b. Cămaşa e perfect uscată / *umedă. ‘The shirt is perfectly dry/*wet.’ b′. Cămaşa e uşor umedă / *uscată. ‘The shirt is slightly wet/*dry.’ uscat: maximum standard (upper closed scale) umed: minimum standard (lower closed scale)

In the case of fully closed scales, we find antonymic pairs of maximum standard adjectives, as shown by the tests:

(197) a. Paharul e aproape plin / gol. ‘The glass is almost full/empty.’ b. *Sala e uşor plină / goală. ‘*The room is slightly full/empty.’

Adjectives associated to fully closed scales allow proportional modifiers: (pe) jumătate, ‘half ’, pe sfert/pe trei sferturi ‘a quarter/three quarters’, în cea mai mare parte/în mare măsură/ în ansamblu ‘mostly/most of the way’:

(198) a. Paharul este {pe jumătate / în mare măsură} plin. ‘The glass is half/largely full.’ b. Uşa era {pe jumătate/ pe trei sferturi/ o treime} deschisă. ‘The door was half/ three-quarter/ one third open.’ c. Aceste imagini sunt {pe jumătate/ în cea mai mare parte/ în mare măsură}

invizibile. ‘These images are half/ mostly/ largely/ to a large extent invisible.’

Proportional modifiers are associated to fully closed scales because their interpretation makes reference to both the upper bound and the lower bound of the scale.

Open scale adjectives allow neither maximality nor proportional modifiers:

(199) a. *Cutia e complet mare / mică. box-the is completely big / small b. *Mobila e perfect nouă / veche. furniture-the is perfectly new / old c. *Frânghia este pe jumătate lungă / scurtă. rope-the is half long / short d. ??Un cal în vârstă de 15 ani este pe jumătate bătrân / tânăr. a horse in age of 15 years is half old / young

The distinction between absolute adjectives with a minimum standard (lower bound scale) and absolute adjectives with a maximum standard (upper bound scale) corresponds to the distinction between partial and total adjectives. Partial adjectives have been defined as adjec-tives which indicate the existence of some degree of a property P, whereas their antonym,

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called a total adjective, denotes the absence of this property P. The complete absence of prop-erty P serves as an absolute standard, which is a minimum standard for the partial adjective and a maximum standard for the total adjective. Thus, while umed ‘wet’ can refer to various percentages of water, uscat ‘dry’ designates absence of water; while strâmb ‘bent’ implies an-gles of various degrees, drept ‘straight’ designates absence of any angle. Likewise for periculos ‘dangerous’ and sigur ‘safe’.

The following examples show that total adjectives are maximum standard adjectives and par-tial adjectives are minimum standard adjectives:

i. a. Cămaşa e {perfect/aproape} {uscată / ??umedă}. ‘The shirt is perfectly/almost dry/??wet.’ b. Lemnul e{ perfect/aproape} {drept / ??strâmb}. ‘The wood is perfectly/almost straight/??bent.’ ii. a. Cămaşa e uşor {umedă / *uscată}. ‘The shirt is slightly wet/*dry.’ b. Lemnul e uşor {strâmb / *drept}. ‘The wood is slightly bent/ *straight.’

The maximum standard is not always provided by the absence of some property; adjectives denoting forms, for instance, qualify as total adjectives. The standard, in their case, can be formulated by a mathematical definition:

iii. corp perfect rotund body perfectly round ‘perfectly round body’

4.3.3 Distributive adjectives and perfect ‘perfectly’ vs. complet ‘completely’Distributive adjectives denote properties that can apply not only to an entity as a whole, but also to its parts. These adjectives may take proportional modifiers which specify the part of the entity to which the property applies. We can say that this use reflects a scale whose structure is based on the part structure of that entity (hence a fully closed scale). Compare:

(200) a. ??Afară e complet rece. (no entity with part-whole structure) outside is completely cold b. Faţa copilului e complet rece. (property applied to face-the child-the.gen is completely cold the parts of an entity) ‘The child’s face is completely cold.’ c. *El e complet inteligent. (non-distributive adjective) he is completely intelligent

(201) Peretele e parţial / complet verde. wall-the is partially completely green = ‘Parts of the wall are green./The whole of the wall is green.’

Note however that even in cases such as (200b) the maximality modifier perfect ‘perfectly’ is not allowed. This difference shows that scales based on the part-whole relation of the entity to which an adjectival property applies remain linguistically distinct from closed

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scales based on the intrinsic nature of the property P. Complet ‘completely’ is characteristic for scales based on the part-whole relation, whereas perfect ‘perfectly’ can only apply to scales of upper bound properties. Since rece ‘cold’ and verde ‘green’ are not upper bound adjectives, they cannot be modified by perfect (see (202), although they can be modified by complet (see (200b), (201)):

(202) a. *Faţa copilului e perfect rece. face-the child-the.gen is perfectly cold b. *Peretele e perfect verde. wall-the is perfectly green

Complet is excluded with scales which are not based on the part-whole relation, such as straight or round:

(203) a. Băţul e {perfect /*complet} drept. stick-the is perfectly completely straight b. Globul e {perfect /*complet} rotund. Globe-the is perfectly completely round

With adjectives such as dry or healthy, complet can be used because the property can be interpreted distributively: absence of moisture of the parts of an object, or health of the parts (organs etc.) of a body:

(204) a. Cămaşa e perfect/ complet uscată. shirt-the is perfectly completely dry ‘The shirt is perfectly/completely dry.’ b. Sunt perfect/ complet sănătos. am perfectly completely healthy ‘I am perfectly/completely healthy.’

Note that the antonymic pair plin/gol ‘full/empty’ allows complet and disallows perfect ‘perfectly’:

(205) a. Sala era complet plină. room-the was completely full ‘The room was completely full.’ a′. *Sala era perfect plină. room-the was perfectly full b. Paharul e complet gol. glass-the is completely empty ‘The glass is completely empty.’ b′. *Paharul e perfect gol. glass-the is perfectly empty

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This behavior is expected, since the property of ‘full’ or ‘empty’ can only be defined with respect to the parts and whole of the entity to which it applies (x is fuller with y than z if a bigger percentage of x than of z is filled with y). In other words, the scale that is relevant in order to evaluate such adjectives is the scale of the part-whole structure of the entity rather than the scale of the property itself.

4.3.4 Scalar properties of deverbal adjectivesIn the category of distributive properties we can include participles derived from verbs with incremental themes. These verbs are characterized by the fact that the theme is pro-gressively modified by the event expressed by the verb (in formal terms, for any sub-events e′ of the event e, including e itself, if x is the theme of e′ and e′′ is included in e′, then a part of x – x′ included in x – is the theme of the sub-event e′′). Since the property expressed by the resultative participle can be applied either to the whole object or to a part of it, it can take proportional modifiers which specify the part of the entity to which the property applies. The maximal degree refers to the application of the property to the whole entity:

(206) a. carte parţial citită book partially read b. fructe pe jumătate mâncate fruit half eaten c. palat complet renovat palace completely renovated

Paths can also be incremental arguments: in this case, the path is progressively covered by an argument which changes its location. Expectedly, resultative participles applied to the path allow proportional modifiers:

(207) a. traseu complet parcurs road completely crossed b. deşert parţial traversat desert partially crossed c. scară pe jumătate coborâtă stairway half gone-down

Since these scales are based on the part-whole structure of the entity, perfect ‘perfectly’ is not allowed:

(208) a. #carte perfect citită (with perfect = ‘fully, completely’) book perfectly read b. #deşert perfect traversat (with perfect = ‘fully, completely’) desert perfectly crossed

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Perfect may also function as a manner adverb, meaning that the manner of the action is perfect. In this case, it can appear with these participles, occuring in the normal position of manner adverbs (after the participle in the unmarked order; compare maximality modifiers of resultative participles, which occur in front of the participle):

i. carte citită perfect book read perfectly ‘book perfectly read’

Another type of incremental change involves the progression of the degree of the property which the theme acquires. In this case, it is the scalar nature of the property which explains the modifiers allowed by the resultative participle. Thus, if the property which the theme ac-quires (which can be expressed by an adjective from which the verb is derived) has an upper closed scale, the participle will allow upper closed scale modifiers, including the maximality modifier perfect:

ii. a. clădire perfect securizată building perfectly secured b. fir perfect întins thread perfectly aligned c. dinţi perfect îndreptaţi teeth perfectly straigthened

Besides incremental arguments, there are other gradable parameters in a verb’s semantics which may supply a scalar dimension to the derived adjective. The number of sub-events included in a plural event typically provides a scale for the derived adjective. This type of scale is also based on distributivity, the distribution being now over sub-events or times:

(209) carte foarte căutată book very searched ‘book searched by a lot of people/many times’ (number of events)

(210) autor foarte pomenit author very mentioned ‘author very often mentioned’ (number of events)

Some verbs denote gradable predicates, in which the degree corresponds to the intensity of some property. This property can be a psychological state (see (211b–c)), but also a physi-cal property which can vary in intensity (see (211a)). This provides a scalar dimension for the derived adjective:

(211) a. Terenul e foarte luminat. land-the is very lit ‘The land is very well illuminated.’ b. Era mai iubită decât Cleopatra. was more loved than Cleopatra ‘She was more loved than Cleopatra.’ c. E prea admirată. is too admired ‘She is too amired.’

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A general property of deverbal adjectives is that they are absolute adjectives. If the scale is based on incremental arguments, the deverbal adjective has a maximum standard, which is provided by the application of the property to the whole theme. This can be shown by applying the tests in 4.3.2:

(212) a. roman aproape scris novel almost written b. interval complet străbătut interval completely covered

When the scale is provided by a multiplicity of events or times (as in (213a)) or is due to the gradable nature (intensity) of the verbal predicate itself (as in (213b)), the deverbal adjective has a minimum standard: no matter how small is the degree of the property the theme acquires, or how seldom the theme participates in the event, or how little the part of the theme involved in the event is, the theme still qualifies as participating to the event. (The minimal degree corresponds to the negation of the participation of the theme to the event.) Therefore the entailments in (213) hold:

(213) a. Cartea asta e mai căutată decât cealaltă book-the this is more searched than the-other ‘This book is more in demand than the other one’ |= Cartea asta e căutată book-the this is searched ‘This book is in demand’ b. Ion e mai admirat decât Maria ‘Ion is more admired than Maria’ |= Ion e admirat ‘Ion is admired’

These types of scales lack an upper bound, therefore maximality modifiers (perfect/com-plet) and almost are not allowed:

(214) a. ??E {parţial / complet / perfect} iubită. is partially completely perfectly loved b. ??carte {complet / aproape} căutată book completely almost searched(in demand)

Verbs without incremental arguments which can be modified by completely or partially, such as know (see (215)) rely on the distributive nature of the property: knowing an object involves knowing its parts. Thus, partially/totally known can refer to the proportion of the object which is known.

(215) Această limbă e {parţial/ complet} cunoscută. this language is partially completely known ‘This language is partially/completely (well-)known.’

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4.4 The syntax of the degree phrase

The specification of the degree can be realized in various ways: by degree words, adverbs used as high degree expressions, measure phrases, comparative clauses and compara-tive PPs.

In this section we will discuss degree words, to which we will add adverbs used as high degree expressions, because they show a similar syntax. Sections 4.5–4.9 treat in detail the most important degree words that express relations between degrees (the comparative of superiority, of equality and the superlative). In Section 4.10, we present the semantics of other degree words. Measure phrases have been discussed in Section 4.2. Comparative clauses and PPs are discussed in the sections on comparative degrees (4.5–4.7).

Degree words in a restricted sense refer to a closed class of elements specialized for the expression of relations between degrees. Degree words can be split into two distinct classes depending on whether they trigger the insertion of the element de (lit. ‘of ’) between them and the adjective or not. Adverbs used as high degree expressions, although they constitute an open class, enter the construction with de. Therefore, they are treated here together with degree words.

4.4.1 Degree headsThe degree words which do not trigger the insertion of de form a closed class: mai ‘more, -er’, foarte ‘very’, prea ‘too’, aşa ‘so’, ce lit. ‘what’, here translatable by ‘how’, tare ‘very’ (mostly exclamative).

(216) a. {foarte/ prea/ mai/ aşa} frumoasă very too more so beautiful b. Ce frumoasă e rochia! what beautiful is dress-the ‘How beautiful the dress is!’ c. Tare prost e omul acesta! very stupid is man-the this ‘This is such a stupid man!’

Some of these words can appear in other environments. We will discuss the non-adjectival contexts of these items in Section 4.4.3.

Following the analysis of other functional items – determiners in the nominal domain, aux-iliaries in the verbal domain – as functional heads, it has been proposed that degree words head a functional projection, called DegP, which takes an AP or AdvP as its complement.

The obligatory pre-adjectival position of degree words supports analyzing them as functional heads: functional heads are obligatorily preposed, because Romanian is a head-initial language (see also the functional categories in the nominal domain, Chapter 3 §1). Modifiers are normally freely allowed in postposition (most adverbial classes) or even pre-fer postposition (see the discussion on adjective placement inside DP in Section 3).

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Using the DegP-analysis, the degree heads listed above can be viewed as sitting in Deg0, a functional head that takes AP or AdvP as its complement:

(217) DegP

Deg0 AP/AdvP/QP

‘more good = better’maimândru de copiii săibun

‘very proud of his children’

aşapreafoarte

binerepede

‘so good’ ‘too fast’

A similar distribution is also shown by cam ‘quite, roughly’, which expresses closeness to the standard of comparison of the positive degree (in examples such as (218), the use of cam suggests that the presence of the property in the positive degree is not desirable):

(218) cam mare quite big

However, having a general meaning of approximation (‘roughly’), cam can combine with other degree words, which indicates that it does not occupy the Deg position:

(219) a. cam prea mare roughly too big b. cam aşa de lung roughly that of long

Granting that the (other) degree words occupy the Deg0 position, cam can be analyzed either as a modifier or as a higher head Approx0.

4.4.2 The de - constructionA characteristic property of Romanian is that some degree words appear in a construction where they are separated from the adjective/adverb by the dummy element de ‘of ’:

(220) a. probleme {atât / deosebit} de grele problems so especially de hard b. la fel de frumoasă ca sora ei equally de pretty as sister-the her

The item de is a multifunctional element: it can be a preposition, a case marker (marking the genitive of bare nouns, see Chapter 6 §4), it appears after some cardinals and other quantity expressions (see Chapter 3 §5). When used with adjectives, de does not block adjectival agreement with the head noun or the subject, which means that the lexical head of the construction is the adjective:

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(221) a. o ocazie destul de bună an occasion(f) enough de good.fsg b. munţi extraordinar de înalţi mountains(m) extraordinary de high.mpl

The following three classes of words can be found in the construction with de. All of these classes can also appear as adverbs in the verbal domain.

(I) Quantity adverbs: atât ‘so/that much’, cât ‘how much’, oricât ‘no matter how much’, destul, suficient, îndeajuns ‘enough’.

(222) a. apartamente {atât/ oricât / destul / suficient} de mari apartments so however-much enough sufficiently de big b. Cât de mari erau casele? how de big were houses-the ‘How big were the houses?’ c. ţară îndeajuns de bogată pentru a hrăni o country sufficiently de rich for to feed a populaţie numeroasă population numerous ‘a country sufficiently rich to feed a numerous population’

A characteristic of quantity words (or ‘quantitatives’) which we find across languages (see English much, French beaucoup, assez, combien, Italian molto, tanto, etc.) is that they occur both as adjuncts in the verbal domain and as functional elements in the nominal domain (see Chapter 3 Section 5). In Romanian, we find all of the items listed in (I) as adverbial quantity modifiers; atât, cât, oricât, destul also appear in the nominal domain (223 d):

(223) a. Vorbeşte destul / atât(a) / oricât. talks enough that-much no-matter-how-much ‘He talks enough/so much/no matter how much.’ b. A mâncat îndeajuns/ sufficient. has eaten enough sufficiently ‘(S)he ate enough/sufficiently.’ c. Cât vorbeşte? how much talks ‘How-much does (s)he talk?’ d. destule / atâtea / câte / enough.fpl so-much.fpl how-much.fpl oricâte întrebări no-matter-how-much.fpl questions ‘enough/that many/how many/no matter how many questions’

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The adjective/adverb suficient ‘sufficient’, which has a quantitative use in which it is synony-mous with destul ‘enough’, patterns with destul when modifying an adjective, but differs from the other quantitatives in that it is not fully grammaticalized as a functional item in the nomi-nal domain: it does not seem to be able to occupy the D-position or license N-ellipsis:

i. a. Este suficient de mare. is sufficiently de big b. Destui / ??Suficienţi copii se îmbolnăviseră. enough.mpl sufficient.mpl children(m) refl got-sick ‘Enough/??Sufficient children had got sick.’ c. Au venit destui / ??suficienţi. have.3pl come enough.mpl sufficient.mpl

Quantitatives can also appear in measure phrases (as pro-forms):

(224) drum de atât / de cât road of that-much of how-much

On the use of quantitatives as modifiers of other degree words, functioning as differentials, see 4.5.2 below.

The quantitatives listed in I above function as degree words, which, in the case of the ad-verbal and adnominal uses, refer to the scale of quantity; therefore, they cannot com-bine with other degree words:

(225) a. *Va vorbi {mai/ prea/ foarte} {atât / will.3sg talk more too very that-much oricât/ destul}. however-much enough

b. *{mai/ prea/ foarte/ aşa} {atâţi / câţi / more too very so that-much.mpl how-much.mpl destui} oameni enough.mpl people(m)

The scale of quantity is associated with the antonymic pair of gradable adjectives mult ‘many, much’ and puţin ‘few, little’. Therefore, in the ad-verbal and the adnominal use illus-trated in (223), atât ‘so-much’, cât ‘how-much’, oricât ‘no matter how much’, destul ‘enough’ are equivalent to atât de mult, cât de mult, oricât de mult, destul de mult (compare also their English equivalents):

(226) a. Au venit atâţia = Au venit atât have.3pl come so-much.mpl have.3pl come so-much de mulţi de much.mpl ‘So many have come.’

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b. Cât a dormit = Cât de mult a dormit how-much has slept how de much has slept ‘how much he slept/did he sleep’ c. destule probleme = destul de multe probleme enough.fpl problems(f) enough de much.fpl problems(f) ‘enough problems’ d. oricâte femei = oricât de however-much.fpl women(f) however-much de multe femei much.fpl women(f) ‘no matter how many women’

(II) Idiomatic PPs reanalyzed as adverbs: la fel ‘equally’ (lit. ‘at sort’), deopotrivă ‘equally’ (<de o potrivă ‘of one match’), expressing the equative comparison (see 4.7.1 for details):

(227) la fel de bun ca Maria at sort of good as Maria ‘as good as Maria’

La fel can also be used as an adverbial or predicative PP, meaning ‘likewise, alike’:

(228) a. Se poartă la fel. refl acts at sort ‘(S)he acts in the same way/alike.’ b. Cărţile sunt/ arată la fel. books-the are look at sort ‘The books are/look alike.’

Synchronically, la fel is lexicalized as a word-like unit, like deopotrivă, whose base (old Rom.) potrivă, protivă ‘member of a pair, the match of something, correspondence’ is no longer used as a noun. However, because fel still has a regular noun meaning ‘sort, kind’, the orthographic norm maintains the separate writing la fel.

Probably on the model of its synonym atât, the adverb aşa ‘so’, which can appear before the AP/AdvP without de, being thus included in the category of degree heads (see 4.4.1 above), can also be used in the de- construction:

(229) case aşa (de) mari houses so de big

(III) Degree predicates (attitude predicates). Whereas all the words listed so far form closed classes, elements belonging to an open class can also appear in the de-construc-tion: adjectival- adverbial predicates can be used to qualify the degree of the property. This

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qualification implies a high degree, and expresses the speaker’s attitude towards this degree (hence the term ‘attitude predicates’):

(230) a. {extrem / extraordinar / incredibil / fantastic} de frumoasă extreme extraordinary incredible fantastic de beautiful.fsg b. plăcere extremă / extraordinară / incredibilă / fantastică pleasure(f) extreme.fsg extraordinary.fsg incredible.fsg fantastic.fsg c. Scrie extraordinar / incredibil / fantastic. writes extraordinary incredible fantastic ‘He writes extraordinarily/incredibly / fantastically.’

Although not all adjectives can be used as degree predicates, this possibility is not restricted to a closed list: any adjective which can express the effect of a high degree (most often psychological) can be used as a degree predicate: e.g. teribil ‘terrible’, înfricoşător ‘frightening’, înspăimântător ‘frightening’, nemaiauzit ‘unheard-of ’, surprinzător ‘surpris-ing’, copleşitor ‘overwhelming’, aiuritor ‘bewildering’, etc.

Turning now to the syntactic analysis, we may assume that the degree words appear-ing in the de construction are not functional heads, but rather occupy the specifier position of a projection headed by de. This view is supported by the adverbial status of the items appearing before de. Since the general meaning of the construction is the specification of degree, we take de to occupy the Deg0 position:

(231) DegP

SpecDeg Deg'

‘enough/so/how de beautiful’

Deg0QPs: destul AP

atât

cât de frumoasă

AdvPs: la felaşaextraordinar ‘as/so/extraordinary de beautiful’

There is an obvious connection between this construction and quantity constructions in the nominal domain: the same element de is used after measure phrases, nominal quantita-tives and non-agreeing cardinals (see Chapter 13 §1 and Chapter 3 §5):

(232) a. trei kilograme de mere three kilos de apples ‘three kilos of apples’

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b. o mulţime de oameni a crowd de people ‘a lot of people’ c. douăzeci de studenţi twenty de students ‘twenty students’

Note however that in the present-day language, the items appearing in the specifier of degree de are not only quantitative phrases (type I below): classes II and III (equative adverbials and degree predicates) do not have a quantitative use outside the de + AP/AdvP context.

Note that the degree heads foarte and tare, which do not trigger de insertion, were once degree predicates, like those of class III (foarte comes from the Latin adjective fortis ‘strong’, tare is still an adjective/adverb, meaning ‘hard, strong’). However, they do not trigger de inser-tion. This is due to te fact that in the past, degree predicates expressing a high degree did not trigger de insertion. De insertion was originally restricted to items of class (I), which are true quantitatives. As for class (II), the synonymy between atât and la fel, deopotrivă ‘as’ probably led to the extension of the de construction to the latter elements.

Note that in the structure in (231), de forms a constituent with the following adjective/adverb, which correctly predicts that de remains attached to the adjective when the preceding element is displaced (this extraction is possible when the adjectival phrase is in postcopular position):

(233) a. {Cât/ Atât} era de lung! how so was de long ‘How long it was!/It was that long!’ b. Extraordinar era de frumoasă! extraordinarily was de beautiful(f) ‘She was extraordinarily beautiful!’

Since only phrasal elements can be extracted, the data in (233) indicate that the items preceding de are phrasal (rather than functional categories). This is also captured by the structure in (231), because Spec positions are by definition occupied by phrasal elements.

It is interesting to notice that the wh- degree word ce, analyzed as a degree head (since it does not take de), cannot be extracted alone, whereas the other wh- degree word, cât, which takes de, can be extracted. This difference confirms the fact that ce is a degree head whereas cât occupies a phrasal position rather than a head position:

(234) a. Cât era de frumoasă! how was.3sg de beautiful.fsg ‘How beautiful she was!’ a′. Cât de frumoasă era! how de beautiful.fsg was.3sg

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b. *Ce era frumoasă! what was.3sg beautiful.fsg b′. Ce frumoasă era! what beautiful.fsg was.3sg ‘How beautiful she was!’

The same contrast obtains between aşa without de and aşa with de:

(235) a. Aşa era de lung! so was de long a′. Aşa de lung era! so de long was b. *Aşa era lung! so was long b′. Aşa lung era! so long was ‘It was that long!’

Note finally that de also appears if a comparative clause is preposed. Comparative clauses, which directly specify the degree, like measure phrases, normally appear after the adjec-tive. When they are preposed, they are emphatic:

(236) înalt cât casa (Neutral order) tall as house-the

(237) cât casa de înalt (Emphatic) how house-the de tall ‘as tall as the house’

The general structure proposed for the de construction can cover this case:

(238) DegP

SpecDeg Deg'

Deg0 AP

cât casa de înalt

The emphatic feature these fronted elements bear makes them similar to degree predicates (class III).

Notice now that adverbial modifiers which do not refer to the degree can appear before adjectives without triggering the insertion of de, which confirms the view that de signals a functional projection dedicated to degrees:

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(239) Domain predicates: a. situaţie [logic posibilă] situation logically possible b. persoană [fizic sănătoasă], [psihic anormală] person physically healthy psychologically abnormal

(240) Modal predicates: a. oameni [aparent bolnavi] people apparently sick b. persoană [realmente fericită] person really happy

Moreover, in Section 4.3, we have also seen various modifiers characterizing absolute adjectives – approximation, maximality, proportional modifiers. These modifiers appear before the adjective without triggering de insertion:

(241) a. perfect curat perfectly clean b. aproape uscat almost dry c. uşor strâmb slightly twisted d. pe jumătate / parţial deschis half partially open

The modifiers of absolute adjectives, in spite of the obligatory preposed position, are not to be analyzed as functional heads, because they are items belonging to open classes (spatial adverb: aproape, adjective-adverbs: perfect, complet, uşor) or they are phrasal (see the PP pe jumătate).

4.4.3 Constructions with puţin and multThe quantitatives puţin ‘few, little’ and mult ‘much’ have some special uses as functional words related to the expression of degrees:

– Puţin ‘few, little’ has two uses, which are normally distinguished by stress:

(i) The quantitative use, in which it characterizes the degree as close to the minimum degree which allows the use of the adjective in the positive degree. It is equivalent with un pic ‘a bit, a little’:

(242) Nu mi se potriveşte bluza asta, e {puţin/ un pic} mare. not me.dat refl fits shirt-the this is little a bit large ‘This shirt doesn’t suit me, it’a a little/a bit large.’

In this use, puţin does not bear a special stress, so the main stress falls naturally on the end of the adjectival phrase:

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(243) Apa e puţin ADÂNCĂ → Apa e adâncă water-the is little deep water-the is deep ‘The water is a little deep’ ‘The water is deep’

(ii) The scale-reversing use, in which it converts an adjective into its antonym. In this use, puţin bears focal stress:

(244) Apa e PUŢIN adâncă → Apa nu e adâncă water-the is little deep water-the not is deep ‘The water is little deep’ ‘The water is not deep’

In the positive, scale-reversing puţin is natural only if the adjective does not have a lexical antonym (see (245)), otherwise it is acceptable only with some adjectives which express positive evaluation (see (246)–(247)):

(245) Apa e PUŢIN adâncă. water-the is little deep ‘The water is not so deep.’

(246) *Masa e PUŢIN lungă. table-the is little long

(247) a. Maria e PUŢIN inteligentă / încrezătoare. Maria is little intelligent confident ‘Maria is not so intelligent/confident.’ b. ??Maria e PUŢIN bogată. Maria is little rich

Preceded by degree words, scale-reversing puţin becomes more acceptable:

(248) a. Maria e {foarte / prea} puţin inteligentă / Maria is very too little intelligent frumoasă / încrezătoare bogată. beautiful confident rich

b. Maria e {atât de / destul de / extrem de} puţin cultivată. Maria is so de enough de extremely de little lettered

With the degree word mai, the construction is fully productive and is used to express the comparative of inferiority, see Section 4.6.

– Mult ‘much’ is used after the comparative word mai in a special comparative construc-tion, when the applicability of two different properties to an entity is compared (see Section 4.8):

(249) a. Masa e mai mult lată decât înaltă. table-the is more much wide than high ‘The table’s width exceeds its height.’

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b. Maria e mai mult naivă decât proastă. Maria is more much naïve than stupid ‘Maria’s naiveness exceeds her stupidity.’

Let us now discuss the syntactic analysis of these constructions. In the quantitative use, puţin may be analyzed on a par with approximation modifiers, since it expresses closeness to the standard degree. It probably occupies a phrasal position, since it can be replaced by the complex quantitative expression un pic ‘a bit’.

In the scale reversal use, the special meaning suggests a functional head status of puţin. This head, which we notate F, takes an AP complement and can be selected by Deg:

(250) DegP

Deg0 FP

‘very little/less/too little kind’

F0foartemaiprea

AP

puţin amabilă

(251) DegP

QP/Advp Deg'

‘so little/rather little/extremely little kind’

Deg0

F0

atâtdesfulextrem

FP

APde

amabilăpuţin

Given the antonymic pair puţin/mult, one can assume that all Deg heads take in fact an FP complement and mult occurring in F or SpecF is silent (has a null realization) before adjectives and adverbs. Thus, both degree heads (class I) and phrases taking the Deg head de ( classes II, III and V) would appear in the following configurations, corresponding to (250)–(251):

(252) a. [DegP mai/foarte/prea/aşa/ce [FP [F Ø] AP]] b. [DegP [(Q+Deg)P/AdvP atât/aşa/cât/destul/la fel /extrem] [[Deg de] [FP[F Ø] AP]]]

4.4.4 Other constituents licensed by degree wordsSome degree words introduce additional arguments, which are normally placed after the adjective:

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– The comparative mai and the equatives (tot) aşa/atât, la fel, deopotrivă license a PP or CP expressing the standard of comparison – the so-called ‘comparative complement’ (see 4.5.1 for details):

(253) a. mai înalt [de doi metri] / [decât Rodica] / [decât more tall of two meters than Rodica than mi-ai spus]] me.dat-has said ‘two meters taller than Rodica/than you told me’ b. la fel de frumoasă [ca Flavia] / [cum a fost întotdeauna] equally of beautiful as Flavia how has been always ‘as beautiful as Flavia/as ever’

– The sufficiency degree words destul, suficient, îndeajuns ‘enough’, which indicate that the degree is at least as high as the minimum degree necessary to obtain some result or to obey some norm, introducing an argument referring to the result or norm, expressed by a purpose or result clause. This constituent obligatorily follows the AP:

(254) a. Ion e destul de mare pentru a merge singur. Ion is enough de old for to walk alone ‘Ion is old enough to walk on his own.’ b. Apa e suficient de caldă ca să putem intra. water-the is sufficiently de warm that subj can.1pl enter ‘The water is sufficiently warm for us to get in.’ c. Mihai a fost destul de prost încât să-l creadă. Mihai has been enough de stupid so-that subj-him believe.3 ‘Mihai was stupid enough to believe him.’

– The degree head prea ‘too’, which indicates that the degree exceeds the maximum degree needed to obtain some result, to fulfill some goal or to obey to some norm, introduces an argument referring to this result, goal or norm, expressed by a purpose or result clause:

(255) a. E prea bătrân ca să mai călătorească aşa departe. is too old that subj more travel.3 so far ‘He is too old to travel so far.’ b. Chestiunea e prea amplă pentru a putea fi discutată aici. issue-the is too wide for to can be discussed here ‘The issue is too wide to be discussed here.’

If the degree only slightly exceeds the maximum degree needed to obtain some result or to obey to some norm, the word cam ‘quite’, treated above as an approximation modifier, can license an argument referring to this result or norm, behaving similarly to prea:

(256) E cam mare pentru a încăpea în bagaj. is too big for to fit in luggage ‘It is (a bit) too big to fit in the luggage.’

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When licensed by degree heads, these arguments can be analyzed as complements of Deg, attached above the AP, to the right:

(257) a. [DegP [Deg’ mai [AP frumoasă]] [decât Rodica]] ‘more pretty than Rodica’ b. [DegP [Deg’ prea [AP mare]] [ca s-o pot cuprinde]] ‘too big for me to hold it’

Note that these constituents can also appear with degree words triggering de- insertion (see equatives – (253b) – and sufficiency degree words – (254)), which have been analyzed as specifiers of DegP. In this case, it is not the Deg head de, but rather the element in its speci-fier that semantically selects the comparative complement or the goal argument. A possible analysis is to assume that the post-adjectival position is derived from a pre-adjectival posi-tion via extraposition, which would be made obligatory by considerations belonging to Weight Theory (which requires, in head-initial constructions, heavier constituents – here, comparative complements, goal arguments – to follow lighter ones – here, the adjective). The base position of the complement can be observed only in constructions such as (260), marginally possible with equatives:

(258) DegP

DegP PP(=P+CP)

‘old enough to walk on his own’

Deg'

Q0 tpp Deg0

QP

AP

destul [pentru a merge singur]de mare

(259) DegP

DegP PP

‘as smart as Maria’

Deg'

Adv tpp Deg0

Advp

AP

la fel [ca Maria]de deştept

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(260) la fel ca tine de deştept equally as you de smart ‘as smart as you’

Another possibility is that comparative complements and purpose PP/CPs licensed by degree words are not syntactically selected as complements, but merge in their surface position and are only semantically licensed by the degree word. This type of analysis has been proposed for examples such as I have a [better] opinion about Joan [than you seem to have], where the degree complements appear outside the adjectival projection.

– The comparative of inequality can also license an argument expressing the difference between the two compared degrees – the so-called ‘differential’. This argument appears before the degree head mai, so we may take it to occupy SpecDegP. This construction will be analyzed in detail in 4.5.2 below.

(261) {(cu) mult / cu trei metri} mai mare with much with three meters more big ‘a lot/three meters bigger’

4.4.5 Degree heads in non-adjectival environmentsResearchers working on other languages (English, French, Dutch) have noticed that some degree words are restricted to APs and AdvPs while others can also combine with other scalar predicates such as verbs. They proposed that only those degree words restricted to APs and AdvPs are functional heads, based on the idea that functional heads select for specific lexical categories. Those degree words that can also combine with verbs would be adjuncts.

In Romanian, the forms functioning as degree words without de can appear in other environments, but often with special meanings or imposing special constraints. Moreover, they do not have the same distribution as modifiers, but show special restrictions in place-ment, indicating that they are functional items (forming a closed class).

(I) In adnominal use, degree words can exceptionally be found, if the nominal prop-erty is interpreted as a gradable property (a quality). If the noun receives such degree words, it cannot occur in an argument position, but only in predicative and adnominal contexts, i.e. it gets an adjectival distribution:

(262) a. E foarte cucoană. is very lady b. E prea copil. is too child

(263) a. *Am vorbit cu o foarte cucoană. have.I talked with a very lady

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b. *A invitat prea copii. has invited too children

This behavior can be explained if degree words are not merely modifiers, but functional heads, realizing a sort of conversion of the categorial nature of the phrase from nominal to adjectival:

(264) [DegP foarte [NP cucoană]]

(II) In ad-verbal use, most of these items can appear, but sometimes with a totally different meaning, which suggests the existence of a homonymical pair.

– prea ‘too’ can appear before the verb with roughly the same meaning, in a fixed posi-tion, immediately preceding the ‘verbal complex’ (containing the verb and the ele-ments cliticized onto it); in negative clauses, it can also occur inside this complex, in the position of clitic adverbs, i.e. before lexical verbs (including finite ones) but after auxiliaries, and has the special meaning ‘(not) quite, really’:

(265) a. Maria prea se admiră. Maria too refl admires ‘Maria admires herself too much.’ b. Nu prea ştie. not too knows ‘He doesn’t really know.’ c. N-am prea auzit de asta. not-have.1 too heard of this ‘I haven’t really heard about this.’

Because it can co-occur with other degree words, the approximation modifier cam ‘rather’ was not analyzed as a Deg head. Note however that it resembles functional elements by the fact that when it modifies verbs it occurs inside the verbal complex, in the position of clitic adverbs, with a modalizing meaning (‘one can almost say that p’):

(266) a. Maria se cam admiră. Maria refl rather admires ‘One can almost say Maria admires herself/Maria kind of admires herself.’ b. Am cam greşit. have.1 rather been-wrong ‘I was rather wrong/One can almost say I was wrong.’

– mai ‘more’ can be a clitic adverb, but with a quite different meaning: it is very often used, and can be characterized as a temporal additive, introducing the presupposition that there is some other temporal interval at which the event holds or another occur-rence of the event; it can be translated as ‘again’, ‘still’, (with negation) ‘any longer’,

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(with the perfect) ‘already (on some other occasion)’, ‘also’. In this case the meaning is sufficiently different to consider that this is an instance of homonymy (which does not mean that they don’t have the same historical source, which in fact they do – lat. magis). We can thus conclude that the degree word mai is restricted to adjectival and adverbial contexts;

– foarte ‘very’ is totally excluded in the ad-verbal environment in present-day Romanian; it was able to modify the verb in the old language;

– ce ‘how/what’ can appear with verbs and nouns with an exclamative value, occupying the sentence-initial position characteristic of wh-items; the verbal complex usually contains the item mai in this case (which in this context loses its presuppositional meaning):

(267) a. Ce mai scrie! how more writes ‘How much (s)he’s writing!’ b. Vai ce ninge! wow how snows ‘Oh, how it snows!’

With nouns, it appears before de+NP as an exclamative quantitative (see Chapter 3 §5.4):

(268) Ce de oameni au venit! how de people have come ‘How many people came!’

In these environments, it can be analyzed as a quantitative (QP). Notice however that when used with adjectives, ce is the only quantitative that does not trigger de- insertion (e.g. ce frumoasă ‘how beautiful’, see (216b)), a fact that suggests that it occupies the Deg0 position.

Ce is also the form of the wh- neuter pronoun ‘what’, which we treat as an instance of homonymy.

– aşa ‘so’ has a much larger use than the degree one: it is a general pro-predicate expres-sion, anaphorizing adjectives and manner/predicative adverbs, like English so.

Summing up, degree words without de have a restricted distribution outside adjectival and adverbial contexts, except for aşa and ce: they either appear in a fixed position close to the verb, a behavior that characterizes a closed class, and tend to acquire a modalizing meaning (cam, prea) or are totally excluded in ad-verbal contexts (mai, foarte). In the ad-nominal context, they can exceptionally be found but in such cases they recategorize the projection into an adjectival one. All these properties are compatible with an analysis of degree words with APs and AdvPs as functional heads Deg forming an extended adjec-tival/adverbial projection, on a par with determiners for nouns and auxiliaries and tense inflections for verbs.

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Note now that verbal predicates can have a scalar component, either intrinsic, refer-ring to the intensity of a state or process (e.g. love, lighten), or stemming from the degree or extension of the modification of the theme or from temporal extension. The normal way to express this scalar component is by using quantity phrases, which allow degree words (quantity words have an A/Adv-feature which allows the projection of DegP):

(269) a. O iubesc foarte mult / mai mult decât pe altele. her love.1sg very much more much than dom others ‘I love her very much/more than I love others.’ b. Doarme prea puţin. sleeps too little ‘(S)he sleeps too little.’ c. L-a curăţat mai mult decât trebuie. cl.3msg-has cleaned more much than must ‘(S)he cleaned it more than necessary.’

4.5 The comparative of superiority

The comparative head mai (‘more’, ‘-er’) characterizes the degree to which the property A holds of an individual as greater than another degree (the standard of comparison), which is an obligatory argument of the comparative. This argument may remain implicit or may be overtly expressed by a complement, which will be referred to as comparative complement:

(270) Ion e mai înalt decât George. Ion is more tall than George ‘Ion is taller than George.’

In Example (270), the property A is înalt ‘tall, high’, the standard of comparison is George’s height, introduced by the comparative complement decât George. Mai combines with a gradable adjective (analyzed here as a function from entities to degrees, see §4.1) and a degree and yields a property of entities:

(271) x is mai A than d = A(x) > d mai = λA∈D⟨e,d⟩. λd∈Dd. λx∈De. A(x) > d ‘the degree to which x has the property A is greater than d’

In the following, we will refer to A(x) as ‘the degree of the adjective’ and to d as ‘the stan-dard of comparison’.

The comparative may also take an argument that further specifies the comparison between the degree A(x) and the standard of comparison: this argument can be a differential – measuring the difference between the two degrees – or a factor – characterizing the degree A(x) as a multiple of the standard of comparison d.

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(272) a. Ion e [cu un centimetru] mai înalt decât sunt eu. Ion is with one centimeter more tall than am I ‘Ion is one centimeter taller than I am.’ b. Casa e [de două ori] mai înaltă decât gardul. house-the is of two times more tall than fence-the ‘The house is twice as high as the fence.’

4.5.1 The comparative complementThe comparative complement can be of several types: (i) Measure Phrases introduced by de; (ii) free degree relatives introduced by de + cât ‘how’; (iii) free degree relatives with elided verbs introduced by de + cât or by ca; (iv) DPs introduced by de + cât or by ca. The string de+cât is written in a single word according to the orthographic norm of Romanian, but it can be semantically and syntactically decomposed into de+cât. We will sometimes use the notation ‘de[cât]’.

The degree acting as a standard of comparison is a measure phrase (see (273a)) or the degree denoted by the free degree relative (see (273b–c)):

(273) a. Drumul e mai lung de 10 kilometri. (Measure Phrase) road-the is more long de 10 kilometers ‘The road is longer than 10 kilometers.’ : Standard of comparison = 10 kilometers b. Maria e mai înaltă de[cât sunt eu]. (Free Relative) Maria is more tall de-how-much am I ‘Maria is taller than I am.’ : Standard of comparison = [cât sunt eu de înalt] = tall(Speaker) c. Mi-a dat un cadou mai frumos me.dat-has given a present more pretty decât/ca ţie = (Free Relative with elided verb) than as you.dat Mi-a dat un cadou mai frumos decât me.dat-has given a present more pretty than [ţi-a dat ţie]. you.dat-has given you.dat ‘(S)he gave me a prettier present than the (s)he gave you.’ : Standard of comparison = ιd.(he gave you a present x such that

beautiful(x)=d)

Degree relatives involve movement of a degree operator, leaving a variable in the base posi-tion (see (273c)). Like free relatives in general (see Chapter 9 Section 2.1.2), degree relatives involve binding the degree variable with the iota operator (denoting uniqueness):

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(274) de [câti sunt eu ti (de înalt)] of how-much am I of tall = ιd (tall(Speaker)=d) ‘the unique d such that d is equal to the speaker’s height’

Romanian clearly shows that operator movement is involved in free degree relatives acting as comparative complements because decât ‘than’ is decomposable into de ‘of ’, the preposi-tion introducing Measure Phrase standards (see (273a)), and cât ‘how-much’, the degree wh- word:

(275) Aş vrea să-mi spui cât de scump este. would.1sg want subj-me.dat tell.2sg how of expensive is ‘I’d like you to tell me how expensive it is.’

In the following, we will abbreviate expressions of the type “beautiful(x) = d” as “x is d-beautiful”.

The free relative acting as a comparative complement usually has material identical with material in the main clause, which undergoes deletion – the so-called comparative deletion. This deletion is obligatory for part of the free relative. Thus, the adjective to which the degree is applied in the comparative clause, which must be the same as the adjective in the main clause, is obligatorily deleted:

(276) a. Maria e mai înaltă decât sunt eu. Maria is more tall than am I ‘Maria is taller than I am.’ b. *Maria e mai înaltă decât sunt eu de înalt. Maria is more tall than am I de tall

Note that (276a) must be interpreted as (276b), so we must assume that deletion/ellipsis is involved in comparative constructions. The degree operator cât moves from the DegP of the erased adjective to the specifier position of the clause (SpecCP) by wh- movement:

(277) [mai [înaltă]] [de [CP câtk [sunt eu [DegP tk [de înalt]]]]]

Further identical material is optionally deleted. The result of deletion can be that only a non-verbal constituent is left (as shown in (278), it can be an adverb, a PP or a preposi-tional direct object). In this case, the comparative complement can also be introduced by ca (see also (273c)):

(278) a. Am cumpărat prăjituri mai bune decât/ ca ieri have.1 bought cookies(f) more good.fpl than as yesterday = Am cumpărat prăjituri mai bune decât am have.1 bought cookies(f) more good.fpl than have.1

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cumpărat ieri. bought yesterday ‘I/We bought better cookies than (I/we bought) yesterday.’ b. La facultate am luat note mai bune decât/ ca at college have.1 got grades(f) more good.fpl than as la liceu at highschool = La facultate am luat note mai bune decât am at college have.1 got grades(f) more good.fpl than have.1 luat la liceu. got at highschool ‘In college I/we got higher grades than (I/we got) in highschool.’ c. M-a certat mai rău pe mine decât/ ca pe tine me-has scolded more badly dom me.acc than as dom you.acc = M-a certat mai rău pe mine decât te-a me-has scolded more badly dom me.acc than you.acc-has certat pe tine. scolded dom you.acc ‘(S)he scolde me worse than ((s)he scolded) you.’

If the single constituent left overt is a nominal which would have nominative case in the comparative clause (the subject), it will appear in the accusative, which indicates that the elements (de)cât and ca have acquired a preposition-like behavior, being able to assign accusative case:

(279) a. Maria a primit mai multe cadouri decât/ ca mine Maria has received more many presents than as me.acc = A primit mai multe cadouri decât am primit eu. has received more many presents than have.1 received I ‘Maria received more presents than me/than I did.’ : Comparison degree = ιd.(I received d-many presents) b. *Maria a primit mai multe cadouri decât/ ca eu. Maria has received more many presents than as I

It is interesting to note that even in these examples, decât can be analyzed as decomposable into de + cât, because cât itself can introduce an accusative DP even in the absence of de – cât+DP can act as a measure modifier or a complement of the equative:

(280) a. Maria e înaltă cât mine. Maria is tall cât me.acc ‘Maria is as tall as I am.’

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b. Maria e tot atât de înaltă cât mine. Maria is just so de tall cât me.acc ‘Maria is just as tall as I am.’

It is therefore preferable to decompose decât into de+cât, which allows the generalization that the comparative of superiority always has a complement headed by de (de+MeasP, de+cât+Free Relative, de+cât+DP).

If the subject of the elided comparative clause is not the single constituent left overt, then it appears in the nominative even if there is no overt finite verbal form:

(281) a. Mi-ai adus lucruri mai frumoase decât eu me.dat-have.2sg brought things more pretty than I ţie /*decât mine ţie. you.dat than me.acc you.dat ‘You brought me prettier things than I brought you.’ b. A avut o ceartă mai mare cu prietenul ei decât eu cu has had a fight more big with friend-the her than I with Andreea / *decât mine cu Andreea. Andreea than me.acc with Andreea ‘She had a bigger fight with her friend than I had with Andreea.’ c. Mircea e mai îndrăgostit de tine decât tu de el. Mircea is more in-love of you.acc than you.nom of him ‘Mircea is more in love with you than you (are) with him.’

The subject can appear in the accusative only if the second constituent is an adjunct (com-pare (282) to (281a–b)). The same constraints hold for ca (see (283)):

(282) Poartă fuste mai scurte decât mine la douăzeci de ani. wears dresses more short than me.acc at twenty of years ‘She were shorter dresses than I when I was twenty.’

(283) a. Aţi scos un timp mai bun ca mine ieri / ca have.2pl got a time more good ca me.acc yesterday ca eu ieri. I yesterday ‘You got a time better than mine yesterday.’ b. M-a contrazis mai des pe mine ca eu pe me-has contradicted more often dom me.acc ca I dom el / *ca mine pe el. him ca me.acc dom him ‘(S)he contradicted me more often than I contradicted him.’

The comparative clause can be extraposed, being separated from Deg and the adjective by constituents which are outside the adjectival phrase:

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(284) I-am dat cadouri [mai frumoase] Monicăi cl.dat-have.1 given presents more pretty Monica.dat [decât i-ai dat tu]. than her.dat-have given you ‘I/We gave Monica prettier presents than you gave her.’

In some of those examples in which the comparative complement contains a single DP, it is not necessary to assume ellipsis: the comparison degree can be interpreted as the degree to which the entity denoted by the DP has the property under discussion:

(285) A venit o fată mai înaltă decât Monica. has come a girl more tall than Monica ‘A girl taller than Monica arrived.’ : Comparison degree = tall(Monica)

A paraphrase of this example using a finite verbal form would involve the copula:

(286) A venit o fată mai înaltă decât este Monica. has come a girl more tall than is Monica ‘A girl who is taller than Monica (is) arrived.’

Notice that the copula is not present in the matrix clause in (285). Therefore, a deletion/ellipsis analysis requires the assumption that the copula can be deleted even if it has no overt counterpart in the matrix clause (the reason may be that it is a mere grammatical marker whose content is totally recoverable). Alternatively, one may claim that (de+)cât and ca can also select DPs. In this case, the degree head mai would have a second selec-tional pattern, in which, instead of taking a standard degree (as in (271)), it combines with an individual to which the function A is applied in order to obtain the standard:

(287) x is mai A than y = A(x) > A(y) mai = λA∈D⟨e, d⟩. λy∈De. λx∈De. A(x) > A(y) ‘the degree to which x has the property A is greater than the degree to which y

has the property A’

Unlike de+cât, ca blocks the use of verbs in the comparative clause:

(288) a. A cumpărat lucruri mai scumpe ca mine. has bought things more expensive ca me ‘(S)he bought more expensive things than me.’ a′. *A cumpărat lucruri mai scumpe ca am cumpărat eu. has bought things more expensive ca have.1sg bought I b. Am cumpărat prăjituri mai bune ca ieri. have.1 bought cookies more good ca yesterday ‘I/We bought better cookies than yesterday.’ b′. *Am cumpărat prăjituri mai bune ca am cumpărat ieri. have.1 bought cookies more good ca have.1 bought yesterday

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Notice that ca also allows gapping constructions, which contain two non-verbal overt con-stituents – see examples (283) above.

Whereas decât is restricted to comparison of inequality, ca is not: it can appear in the equative construction or without any degree word, as a comparative modifier which directly specifies the degree:

(289) a. Maria e la fel de tristă ca ieri. Maria is equally de sad ca yesterday ‘Maria is as sad as yesterday.’ b. copil înţelept ca un om mare child wise ca a man big ‘child as wise as a grown-up’ Finally, a few remarks are in order regarding the item de which is used to introduce measure

phrases and cât-free relatives as complements of the superiority degree head. One of the func-tions which the item de has, the original one, is that of an ablative (i.e. source) preposition – in the present-day language, only in combination with locative or temporal expressions:

i. A venit de pe munte / de la Paris / de acolo / de dimineaţă. has come de on mountain de at Paris de there de morning ‘(S)he has come from the mountain/from Paris/from there/since morning.’

The expression of the standard of comparison by an ablative is one of the several patterns attested across languages of the world. This pattern can be explained by using the representa-tion of degrees as intervals on the scale: in the comparative of superiority, there is a positive interval starting at the upper limit of the comparison degree which is included in the degree of the adjectival property:

ii. d

dstandard ddif

In the old language, de could also take DP-complements, e.g. mai fricos de împăraţii pămăntului (Psaltirea Scheiană, 75.13) ‘more frightful than the emperors of the earth’, mai minunaţii de mine (Coresi, Psaltirea Slavo-Română, 255v) ‘those more wonderful than me’.

4.5.2 The differentialThe relation between the two degrees can be further specified by a Measure Phrase intro-duced by the preposition cu ‘with’ or by a vague quantitative expression, which can be introduced by cu or appear bare. PPs are freely ordered with respect to the mai+adjective constituent and the comparative complement. The position before Deg is preferred. Quan-titatives without cu can only occur before Deg:

(290) a. Casa e (cu trei metri) mai înaltă (cu trei metri) house-the is with three meters more tall with three meters decât bradul (cu trei metri). than tree-the with three meters ‘The house is three meters taller than the tree.’

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b. Vremea este (cu mult) mai urâtă (??cu mult) weather-the is with much more ugly with much decât anul trecut (??cu mult). than year-the last with much

‘The weather is a lot uglier than last year.’ c. Vremea este (mult) mai urâtă (*mult) decât anul weather-the is much more ugly much than year-the trecut (*mult). last much ‘The weather is much uglier than last year.’

This difference in distribution seems to indicate that bare quantitatives are only licensed as specifiers of DegP, while cu-PPs can also be adjuncts.

Some quantitatives appear only without cu in differentials:

(291) a. Acum vremea e {un pic/ ceva} mai bună. now weather-the is a little something more good ‘The weather is a little/somewhat better.’ b. Acum vremea e {??cu un pic/ *cu ceva} mai bună. now weather-the is with a little with something more good

Differentials based on scalar quantitatives can contain degree words (in the following example, the complement of prea, i.e. pentru a forma un cuplu frumos, has been extra-posed, because only light constituents are allowed in SpecDegP):

(292) Ion este [prea puţin] mai înalt decât Maria [pentru a forma un Ion is too little more tall than Maria for to form a cuplu frumos]. couple pretty ‘Ion is taller than Maria by too little to form a pretty couple.’

The wh-quantitative cât ‘how much’ has to be preceded by cu when functioning as a differential:

(293) [Cu cât]i e acest munte ti mai înalt decât Mont Blanc? with how-much is this mountain more tall than Mont Blanc ‘By how much is this mountain higher than Mont Blanc?’

Measure phrases without cu are only allowed in degree phrases based on adverbs:

(294) a. S-a oprit zece metri mai departe. refl-has stopped ten meters more far ‘(S)he stopped ten meters farther.’ b. A venit două ore mai târziu. has come two hours more late ‘(S)he came two hours later.’

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As with quantitatives, absence of cu is only allowed before Deg:

(295) a. A venit mai târziu cu două ore. has come more late with two hours ‘(S)he came two hours later.’ b. *A venit mai târziu două ore. has come more late two hours

The differential can also be expressed by a free degree relative introduced by cât, which requires the use of the preposition cu:

(296) Este mai lungă cu cât ai vrut tu să fie. is more long with how-much have.2sg wanted you subj be.3 ‘It’s as much longer as you wanted it to be.’

The relation between the two degrees can also be characterized by using a factor, which is expressed by [de+Cardinal + ori ‘times’ (the plural of oară)]:

(297) E (de trei ori) mai lungă (?de trei ori) decât ar fi is of three times more long of three times than would prf trebuit (?de trei ori). needed of three times ‘It’s three times longer than it should have been.’

The factor indicates the number by which the standard of comparison must be multiplied in order to obtain the degree of the adjective. The factor-PP has the word order freedom characteristic of PPs; the position before Deg is preferred.

In order to express a small differential, the adverb uşor ‘slightly’ can be used; this is the modifier which expresses closeness to the minimum point, with partial adjectives (see 4.3.2 above):

(298) E uşor mai mare decât celălalt. is slightly more big than the-other ‘It’s slightly bigger than the other one.’

4.5.3 Other elements that can modify maiBy using the focal particle şi ‘even’ (lit. ‘also’) before mai ‘more’, the degree of the adjective is characterized as greater than a previously mentioned degree, which is either a degree viewed as high (see (299c)) or described as higher than yet another degree (see (299a–b)):

(299) a. A: E cu trei pagini mai lung decât trebuie. is with three pages more long than must ‘A: It is three pages longer than necessary. B: Nu, de fapt e şi mai lung. no in fact is even more long B: No, in fact, it’s even longer’

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b. Drumul cu trenul e mai scump decât cu avionul. road-the with train-the is more expensive than with plane-the Drumul cu vaporul e şi mai scump. road-the with boat-the is even more expensive ‘The trip by train is more expensive than by plane. The trip by boat is even

more expensive.’ c. Castanul e înalt de zece metri. Plopul e şi mai înalt. chestnut-the is tall of ten meters poplar-the is even more tall ‘The chestnut is ten meters tall. The poplar is even taller.’

The use of şi implies that the degree of the adjective exceeds the threshold needed in order for the adjective to be used in the positive form (recall that the use of mai without şi does not imply that the entity has the property in the positive degree).

The adverb tot (lit. ‘continually, still’) can precede mai indicating that there is a pro-gression in the degree (Engl. ‘more and more A’):

(300) a. Copiii tăi sunt tot mai frumoşi. children-the your are tot more beautiful ‘Your children are more and more beautiful.’ b. Zilele sunt tot mai scurte. days-the are tot more short ‘The days are shorter and shorter.’ c. Maria e tot mai bolnavă. Maria is tot more sick ‘Maria is getting more and more sick.’

In this case the comparison degree is the degree to which the very same entity has that property at a previous time – we will call this the progressive (or incremental) reading of the comparative.

4.5.4 Comparative correlativesIn the reading observed in (300) above, we have encountered an instance of an internal progression reading of the comparative, in the sense that the predication contains a multi-plicity of events/states, and the comparison is established between the degrees some prop-erty has in different events.

A similar reading appears in comparative correlatives, a construction which expresses a correlation between two progressions or orderings:

(301) a. Cu cât maşina merge mai repede, cu atât with how-much car-the goes more fast with that-much motorul face un zgomot mai puternic. engine-the makes a noise more strong ‘The faster the car goes, the stronger the noise the engine makes.’

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b. Cu cât cineva e mai vesel, cu atât with how-much somebody is more merry with that-much e mai plăcut celorlalţi. is more pleasant the.dat-others ‘The merrier someone is, the more pleasant they are for the others.’

The ‘progression’ here need not be temporal (see (301b)).The meaning of the correlative construction can be rendered using a conditional: if

two situations are such that a property P has a greater degree in the first than in the sec-ond, then another property Q also has a greater degree in the first than in the second. We exemplify this for (301a):

(302) ∀s1,s2 [[ιd(the car goes d-fast in s1) > ιd(the car goes d-fast in s2)] → [ιd(the engine makes a d-loud noise in s1) > ιd(the engine makes a d-loud noise in s2)]]

Based on this semantics, we can distinguish a protasis or antecedent and an apodosis or consequent. The protasis is introduced by the PP cu cât (lit. ‘with how-much’), which has the form of a differential. The apodosis normally contains the ‘differential’-PP cu atât (lit. ‘with that-much’) in the first position. Less productively, we can find examples such as (303), which lack any introductory element in the apodosis:

(303) Cu cât maşina merge mai repede, motorul face un with how-much car-the goes more fast engine-the makes a zgomot mai puternic. noise more strong ‘As the car goes faster, the engine makes a stronger noise.’

Both clauses normally contain a comparative of inequality. However, both clauses can lack a comparative if the degree represents a scalar dimension of the verb – path/ incremental theme (see înainta in a–b), time (see alerga in c), intensity (see părea in b, regreta in d):

(304) a. Cu cât înainta, cu atât i se with how-much advance.impf.3sg with that-much cl.3sg.dat refl părea mai greu. seem.impf.3sg more hard ‘The more (s)he advanced, the harder it seemed.’ b. Cu cât înainta, cu atât i se with how-much advance.impf.3sg with that-much cl.3sg.dat refl părea că nu are rost. looked.3sg that not has point ‘The more (s)he advanced, the more it seemed to her/him that there was

no point.’

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c. Cu cât alerga, devenea mai vioi. with how-much run.impf.3sg become.impf.3sg more alert ‘The more he ran, the more alert he became.’ d. Cu cât se gândea mai mult, cu atât with how-much refl think.impf.3sg more much with that-much regreta ce făcuse. regret.impf.3sg what do.plpf.3sg ‘The more (s)he thought about it, the more (s)he regretted what (s)he

had done.’

As can be seen from the examples (301), (304d) and (305) below, the differential phrases which mark the construction (cu cât, cu atât) can appear separated from the comparative degree heads, suggesting that they are extracted from SpecDegP:

(305) [[Cu cât]i maşina merge [DegP ti mai repede], [cu atât]j motorul face un zgomot [DegP tj mai puternic]

We should however note that the locality restrictions are relaxed compared to other cases of extraction. Thus, the differentials can be associated with NP-internal adjectives, but cât in other cases cannot be extracted from an adnominal position:

(306) a. [cu {cât/ atât}] motorul face [un zgomot with how-much that-much engine-the makes a noise [_mai puternic]] more strong

b. *Cât face motorul [un zgomot [_de puternic]]? how-much makes engine-the a noise of strong

It is also possible to front the entire DegP. Note however that in this case the usual locality conditions are obeyed, so that the DegP cannot be NP-internal:

(307) a. Cu cât mai mare e viteza, cu atât mai with how-much more big is speed-the with that-much more puternic e zgomotul. strong is noise-the ‘The higher the speed, the stronger the noise.’ b. *Cu cât mai mare are viteză, cu atât mai with how-much more big has speed with that-much more puternic face un zgomot. strong makes a noise

[Cu atât] must occupy the clause-initial position if the comparative clause precedes the main clause. It cannot appear inside the associate DegP if the latter is not fronted (as in (307a)):

Ion

Inserted Text

]

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(308) a. *Cu cât maşina merge mai repede, motorul face un with how-much car-the goes more fast engine-the makes a zgomot cu atât mai puternic. noise with that-much more strong b. Cu cât maşina merge mai repede, cu atât face with how-much car-the goes more fast with that-much makes motorul un zgomot mai puternic. engine-the a noise more strong

[Cu atât] can stay in situ if the comparative clause follows (including cases of extraposition such as (309b)):

(309) a. Munţii erau cu atât mai înalţi cu cât mountains-the were with that-much more high with how-much mergeam mai spre sud. go.impf.1pl more towards south ‘The mountains were getting higher as we were going further south.’ b. Era un zgomot cu atât mai puternic afară was a noise with that-much more strong outside cu cât ne apropiam de centru. with how-much refl.1pl get-close.impf.1pl of center ‘The closer we were getting to the center, the stronger the noise outside.’

If the subject of the comparative clause and of the matrix DegP is the same, it can be elided, together with the copula, in the comparative clause; the preferred order in this case is cu cât…cu atât:

(310) Munţii erau cu cât mai înalţi, cu atât mountains-the were with how-much more high with that-much mai înzăpeziţi. more snowy ‘The higher the mountains, the snowier they were.’

4.6 The comparative of inferiority

Some languages have a degree head of the type less (see fr. moins, it. meno, etc.) which expresses the opposite relation to more (Rom. mai), namely the ‘dA<dstandard’ relation. Romanian does not have such a head, but uses instead puţin ‘little’ in combination with mai:

(311) Maria e mai puţin înaltă decât Andreea. Maria is more little tall than Andreea ‘Maria is less tall than Andreea.’

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As we have seen in 4.4.1 and 4.4.3 above, the quantitative puţin, when stressed, can also be used with APs and AdvPs as a scale-reversing expression (an expression which reverses the orientation of the scale), in the absence of mai:

(312) a. Apa e PUŢIN adâncă. water-the is little deep ‘The water is little/not so deep.’ b. Maria e FOARTE puţin inteligentă. Maria is very little intelligent ‘Maria is very little/not at all intelligent.’

By combining this construction with the degree head mai, the Romanian equivalent of the comparative of inferiority in other languages is obtained.

4.7 The comparative of equality (the equative) and other constructions with atât and aşa

Romanian does not have a degree head dedicated for the comparative of equality. The items which serve to express the comparison of equality are adverbs or degree words that can be used with a similar meaning in other contexts.

4.7.1 La felThe adverb la fel ‘equally’ (lit. ‘at sort’) expresses the comparative of equality when it appears in SpecDegP, followed by de:

(313) a. Maria e la fel de deşteaptă ca Andreea. Maria is equally de smart as Andreea ‘Maria is as smart as Andreea.’ b. Zăpada e la fel de mare ca iarna trecută. snow-the is equally de big as winter-the past ‘The snow is as high as last winter.’

In other environments, it can express comparison between events or entities, as a VP-adverb or an uninflected adjective, indicating that two events or entities have one or sev-eral properties in common:

(314) a. Violonistul a cântat la fel ca data trecută. violinist-the has sung equally as time-the last ‘The violinist played just like last time.’ b. Am o bluză la fel. have.1sg a blouse alike ‘I have an identical blouse.’

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c. Îi apreciez pe toţi la fel. cl.acc appreciate.1sg dom all equally ‘I appreciate all of them just as much.’

Besides la fel ‘equally, alike’, which is the current term in the present-day language, the liter-ary register makes use of deopotrivă; like la fel, this item can also function as an adverb or an uninflected adjective:

i. a. Nicopol era (…) deopotrivă de îmbietor Nicopol was equally de attractive ca Grenada. (Macedonski, Opere III, 31) as Grenada ‘Nicopol was as attractive as Grenada.’ b. Pe toţi vă iubim deopotrivă. (Drăghici, R. 4/4.) dom all you(pl).acc love.1pl alike ‘We love you all just as much.’ c. Are omul cinci degete la o mână şi nu sunt has man-the five fingers to a hand and not are.3pl toate deopotrivă. (Zanne, P. II, 105) all alike ‘The man has five fingers to his hand and not all of them are alike.’

The comparative complement is usually introduced by ca (on the properties of ca-phrases, see 4.5.1 above). Other introductory elements, which are less frequent than ca, are cât ‘how-much’ (followed by a full clause, an elliptical clause or an accusative DP-constituent, see 4.5.1 above), precum ‘pre+how’ (followed by a full clause, an elliptical clause or an accu-sative DP-constituent) and cum ‘how’, which only takes full clauses:

(315) a. E la fel de înalt ca/cât/precum tine. is equally de tall ca/cât/precum you.acc ‘He is as tall as you (are).’ b. E la fel de bun precum arată în imagine. is equally de good precum appears in image ‘He is just as good as he looks in the picture.’ c. Am făcut-o la fel de lungă cât/cum ai făcut-o tu. have.1 done-it equally de long cât/cum have.2sg done-it you ‘I made it as long as you made it.’

Cât is mostly used with measurable properties, which suggests that in this construction cât retains its quantity feature (unlike in superiority comparatives, where decât is equally fine with any kind of property).

(316) E la fel de {înaltă / ??frumoasă} cât tine. is equally de tall beautiful cât you.acc ‘She is as tall/??as beautiful as you (are).’

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There is also a difference between ca- phrases in comparison of equality and ca- phrases in comparison of superiority: only the former allow the interpolation of the focal particle şi ‘also’ between ca and the following constituent:

(317) a. E la fel de înalt ca şi mine. is equally de tall ca also me.acc ‘He is as tall as me.’ b. E mai înalt ca (*şi) mine. is more tall ca also me.acc ‘He is taller than me.’

4.7.2 Atât and aşa in equativesThe degree words atât ‘so/that-much’ and aşa ‘so’, placed before the adjective (atât always takes de+AP, aşa allows both absence and presence of de, see 4.4.1–4.4.2 above) are used to express equality between degrees in the following conditions:

(a) preceded by the focal particle tot:

(318) a. Întâlnirea a fost tot atât de lungă ca data trecută. meeting-the has been tot atât de long as time-the last a′. Întâlnirea a fost tot aşa (de) lungă ca data trecută. meeting-the has been tot aşa de long as time-the last ‘The meeting was just as long as last time’ b. Am cumpărat o maşină tot atât de mare cât have.1 bought a car tot atât de big how-much (era) cea veche. was the old ‘I/We bought a car just as big as the old one.’ c. E tot atât de priceput {precum era tatăl is tot atât de skilled precum was father-the lui / precum ceilalţi}. his precum the-others ‘He is just as skillful as his father/as the others.’ d. E tot atât de abătut cum l-am găsit data trecută. is tot atât de sad cum him-have.1 found time-the last d′. E tot aşa (de) abătut cum l-am găsit data trecută. is tot aşa de sad cum him-have.1 found time-the last ‘He is just as sad as I/we found him last time.’

As can be seen from these examples, the elements introducing the comparative complement are the same as with la fel, and have the interpretative properties discussed in 4.7.1 above.

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The focal particle tot (without an exact English correspondent) indicates that the deno-tation of the focalized constituent is, unexpectedly, the same as the one in the antecedent:

(319) Ieri a vorbit Maria. Acum vorbeşte tot ea. yesterday has spoken Maria now speaks tot her ‘Yesterday, Maria was the one speaking. Now it’s her again.’

In the equative use, tot indicates that the value of the degree variable is the same as in the comparative clause or PP, which is taken as the antecedent:

(320) tot aşa de bună [ca era d-bună ieri] tot aşa de good as was good yesterday ‘just as good as yesterday’

(b) the comparison degree is deictic; in this case atât/aşa are stressed:

(321) a. Am făcut-o ATÂT de mare. have.1 done-it atât de big ‘I/We made it that big (as you can see).’ b. Era AŞA de lungă. was.3sg aşa de long ‘It was this long.’

This use seems to be related to the use of atât (in the augmented form atâta) and aşa as measure phrases, in postposition:

(322) Era lungă atâta/ aşa. (with a gesture) was.3sg long atât.augm aşa ‘It was this long.’

(c) in downward-entailing contexts (such as under negation, in questions, in the restriction of a universal), in which case the standard of comparison can be expressed by a comparative complement (see (323)) or be anaphoric (a salient degree present in the context; see (324)):

(323) a. Monica nu e atât de frumoasă ca Rodica. Monica not is atât de beautiful ca Rodica ‘Monica is not as beautiful as Rodica.’ b. Cine e atât de bun ca el? who is atât de good ca el ‘Who is as good as him?’ c. Oricine e atât de priceput ca el merită un premiu. whoever is atât de skillful ca him deserves a prize ‘Anyone who is as skillful as him deserves a prize.’

(324) a. Maria e frumoasă. Ioana nu e atât de frumoasă. Maria is beautiful Ioana not is atât de beautiful ‘Maria is beautiful. Ioana is not that beautiful.’

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b. Ion e înalt de 2 metri. Cine mai e atât de înalt? Ion is tall de 2 meters who more is atât de tall ‘Ion is two meters tall. Who else is that tall?’

In this case, the construction is oriented (the comparison term satisfies the condition for the use of the adjective in the positive form). Compare the example in (326), which lacks this type of entailment:

(325) a. Monica nu e atât de înaltă ca Rodica => Rodica e înaltă Monica not is atât de tall ca Rodica Rodica is tall ‘Monica is not as tall as Rodica’ ‘Rodica is tall’ b. Oricine e atât de deştept ca el s-ar comporta aşa whoever is atât de smart ca him refl-would behave so ‘Anyone who is as smart as him would behave like that’ => El e deştept He is smart ‘He is smart’

(326) Monica e {la fel/ tot atât} de înaltă ca Rodica ≠> Rodica e înaltă Monica is equally tot atât de tall ca Rodica Rodica is tall ‘Monica is just as tall as Rodica’ ‘Rodica is tall’

The following examples show that if the conditions in (b) or (c) are not fulfilled, the equa-tive use in the absence of tot is not acceptable:

(327) a. *E {atât / aşa} de deşteaptă ca mama ei. is atât aşa de smart ca mother-the her b. *E {atât / aşa} de înaltă cât Monica. is atât aşa de tall cât Monica c. *E aşa înalt precum fratele său. is aşa tall precum brother-the his

The degree constructions with atât and aşa have basically the same meaning and both belong to the standard language, but they differ in register: aşa is felt as rather colloquial.

Being a quantitative, atât can be used as an adnominal or ad-verbal quantitative with an equative meaning in the same conditions as atât-de-AP, as an equivalent of the forms atât+de+mult/mulţi ‘so/as much/many’. In the adnominal use, atât is inflected for number and gender, and correlatively the degree wh-word cât introducing the comparative clause may also take the inflected forms, beside the invariable form cât (see (329a)):

(328) atâţi(a) bărbaţi = atât de mulţi bărbaţi, atâtea atât.mpl.(augm) men atât de many men atât.fpl

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femei = atât de multe femei women atât de many women atâţia, atâtea = atât de mulţi / multe atât.mpl.augm atât.fpl.augm atât de many.mpl many.fpl

(329) a. Au fost tot {atâţi/ atâţia} studenţi have.3pl been tot atât.mpl atât.mpl.augm students {câţi / cât} au fost şi how-much.mpl how-much have.3pl been also data trecută time-the last ‘There were just as many students as last time’ b. Au fost tot atâţi(a) studenţi ca data trecută have.3pl been tot atât.mpl.(augm) students ca time-the last ‘There were just as many students as last time’ c. N-au fost atâţi(a) studenţi ca data trecută not-have.3pl been atât.mpl.(augm) students ca time-the last ‘There weren’t as many students as last time’

As can be seen from the examples, the augmented forms (in -a) are not restricted to DPs without an overt noun, unlike for other nominal functional items (see Chapter 3 §3 on augmented forms). For the feminine, only augmented forms are used – atâta (singular), atâtea (plural).

4.7.3 Other degree constructions with atât and aşa

(i) Atât and aşa can also characterize the degree as enough to cause some event, in which case they take as a complement a result clause:

(330) a. Apa era aşa (de) rece încât a trebuit să water-the was aşa de cold that has needed subj ieşim imediat. come-out.1pl immediately ‘The water was so cold that we had to come out immediately.’ b. Luna era atât de strălucitoare încât se putea citi la moon-the was atâta de bright that refl could read at lumina ei. light-the 3fsg.gen ‘The moon was so bright that one could read in the moonlight.’

Result clauses have a special complementizer – încât – but can also be introduced by the standard indicative-taking complementizer că ‘that’.

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In this construction, the adjective is oriented – (330a) entails that the water was cold, and (330b) – that the moon was bright.

(ii) Atât and aşa can characterize the (high) degree as the object of admiration or astonish-ment, in exclamative sentences:

(331) a. Era aşa (de) frumoasă! was.3sg aşa de beautiful.fsg ‘She was so beautiful!’ b. Eşti atât de tânăr! are.2sg atât de young.msg ‘You are so young’

(iii) As we have seen in 4.5.4 above, the PP cu atât lit. ‘with that-much’ appears in the com-parative correlative construction, in the main clause, associated with a subordinate clause introduced by cu cât lit. ‘with how-much’:

(332) Cu cât sunt mai mici, cu atât sunt mai valoroase. cu cât are.3pl more small cu atât are.3pl more valuable ‘The smaller they are, the more valuable.’

(iv) The PP pe atât can appear in an equative correlative construction which relates different properties, to be discussed in Section 4.8.2 below.

4.7.4 On the semantics of equatives. The internal reading of equativesThe standard view about the semantics of equatives, based on other languages (English in particular), is that the equative operator as..as expresses the ≥ relation (‘greater or equal’), and the ‘=’ interpretation is the result of an implicature (d1≥d2 means d1>d2 or d1=d2; if d1>d2 were the case, the speaker would have used the superiority comparison; therefore, by pragmatic reasoning, it is inferred that d1=d2). The evidence for this proposal comes from the fact the ‘at least’ interpretation of equative comparatives appears in downward entailing contexts. Thus, (333) is not true if John is taller than Paul, but only if John is shorter than Paul. If the equative operator had denoted ‘=’, the sentence would also be true if John was taller than Paul.

(333) John is not as tall as Paul

Likewise, the generic statement in (334a) is about people who are at least as rich as Bill (it includes richer people); in (334b), the speaker asks for a person equally rich or richer than Bill.

(334) a. Anyone as rich as Bill can do it. b. Do you know anyone as rich as Bill?

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The Romanian facts do not totally fit into this analysis. It appears that the at least interpre-tation in downward-entailing contexts is indisputable only for aşa/atât:

(335) a. Ion nu e aşa de înalt ca Paul Ion not is aşa de tall as Paul ‘Ion is not as tall as Paul’ → Paul e mai înalt ca Ion Paul is more tall than Ion ‘Paul is taller than Ion’ b. Cine e aşa de bogat ca Ion ? who is aşa de rich as Ion ‘Who is as rich as Ion?’ = Cine e cel puţin aşa de bogat ca Ion? Who is the little aşa de rich as Ion ‘Who is at least as rich as Ion’ c. Blocul nu e tot aşa de înalt precum turnul block-the not is tot aşa de tall as tower-the ‘The block is not as tall as the tower’ → Blocul e mai scund decât turnul block-the is more short than tower-the ‘The block is shorter than the tower’

The expression la fel is often understood as ‘≥’ in downward entailing contexts, but it is the ‘>’ component which seems to be an implicature, since it can be cancelled in special contexts, especially with measurable properties:

(336) a. Bara asta nu e la fel de lungă ca aceea. Îmi trebuia una bar-the this not is la fel de long as that me.dat needed one LA FEL de lungă, asta e mai lungă. la fel de long this is more long ‘This bar is not as long as that one. I needed one exactly as long (as that

one), this one is longer.’ b. Cine e la fel de înalt ca mine nu poate fi primit în who is la fel de tall as me not can be received in echipa de baschet. team-the of basketball ‘Whoever is as tall as me cannot be admitted in the basketball team.’

Another piece of evidence that la fel (as well as deopotrivă) can denote equality (rather than greater or equal) is the fact that it can take a plurality as its only argument yielding an ‘internal’ reading, in which it expresses a relation between (all) entities included in that plurality:

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(337) a. Ei sunt la fel de deştepţi/ înalţi. they are la fel de smart.mpl tall.mpl ‘They are equally smart/tall.’ b. Barele astea sunt la fel de lungi. bars-the.fpl these.fpl are la fel de long.fpl ‘These bars are equally long.’ c. Cele două cetăţi erau deopotrivă de puternice. the.fpl two citadels were deopotrivă de strong.fpl ‘The two citadels were equally strong.’

A general condition for this use is that the relation should be symmetrical:

(338) Ion e prieten cu Maria (⟨=⟩ Maria e prietenă cu Ion) = Ion şi Maria sunt prieteni ‘Ion is friends with Maria (⟨=⟩ Maria is friends with Ion) = Ion and Maria are

friends’ Ion seamănă cu Maria (⟨=⟩ Maria seamănă cu Ion) = Ion şi Maria seamănă ‘Ion resembles Maria (⟨=⟩ Maria resembles Ion) = Ion and Maria resemble each

other’ Ion e tatăl Mariei ≠ Maria e tatăl lui Ion: # Ion şi Maria sunt taţi ‘Ion is Maria’s father ≠ Maria is Ion’s father: # Ion and Maria are fathers’

The relation ‘≥’ is not symmetrical: x≥y does not entail that y≥x. The relation ‘=’ is of course symmetrical. Therefore, the examples in (337) can only be explained if the relation denoted by la fel is ‘=’.

Interestingly, the items which always have the ‘at least’ interpretation in downward entailing contexts, namely atât and aşa, do not allow the internal reading with pluralities, even if they are in a context which allows their comparative use without tot (see 4.7.2, type c):

(339) a. Mihai şi Mircea nu sunt (tot) aşa de înalţi Mihai and Mircea not are tot aşa de tall ≠ Mihai nu e la fel de înalt ca Mircea Mihai not is la fel de tall as Mircea ‘Mihai and Mircea are not equally tall ≠ Mihai is not as tall as Mircea’ b. *Mihai şi Mircea sunt tot aşa de înalţi. Mihai and Mircea are tot aşa de tall

To conclude, Romanian has both purely equative degree words (la fel, as well as the some-what less frequent deopotrivă) and degree words which express the ‘greater or equal’ rela-tion and receive the equative interpretation by an implicature (aşa, atât).

4.7.5 Equatives without a degree wordEquality with another degree can also be expressed by attaching a free degree relative or a comparative PP to the right of the adjective, without using any degree word in the matrix

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clause. In this case, the adjective is interpreted as if being in the positive degree (see (340)), unless the introductory element is cât (see (341)):

(340) a. Apa e caldă ca ieri. water-the is warm as yesterday ‘The water is as warm as yesterday.’ b. E frumos precum un vis împlinit. is beautiful like a dream fulfilled ‘It’s as beautiful as a dream come true.’ c. Maria e frumoasă ca o cadră. Maria is beautiful as a picture ‘Maria is as beautiful as a picture.’

(341) a. mare cât trebuie big how-much must ‘as big as needed’ b. Băieţelul era înalt cât sora lui. little-boy-the was tall how-much sister-the his ‘The little boy was as tall as his sister.’

4.8 Comparing different properties

The comparative constructions discussed so far involve comparison between degrees of the same property. There are however constructions which compare the degrees to which different properties apply to the same entity or to different entities. Both superiority comparatives and equatives are allowed in this type of construction. In what follows, we will first present the possible interpretations of both of these comparatives and then we will describe those characteristics that distinguish between them.

4.8.1 The interpretationsThis type of comparison can be interpreted in three ways:

(i) Direct comparison between degrees: if the properties are commensurable – involve the same physical magnitude, characterized by the same measure units – and have the same orientation, the degrees of the two properties can be directly compared:

(342) a. Camera e mai mult înaltă decât lată. room-the is more much tall than wide ‘The height of the room exceeds the width of the room.’ b. Biroul e la fel de înalt cât este de lat. desk-the is equally de tall how-much is de wide ‘The height of the desk is the same as the width of the desk.’

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c. Camera este tot atât de îngustă cât este de joasă. room-the is tot that-much de narrow how-much is de low ‘The width of the room is the same as the height of the room.’

(ii) Metalinguistic comparison: the construction ‘x is more P than Q’ can mean “it is more appropriate to describe x by using property P than by using property Q”. This implies that x is not actually Q, whereas it is plausible that P holds of x. The comparative of equality, ‘x is as P as (it is) Q’, can be used as a rhetorical device to stress that x has both properties to a considerable degree.

In this metalinguistic use, the adjectives need not be commensurable. Nevertheless, there must be some compatibility between them – either they are both evaluative (see (343b–d)) or they constitute different ways to characterize the same aspect or manifestation of an entity (see (343a, c)).

(343) a. Asta e mai mult verde decât albastră. this is more much green than blue ‘This is more green than (it is) blue.’ b. Era mai mult frumoasă decât deşteaptă. was more much beautiful than smart ‘She was more beautiful than (she was) smart.’ c. Era mai mult atrăgătoare decât frumoasă. was more much attractive than beautiful ‘She was more attractive than (she was) beautiful.’ d. E tot atât de proastă pe cât e de urâtă. is tot that-much de stupid on how-much is de ugly ‘She is just as stupid as (she is) ugly.’ e. ?? E mai mult rotundă decât pestriţă. is more much round than variegated f. ?? E tot atât de verde pe cât e de mare. is tot that-much de green on how-much is de big

(iii) Comparison of deviation: in the equative construction, the compared adjectives can also be antonyms, applied to different entities:

(344) Maria e tot atât de deşteaptă pe cât e fratele Maria is tot that-much de smart on how-much is brother-the ei de prost. her de stupid ‘Maria is just as smart as her brother is stupid.’

It has been claimed that what is compared in this case is the degree to which the two objects exceed the standard value associated with their respective properties (hence the name ‘comparison of deviation’); thus, (344) would mean that the degree to which Maria’s

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intelligence exceeds the standard value for intelligence is the same as the degree to which her brother’s stupidity exceeds the contextually valid standard value for stupidity.

In English, this construction is also available with comparison of inequality. In Romanian, it is only possible with equatives.

4.8.2 The comparative of superiorityThe comparative of superiority is built with mai mult ‘more much’ instead of simply mai, and the comparative complement cannot be introduced by ca but only by decât:

(345) a. Era mai mult şireată {decât/ *ca} deşteaptă. was more much cunning decât ca smart ‘She was more cunning than smart.’ b. Camera e mai mult înaltă {decât/ *ca} lată. room-the is more much tall decât ca wide ‘The room’s height exceeds its width.’

In the comparative complement, verbs appear to be disallowed in the metalinguistic comparison construction (see (346b), vs. (346a)), which may indicate that the special semantics of this construction, briefly presented above, is also associated with a special structure, in which there is no clausal structure – and probably also no degree operator – in the comparative complement:

(346) a. Camera e mai mult înaltă decât e lată. room-the is more much tall than is wide b. *Maria e mai mult frumoasă decât e deşteaptă. Maria is more much beautiful than is smart

As shown in (347a) and (348), Romanian does not allow the comparative of superiority between two properties if the two properties apply to different entities. Example (347b) shows that English allows this type of construction with commensurable adjectives:

(347) a. *Biroul e mai (mult) lung decât e masa (de) lată. desk-the is more much long than is table-the de wide b. The desk is longer than the table is wide.

(348) *Maria e mai (mult) frumoasă decât e Ioana (de) deşteaptă. Maria is more much beautiful than is Ioana de smart

The construction mai mult.. decât can also apply to verbs and nominal predicates, with the metalinguistic comparison meaning, indicating that while property P can be applied to the subject, the property Q cannot. This use does not even require that the two properties be gradable:

i. a. Mai mult mâzgâleşte decât desenează. more much scribbles than draws b. Mai mult se târăşte decât merge. more much refl crawls than walks

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The sentence in (i) can be paraphrased by ‘what he is doing can be characterized rather as scribbling than as drawing’. None of the scalar dimensions of a verb (time, incremental theme, path, intensity) is involved here. The two properties entertain however a relation on an evalu-ative scale, the first one (the one which is compared) being less valued than the second (the standard of comparison).

4.8.3 The comparative of equalityFor the comparative of equality, the same degree expressions as for the standard compari-son can be used (see 4.7.1–4.7.2 above); however, the syntax of the comparative comple-ment is special: it must contain an overt copular verb and therefore it cannot be introduced by ca, but only by cât or pe cât (lit. ‘on how-much’):

(349) a. Masa este tot atât de lungă (pe) cât este de lată. table-the is just that-much de long pe cât is de wide ‘The table is just as long as it is wide.’ b. Masa este la fel de lungă (pe) cât este de lată. table-the is equally de long pe cât is de wide ‘The table’s legth equals its width.’ c. *Masa este la fel de lungă ca lată. table-the is equally de long as wide

In addition, there is a correlative construction pe cât.. pe atât, which differs from the constructions in (349) in that it is always interpreted as metalinguistic comparison. It is used as a rhetorical device, to stress that an entity has two properties to a considerable degree:

(350) a. Pe cât este de prost, pe atât este de îngâmfat pe cât is de stupid pe atât is de arrogant ‘He is just as stupid as he is arrogant’ → Este şi prost, şi îngâmfat is and stupid and arrogant ‘He is both stupid and arrogant’ b. Camera era pe cât de lungă, pe atât de înaltă room-the was pe cât de long pe atât de tall ‘The room was just as long as it was tall’ → Camera era şi lungă, şi înaltă room-the was and long and tall ‘The room was both long and tall’

The syntax of these correlatives is similar to the syntax of comparative correlatives dis-cussed in Section 4.5.4. If the comparative clause precedes the main clause, the latter must contain [pe atât] fronted to the first position:

(351) a. *Pe cât era de prost, era pe atât de îngâmfat. pe cât was.3sg de stupid was.3sg pe atât de arrogant

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b. Pe cât era de prost, pe atât era de îngâmfat. pe cât was.3sg de stupid pe atât was.3sg de arrogant ‘He was just as stupid as he was arrogant.’ c. Pe cât de deştept fusese la şcoală, pe atât de prost pe cât de smart be.plpf.3sg at school pe atât de stupid era la facultate. was.3sg at college ‘He had been as smart in school as he was stupid in college.’

The comparative can also appear inside the matrix clause, immediately before [pe atât], in case it only contains the AP (pe cât de + AP, the subject and the verb being elided), as illustrated by (350b) above. If the comparative complement follows, [pe atât] can be left in situ – which is a less frequent order:

(352) Era pe atât de prost pe cât (era) de îngâmfat. was.3sg pe atât de stupid pe cât was.3sg de arrogant ‘He was as stupid as he was arrogant.’

Unlike for the comparative of superiority, the two properties can be attributed to different entities in the case of the correlative construction (see (353a–b)) or if the properties are commensurable (see (353c); this includes the comparison of deviation, see (344) above):

(353) a. Maria e pe atât de proastă, pe cât e fratele ei de deştept. Maria is pe atât de stupid pe cât is brother-the her de smart ‘Maria is just as stupid as her brother is smart.’ b. Pe cât de îngâmfat era Petru, pe atât de modestă pe cât de arrogant was.3sg Petru pe atât de modest era Monica. was.3sg Monica ‘Petru is just as arrogant as Monica was modest.’ c. Masa este {la fel / tot atât} de lată pe cât este table-the is equally tot that-much de wide pe cât is dulapul de înalt. wardrobe-the de tall ‘The table is just as wide as the wardrobe is tall.’

4.9 The superlative

4.9.1 The morpho-syntax of the superlativeThe superlative degree indicates that an entity has the property P to a greater degree than all the other entities of a comparison class. Like in the other Romance languages, the Romanian superlative is formed by using the comparative of superiority inside a definite phrase:

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(354) El e cel mai bun dintre noi. he is the more good from-among us ‘He is the best among us.’

Although it might be argued that in this construction both cel ‘the’ and mai ‘more’ retain their basic meaning, there are a number of special syntactic properties which entitle us to speak of a distinct superlative construction. This construction, in which the strong definite article cel (see Chapter 3, Section 8) must immediately precede mai, may occur in syntactic environments in which other DegPs or APs would not occur unless further conditions are satisfied.

Thus, cel+mai+AP is common in DP-initial position. With most quality adjectives, the prenominal position induces a non-restrictive reading and pertains to the literary style (see Section 3.1 above). Comparatives are even less acceptable in this position:

(355) a. Am citit cele mai interesante articole. (restrictive) have.1 read the.fpl more interesting.fpl articles(f) ‘I read the most interesting papers’ b. ?? Am citit nişte interesante articole. have.1 read some interesting.fpl articles(f) ‘I read some interesting papers.’ c. ?Am citit interesantele articole. (only non-restrictive) have.1 read interesting-the.fpl articles(f) ‘I read the interesting papers’ d. *Am citit nişte mai interesante articole. have.1 read some more interesting.fpl articles(f)

Cel+mai+AP can even precede cardinals, a position which is unavailable for any other APs/DegPs:

(356) a. cei mai mari doi transportatori rutieri de pasageri the.mpl more big.pl two transporters(m) by-road.mpl of passengers (www.autoghid.ro/masini/articole-despre-masini/) ‘the two biggest passenger road transporters’ b. *marii doi transportatori big-the.pl two transporters(m) c. *mai mari doi transportatori more big.pl two transporters(m) d. *aceşti mai mari doi transportatori these more big.pl two transporters(m) e. ??aceşti mari doi transportatori these big two transporters(m)

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Cel+mai+AP can also occur postnominally, in which case we obtain a ‘double definite-ness construction’: the strong definite article cel inside the superlative phrase co-occurs with a definite article suffixed to the head N. The double definiteness construction is also allowed with other APs/DegPs, but only under special pragmatic conditions (see 3.3). With cel+mai+ AP, these restrictions disappear. Postnominal superlatives are as common as prenominal superlatives:

(357) Am cumpărat ziarele cele mai bune / cele mai have.1 bought newspapers-the the more good the more bune ziare. good newspapers ‘I bought the best newspapers.’

Note also that the presence of the string cel+mai+AP allows a partitive complement inside a definite DP, which is otherwise subject to severe restrictions (see Chapter 3 §4.2). In particular, the example in (358a) shows that the presence of a comparative inside a definite DP is not sufficient for licensing the partitive, in clear contrast with the superlative construction illustrated in (358b–c), in which the comparative is immedi-ately preceded by cel:

(358) a. ??cartea mai bună dintre cele primite book-the more good among the received ‘the best book among those received’ b. cea mai bună carte dintre cele primite the more good book among the received ‘the best book among those received’ c. cartea cea mai bună dintre cele primite book-the the more good among the received

These facts allow us to conclude that when it appears in DP-initial position, as in (355a), (358b), cel is not the determiner of the entire DP, but rather forms a constituent with mai+Adj. As explained in Chapter 3 §8.3, we assume that in such cases the [cel+DegP] constituent occupies SpecDP:

(359) [DP [Spec,DP cea mai bună] [ [DØ] [NPcarte]]]

Although there is no overt definite article in the D position, the DP in (359) is interpreted as definite, due to the presence in the Spec,DP position of a constituent – the superlative – bearing a definiteness feature, which is contributed by cel.

Notice that in examples such as (357), (358c), where the superlative is not DP-initial, the definite article must appear on the head N.

Further evidence that cel forms a constituent with mai+AP, rather than being the arti-cle of the matrix DP, comes from adverbial superlatives: the superlative of adverbs consist of cel followed by the comparative (mai+AdvP):

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(360) Ion a cântat cel mai bine. Ion has played the more well ‘Ion (was the one who) played best.’

Since adverbs are not DP-internal constituents, cel cannot be considered to head a DP in such cases.

Romanian has however a construction in which what appears to be a superla-tive adverbial can also be used to mark the definiteness of a DP: when a superlative adverb is left-attached as a modifier to an adnominal participial, the whole constituent [[cel+Deg+AdvP]+Participle] can appear in SpecDP and mark the DP as definite. In this case, cel must agree with the noun head, behaving like an adjectival superlative head, although it introduces an adverb:

(361) a. cele mai bine plătite vedete de la Hollywood the.fpl more well paid.fpl stars(f) of to Hollywood ‘the best paid Hollywood stars’ b. cele mai bine cotate firme de publicitate the.fpl more well ranked.fpl firms(f) of advertising ‘the best ranked advertising firms’ c. unul din cele mai bine păstrate secrete din lume one-the.m of the.fpl more well kept.fpl secrets from world ‘one of world’s best kept secrets’ d. cele mai des întâlnite infecţii the.fpl more often encountered.fpl infections(f) ‘the most frequently encountered infections’ e. cele mai prost vândute maşini the.fpl more badly sold.fpl cars(f) ‘the worst sold cars’

This construction is very productive in present-day Romanian. Nevertheless, it is not accepted by the academic norm, for reasons which are exclusively theory-internal (an adverb cannot agree, and [cel+mai+Adv] is analyzed as the superlative form of the adverb).

If the participial is postnominal, agreement is optional, provided that the superlative is the first constituent of the participial phrase (see (362)); if the superlative is not the first constituent of the participial phrase, agreement is impossible (see (363)):

(362) a. infecţiile cele mai des întâlnite infections-the.fpl the.fpl more often encountered.fpl b. infecţiile cel mai des întâlnite infections-the.fpl the more often encountered.fpl

(363) a. *infecţiile întâlnite cele mai des infections-the.fpl encountered.fpl the.fpl more often b. infecţiile întâlnite cel mai des infections-the.fpl encountered.fpl the more often

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The agreement and the possibility of occupying SpecDP, marking the DP as definite, can be explained if we assume that with agreeing cel, mai takes as a complement not just the adverb, but rather the whole [Adv+Part] constituent, in which the adverb provides the degree variable on which mai operates:

(361′) a. [cele [mai [bine plătite]]] the.fpl more well payed.fpl

(362′) a. [cele [mai [des întâlnite]]] the.fpl more often encountered.fpl

Being headed by an agreeing participle, the Adv+Part constituent has an adjectival status. Therefore the constituents of the type in (361′)–(362′) have the status of superlative adjec-tives, in which cel agrees, and which can occur in SpecDP.

This proposal also explains why agreement is impossible in (363a): in this case, mai only takes the adverb as a complement. Cel+mai+Adverb is a superlative adverb, which cannot agree.

4.9.2 The semantics of the superlativeThe fact that in Romanian, as well as in other languages (such as the other Romance lan-guages, Albanian, Modern Greek), the superlative is built on the comparative can probably be explained by its semantics. We will provide here some suggestions. Notice that in sen-tences such as (364), the comparative alone, without cel, has the same meaning as a super-lative construction (see (365)):

(364) a. Dintre ei doi, Ion este mai înalt. among them two Ion is more tall ‘Out of the two of them, Ion is the tallest.’ b. Ion a adus un cadou mai frumos decât toţi Ion has brought a present more beautiful than all ceilalţi invitaţi / decât oricare (altul) dintre invitaţi. the-others guests than any other-the from guests ‘Ion brought a more beautiful present than the other guests/any other guest.’

(365) a. Ion este cel mai înalt copil (dintre cei doi). Ion is the more tall child among the two ‘Ion is the tallest child (out of the two of them).’ b. Ion a adus cel mai frumos cadou (dintre toţi invitaţii). Ion has brought the more beautiful present from all guests-the ‘Ion brought the most beautiful present (of all the guests).’

The superlative characterizes the degree d as greater than any other degree in a set of degrees of the adjectival property. Such a set of degrees is built by assigning a degree to each entity in a contextually restricted set, called the comparison class, which can remain implicit or be overtly expressed by a PP headed by dintre ‘of, among’. When the comparison

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class is formed by the entities to which the property applies, as in (365a), the superlative is said to have an absolute reading:

(365′) a. Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x is d-tall} Comparison class C = the (two) children (e.g. Ion and Maria)

Turning now to (365b), in a situation in which the invited people comprise Ion, Maria, Dumitru and Sonia, the degree set will be {d1: Ion bought a d1-beautiful present, d2: Maria bought a d2-beautiful present, d3: Dumitru bought a d3-beautiful present, d4: Sonia bought a d4-beautiful present}:

(365′) b. Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x bought a d-beautiful present} Comparison class C = the invited people

In this kind of example, the comparison class does not contain the entities to which the property applies (it contains the invited people, but the property applies to the presents that these people brought – the compared degrees are degrees of beauty of the presents). In this case, the superlative is said to have a relative reading: the set of entities that are compared are established relative to the comparative class (in this example, by means of the ‘present brought by x’ relation).

The meaning of the two sentences can be informally represented as follows:

(365′′) a. tall(Ion) = max {d: ∃x ∈ C. x is d-tall}, where C = Ion and another person (e.g. Maria)

b. Ion brought the present y such that beautiful(y) = max {d: ∃x ∈ C. x bought a d-beautiful present}, where C = the invited people

Now, how is it possible for these superlative meanings to be equivalent to the comparatives in (364)? As these examples suggest, this is because a free degree relative, which can appear as the complement of the comparative, can choose the maximum degree among a set of degrees, if the clause expresses a plural predication:

(366) Ion a adus un cadou mai frumos [decâti au adus ceilalţi Ion has brought a present more beautiful than have brought others un cadou ti de frumos] a gift de beautiful [decât au adus ceilalţi un cadou de frumos] = max {d: ∃x ∈ the others.

x bought a d-beautiful present}

The superlative is thus equivalent to a comparative which contains in the comparative clause an argument of the form C\{x} (C, except for x), where C is the comparison class and x is an argument which appears in the main clause and belongs to the comparison class. Notice also that the open proposition expressing a set of degrees is built based on material of the main clause much in the same way as the comparative complement.

The comparison class can be specified by a partitive PP, as shown in (365) above and in the examples below:

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(367) a. cel mai bun {dintre noi / din clasă / dintre autorii recenţi} the more good from us from class from authors-the recent ‘the best among us/of the class/among the recent authors’ b. cel mai bun actor dintre noi the more good actor from us ‘the best actor among us’

(368) a. Ion a dat răspunsul cel mai bun dintre toţi Ion has given answer-the the more good among all cei intervievaţi. the interviewed ‘Ion gave the best answer among everybody interviewed.’ Comparison class (C) = the persons interviewed Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x gave a d-good answer} b. Maria a primit pedeapsa cea mai mare dintre Maria has received punishment-the the more great from toţi (acuzaţii). all defendants-the ‘Maria got the hardest punishment among all (the defendants).’ Comparison class (C) = the defendants Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x received a d-hard punishment}

Notice that the partitive in examples such as (368) is not DP-internal – it cannot belong to the DP modified by the superlative (the referent of răspunsul cel mai bun or pedeapsa cea mai mare does not belong to the plurality denoted by toţi, etc.). We consider that in such cases the partitive PP is attached at the clausal level and is semantically licensed by the superlative. Attachment at the clausal level is proven by the possibility to place the partitive in clause-initial position, separated from the DP in which the associated superla-tive appears:

(369) a. Dintre toţi cei intervievaţi, Ion a dat răspunsul cel from all the interviewed Ion has given answer-the the mai bun. more good ‘Among all the interviewed people, Ion has given the best answer.’ b. Dintre toţi, Maria a primit pedeapsa cea mai mare. from all Maria has received punishment-the the more great ‘Among all, Maria got the hardest punishment.’

Another case in which it is clear that the partitive associated with the superlative is not DP-internal is with adverbial superlatives:

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(370) Mihaela a cântat cel mai bine din clasă/ dintre Mihaela has sang the more good from class among toţi candidaţii. all candidates-the ‘Mihaela was the best singer in the class/among the candidates.’

The comparison class can also be specified by the descriptive content of the rest of the NP to which the superlative belongs:

(371) cea mai bună cartea a mea the more good book gen my ‘my best book’ Comparative class (C) = {x: x is a book of mine} Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x is d-good}

The comparative class can remain unexpressed, which gives rise to ambiguities:

(372) Ion a cumpărat cea mai veche carte. Ion has bought the more old book ‘Ion bought the oldest book.’ a. C = the books (a contextually restricted set of books, or all the books in the

world) Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x is d-old} b. C = a contextual set comprising Ion and other persons Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x bought a d-old book}

Another source of ambiguities comes from the fact that, in the case of relative superla-tives, the same comparison class can be associated to different sets of degrees (there can be different relations associating entities in the comparison class to degrees). Thus, (373) is three-ways ambiguous; one ambiguity, which separates the reading in b from the two read-ings in a, comes from the set of degrees (the other one, internal to (373a), is the de dicto / de re ambiguity triggered by the verb want):

(373) Ion vrea să cumpere cartea cea mai veche (dintre toţi). Ion wants subj buy.3 book-the the more old from all.mpl C = a contextual set comprising Ion and other persons a. John wants to buy a book which is/should be older than any of the books

the others buy John wants λw. he buys in w a book y such that (a.i) in w, old(y) = max {d: ∃x ∈ C. x buys a d-old book in w} (“de dicto”), or (a.ii) in w0, old(y) = max {d: ∃x ∈ C. x buys a d-old book in w} (“de re”) Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x buys a d-old book in w}

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b. John wants to buy a book which should have a certain age, which is greater than the ages the others want the books they buy to have

Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x wants λw. x buys a d-old book in w}

It has been noticed that focus structure is an indicator of the comparison class: if the sen-tence has a narrow focus, the comparison class normally consists of a set comprising the focused element as one of its members:

(374) a. Ion i-a dat cadoul cel mai frumos [Mariei]Foc. Ion her-has given present-the the more beautiful Maria.dat ‘It is to Maria that Ion gave the most beautiful present.’ C = a contextual set comprising Maria and other persons Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. Ion gave a d-beautiful present to x} b. [Ion]Foc i-a dat cadoul cel mai frumos Mariei. Ion her-has given present-the the more beautiful Maria.dat ‘It is Ion who gave the more beautiful present to Maria.’ C = a contextual set comprising Ion and other persons Set of degrees = {d: ∃x ∈ C. x gave a d-beautiful present to Maria}

4.9.3 The superlative of multThe plural forms of the superlative of mult, cei mai mulţi ‘the.mpl more many.mpl’, cele mai multe ‘the.fpl more many.fpl’ can have a determiner interpretation, like English most, paraphrasable by ‘the majority of ’ (the proportional reading):

(375) a. Cei mai mulţi studenţi din universitatea asta sunt în grevă. the more much students from university-the this are in strike ‘Most students of this university are on strike.’ b. Îmi plac cele mai multe cvartete de Beethoven. me.dat like.3pl the more many quartets by Beethoven ‘I like most quartets by Beethoven.’

This interpretation of the superlative of many is found in various languages – e.g. Germanic languages, Hungarian, Latin, Greek – but not in other Romance languages, which express this meaning by using a nominal phrase – ‘the largest part of ’.

This reading is restricted to DP-initial cei mai mulţi. In other positions, cei mai mulţi only has the superlative reading, meaning ‘with the largest cardinality’. Thus, (376a), where the proportional interpretation is the only one available, is not acceptable (except with a comma between the DP politicienii ‘the politicians’ and cei mai mulţi, in which case politicienii would probably be a hanging topic). Example (376b) can be used with a superlative interpretation, in a context containing several groups of politicians, meaning that the biggest group of politicians is the one found outside:

(376) a. # Politicienii cei mai mulţi sunt corupţi. politicians-the the more many are corrupt

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b. Politicienii cei mai mulţi sunt afară. politicians-the the more many are outside ‘The largest group of politicians is outside.’

This restriction shows that the determiner reading of cei mai mulţi depends on the DP-initial position, which is specific of the functional category of determiners (the D-layer).

Note that the DP-initial position also allows the superlative interpretation. Thus, (377) can have both a proportional interpretation and the superlative interpretation found in (376b):

(377) Cei mai mulţi politicieni francezi sunt afară. the more many politicians French are outside = a. ‘Most French politicians are outside’ = b. ‘The largest group of French politicians is outside’

In examples such as (378) the proportional and the superlative reading can be distin-guished by the presence/absence of clitic doubling (correlated, here, with the use of the differential object marker pe; on the general conditions on clitic doubling and differential object marking, see the second volume):

(378) a. Ion i-a examinat pe cei mai mulţi studenţi. : Proportional Ion them-has examined dom the more many students ‘Ion examined most of the students.’ b. Ion a examinat cei mai mulţi studenţi. : Relative superlative Ion has examined the more many students ‘Ion examined the biggest number of students.’

The proportional reading of the superlative of mult is restricted to the plural. The superla-tive of ‘much’, cel mai mult ‘the more much’ can be used with a relative superlative reading, but not with a proportional meaning, which can be expressed by using the nominal expres-sion ‘the largest part’:

(379) a. *Cea mai multă apă de pe Pământ e lichidă. the more much water of on Earth is liquid b. Most (of the) water on Earth is liquid c. Cea mai mare parte a apei de pe the more much part gen water-the.gen of on Pământ e lichidă. Earth is liquid

This contrast between cei mai mulţi ‘(the) mostpl’ and cel mai mult ‘(the) mostsg’ indicates that proportional quantification involves different mechanisms when applied to plural and to mass NPs. This can be explained as follows: for plural terms, most compares the cardi-nality of the set {x. x is NP and x is VP} with the cardinality of the set {x. x is NP and

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x is not VP} (where NP and VP are the denotations of the NP complement of D and of the VP to which the DP is attached, respectively). Mass NPs, on the other hand, denote sets that are made up of overlapping elements, and quantification is not legitimate over such domains. With mass domains, the requirement of non-overlapping elements imposed by quantifiers is satisfied by partitions of entities, which, by definition, are sets of non-overlapping parts that cover an entity in its entirety. Since partitions can only be defined on entities, the complement of massive most must be a DP, as overtly shown by Romanian, where the complement of cea mai mare parte ‘the largest part’ is a genitive-marked definite DP (see apei ‘water-the.gen’ in (379c)). This conclusion is not invalidated by English most water, because water can be analyzed as a kind-referring DP (with the ‘zero’ article) instead of an NP.

Cel mai mult ‘the more much’ only has a relative superlative reading in Romanian:

(380) Ion a mâncat cel mai mult peşte. Ion has eaten the more much fish ‘Ion ate the most fish’ = ‘the largest amount of fish’

In this example, the comparison class is formed by Ion and other individuals. Each indi-vidual is associated to a quantity of fish – the quantity of fish (s)he ate. The sentence asserts that the quantity of fish eaten by Ion is greater than any of the quantities eaten by the other individuals in the comparison class.

4.10 On the semantics of other degree words

– Destul ‘enough’ may indicate that the degree is at least as great as the minimum degree necessary to obtain some result or to obey some norm. This result or norm can be expressed by a purpose or result clause:

(381) a. E destul de bogat pentru a-şi lua o maşină. is enough de rich for to-himself.dat get a car ‘He is rich enough to get himself a car.’ b. E destul de deştept ca să înţeleagă. is enough de smart that subj understand.3 ‘He is smart enough to understand.’

In this meaning, destul is synonymous with suficient and îndeajuns.Destul also has a non-relational use in which it indicates that the degree is close to

the contextual standard (the minimum degree which allows the use of an adjective in the positive form); it usually introduces the presupposition that a degree less than this standard was expected, which may explain why the DegP bears focal stress (see the b–c examples).

(382) a. E destul de mare. is enough de big ‘It is big enough.’

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b. E destul de CALD astăzi. is enough de warm today ‘It’s warm enough today.’ c. Monica e destul de SUPĂRATĂ pe Rodica. Monica is enough de upset on Rodica ‘Monica is quite upset with Rodica.’

– Prea ‘too’ indicates that the degree exceeds the maximum degree needed to obtain some result or to obey to some norm. This result or norm can be expressed by a pur-pose or result clause:

(383) a. E prea bătrân ca să mai călătorească aşa departe. is too old that subj more travel.3 so far ‘He is too old to travel so far.’ b. Chestiunea e prea amplă pentru a putea fi discutată aici. issue-the is too broad for to can be.3 discussed here ‘The issue is too broad to be discussed here.’

Semantically, prea is the opposite of destul.Since prea expresses excess, prea+AP behaves as an absolute adjective with a minimum

standard (see Section 4.3), which allows the DegP to receive modifiers indicating closeness to the minimum standard – un pic ‘a little’, uşor ‘slightly’, cam ‘rather’:

(384) a. E un pic prea bătrân. is a little too old ‘He is a little too old.’ b. E uşor prea mare. is slightly too big ‘It’s slightly too big.’ c. E cam prea vorbăreţ. is rather too chatty ‘He is a bit too chatty.’

– Foarte ‘very’ indicates a degree which stands out as great among those degrees which allow the use of the adjective in the positive form.

It has been proposed that very introduces a comparison class which includes only entities which have the property in the positive degree and characterizes the degree as greater than the average degree of this comparison class. Its semantics is thus similar to that of the positive degree; it is distinguished from it by the fact that the comparative class itself is obtained by the application of the positive degree function (see §4.1 on the semantics of the positive degree).

– Ce ‘how’(lit. what) also presupposes that the degree is at least as high as the standard for the positive degree. In the exclamative use, the degree of the property is presented as surprising:

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(385) Ce înalt e Ion! how tall is Ion ‘How tall is Ion.’

Besides this use, it can also appear in subordinate clauses. In this case it retains its high degree meaning, suggesting that the clause should be analyzed as an indirect exclamative:

(386) a. Nu ştiam ce înalt e Ion |= Ion e deosebit de înalt not knew.1sg how tall is Ion Ion is especially of tall ‘I didn’t know how tall is Ion |= Ion is very tall’ b. *Mă întreb ce înalt e Ion. me wonder.1sg how tall is Ion

This explains the impossibility of true indirect questions as in (386b), as in these cases the value of the degree is not known. Compare the wh- degree word cât, which is allowed in this case:

(387) Mă întreb cât de înalt este Ion. refl wonder.1sg how-much de tall is Ion ‘I wonder how tall is Ion.’

5. The complementation of adjectives

Adjectives can express relations, in which case all the arguments except the external one are expressed by complements, i.e. constituents sub-categorized by the adjectival head. As adjectival phrases do not license structural case (see §1.2 above), the complements of adjec-tives are introduced by prepositions or oblique case forms (Romanian only has the dative as an oblique case). There is only one adjective (dator ‘owing’) which takes a complement without an introductory element, which will be discussed in a separate Section (§5.3).

Here are some examples of complement-taking adjectives:

(388) a. avid de succes greedy of success b. apropiat nouă close us.dat c. atent la profesor attentive to teacher ‘paying attention to the teacher’ d. capabil să spună tot / de a fi fericit capable subj tells everything of to be happy ‘capable of telling everything/of being happy’

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In what follows, we will present the major types of complements of adjectives, classified according to their category and introductory element – dative-marked DPs, DPs intro-duced by prepositions, non-finite and finite clauses.

A general property which holds for all types – and therefore shall not be repeated for each type below – is that the adjectives derived from verbs which select an oblique argu-ment (dative or PP) normally maintain the selectional feature of the base (the adjectival suffix is underlined in the examples):

(389) a. a transfera autorizaţia unui alt proprietar to transfer license-the a.dat other owner ‘to transfer the license to a different owner’ b. autorizaţie transferabilă unui alt proprietar license transferable a.dat other owner ‘license transferable to a different owner’

(390) a. Statul depindea de turci. state-the depended of Turks ‘The state was dependent on the Turks.’ b. stat dependent de turci state dependent of Turks ‘state dependent on the Turks’

(391) a. Raportul se referă la criza datoriilor. report-the refl refers to crisis-the debts-the.gen ‘The report refers to the debt crisis (is about the debt crisis).’ b. raport referitor la criza datoriilor report referring to crisis-the debts-the.gen ‘report referring to the debt crisis’

(392) a. Acest politician persistă în minciuni. this politician persists in lies ‘This politician persists in lying.’ b. politician persistent în minciuni politician persistent in lies ‘politician who persists in lies’

(393) a. Marius pofteşte la dulciuri. Marius has-an-appetite at sweets ‘Marius has an appetite for sweets.’ b. Marius e pofticios la dulciuri. Marius is greedy at sweets ‘Marius has an appetite for sweets.’

Another general property of complement-taking adjectives is the possibility to appear in predicative position, which shows that they belong to the class of intersective adjectives.

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5.1 Dative complements

The following types of adjectives take dative complements:(i) Adjectives expressing spatial and temporal relations: adiacent ‘adjacent’, anterior

‘previous’, apropiat ‘close’ (see also (viib)), exterior ‘exterior’, interior ‘interior’, juxtapus ‘juxtaposed’, posterior ‘posterior, subsequent’ prealabil ‘prior’, precedent ‘prior, preceding’, preexistent ‘preexistent’, premergător ‘prior, preceding’ (derived from premerge ‘precede’, which also takes the dative), ulterior ‘subsequent’.

We may include here adjectives expressing abstract meanings derived from spatial relations: aferent ‘attaching to, accruing to’, inerent ‘inherent’, prealabil ‘previous, preceding’.

(ii) Adjectives denoting hierarchical relations (which are also sometimes derived from spatial relations): inferior ‘inferior’, superior ‘superior’, secundar ‘secondary’, subordonat ‘subordinate’. These adjectives can also take the complex preposition faţă de ‘(compared) to, with respect to’.

(iii) Adjectives relating a property or entity to a domain, where the dative introduces this domain, e.g. trăsături comune limbilor slave şi baltice ‘features common to the Slavic and Baltic languages’: caracteristic ‘caracteristic’, comun ‘common’, particular ‘specific, characteristic’, intrinsec ‘intrinsic’, propriu ‘peculiar, specific’, specific ‘specific, peculiar’, tipic ‘typical, characteristic’. The adjectives caracteristic, specific, tipic, propriu can also combine with the preposition pentru ‘for’.

The adjective constitutiv ‘constituent, essential (of)’, which takes the dative although it is related to a transitive verb (constitui ‘make up’), probably also belongs to this type (e.g. element constitutiv vieţii ‘element which makes up life’).

(iv) Adjectives with a purpose or benefactive/malefactive argument, marked by the dative: adecvat ‘adequate’, avantajos ‘profitable’, dăunător ‘harmful, injurious’ (derived from the dative-taking verb dăuna ‘to prejudice, harm’), fatal ‘fatal’, favorabil ‘propitious’, impro-priu ‘inadequate, unfit’, inadecvat ‘inadequate’, inapt ‘unapt’, indispensabil ‘indispensable’, necesar ‘necessary’, nefast ‘unfortunate, ill-fated’, nefavorabil ‘unfavorable’, păgubitor ‘detri-mental, prejudicial’, prielnic ‘propitious’, propice ‘propitious’, suficient ‘sufficient’, util ‘useful (to somebody)’, vital ‘vital (for)’.

We may include in this class adjectives expressing (possibility of) access: accesibil ‘accessible’, permeabil ‘permeable’, deschis ‘open (for)’ (adjectival participle of deschide ‘to open’), închis ‘closed (for)’ (adjectival participle of închide ‘to close’).

The purpose argument can always be also introduced by the preposition pentru ‘for’:

(394) indispensabil lecturii / pentru lectură indispensable reading-the.dat for reading

Pentru ‘for’ can also be used with persons, which are benefactive/malefactive arguments, but with some adjectives the dative is preferred (util ‘useful’, necesar ‘necessary’, favorabil ‘propitious’, etc.).

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Some adjectives can take a benefactive dative and a purpose pentru (‘for’)-PP or la (‘to’)-PP: prielnic nouă ‘propitious us.dat’, vreme prielnică pentru plimbare ‘time good for walking’, folositor/util cuiva ‘useful somebody.dat’, folositor/util la ceva ‘useful to some-thing’. Sometimes, the two arguments may co-occur:

(395) a. lucruri necesare nouă pentru încălzire things necessary us.dat for heating b. Nu mi- e bun la nimic. not me.dat is good to nothing ‘It’s no good to me.’

(v) Adjectives denoting an attitude (of the external argument) towards a person or thing (expressed by the dative): binevoitor ‘well-disposed, benevolent’, credincios ‘faithful, loyal’, devotat ‘devoted’, fidel ‘loyal, faithful’, îndatoritor ‘obliging’, loial ‘loyal’, ostil ‘hostile’, potrivnic ‘hostile’, refractar ‘impervious’, recunoscător ‘grateful’, vrăjmaş ‘hostile’. In many cases, the argument expressed by the dative can also be introduced by the complex prepo-sition faţă de ‘with respect to’ (see §5.2.7 below).

(vi) Adjectives taking an Experiencer argument, which is marked by the dative:(vi.a) Adjectives denoting affective relations, feelings: drag ‘dear’, scump ‘beloved’, urât

‘hated’, antipatic ‘repugnant, unlikable’, simpatic ‘likeable, nice’, ataşat ‘attached’, plăcut ‘pleasant’, dureros ‘painful’, indiferent ‘indifferent’;

(vi.b) Adjectives denoting cognitive relations (knowledge): cunoscut ‘known’ (adjecti-val participle of the verb cunoaşte ‘know’), familiar ‘familiar’; on their model, other adjec-tives exceptionally combine with the dative: credibil ‘plausible’, inedit ‘novel, unknown before’, nebulos ‘obscure’, inteligibil ‘intelligible’.

With other adjectives, the Experiencer can also be the external argument, see exam-ples in 5.2.2.–5.2.3 below. Exceptionally, one and the same adjective appears in both patterns:

(396) a. Maria îmi este indiferentă. : Dative Experiencer, Ext. Arg. Theme Maria me.cl.dat is indifferent ‘I don’t feel for Maria.’ b. Maria este indiferentă la insulte. : Ext. Arg. Experiencer, la-PP Theme Maria is insensitive to insults

(vi.c) A special pattern appears when the Theme argument is a clause. In this case, the adjective can only appear in predicative position. As clauses do not occur in subject position, the dative Experiencer acquires a subject-like behavior, in that it usually precedes the copular verb:

(397) a. Îmi este greu să accept asta. me.cl.dat is hard subj accept.1sg this ‘It’s hard to me to accept this.’

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b. Mariei îi este uşor să mintă. Maria her.cl.dat is easy subj lies ‘For Maria, it is easy to lie.’

Moreover, this type of dative is necessarily clitic-doubled:

(398) Nu *(-i) va fi greu Mariei să zâmbească. not (3sg.cl.dat) will.3sg be hard Maria.dat subj smiles ‘Maria didn’t find it hard to smile.’

Other examples of adjectives of this type which take clausal Themes are dificil ‘difficult’, penibil ‘awkward, embarrassing’, neplăcut ‘unpleasant’. Egal ‘equal’ appears in this construc-tion with the special meaning ‘(be) indifferent, all the same, make no difference (whether)’:

(399) Mi-e egal dacă rămâi sau pleci. me.cl.dat-is equal whether stay.2sg or leave.2sg ‘It’s all the same to me if you stay or go.’

We may include here adjectives which only take a dative Experiencer, lacking an external argument, such as bine ‘good’ (a special form of bun ‘good’ used when the adjective lacks a controller of agreement, see §1.1), rău ‘bad, sick’, cald ‘warm’, rece ‘cold, chilly’:

(400) Mi-e rău / cald / bine / rece. me.cl.dat-is bad / warm / good cold ‘I’m sick / warm / fine / cold.’

In this construction, the predicate position is often occupied by a noun, see Chapter 2 §7.4.

According to a recent analysis, this type of dative Experiencer is generated as the subject of a special predicative construction which relates a (psychological) state to the bearer of that state. In this analysis, it is not the adjective itself which selects the dative case, but the predica-tive head. The dative is still an argument of the adjective, but it is an external argument, rather than a complement of A.

Exceptionally, an adjective in this construction takes a Theme argument expressed by a de(‘of ’)-PP:

(401) Mi-e drag de ei. me.dat-is dear of them ‘I feel love for them.’

(vii) Adjectives denoting inherently symmetrical relations.A relational predicate P is inherently symmetrical if for any x, y, if P(x, y) is true, then

P(y, x) is also true (see (402a)). Such predicates can also take a single plural argument, in which case the symmetrical relation P holds between the members of that plurality (see (402b)).

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(402) a. Punctul A îi este opus punctului B → Punctul point-the A cl.3sg.dat is opposite point-the.dat B point-the B îi este opus punctului A B cl.3sg.dat is opposite point-the.dat A ‘The point A is opposite to the point B’ → ‘The point B is opposite to the

point A’ b. Punctele A şi B sunt opuse. points-the A and B are opposite ‘The points A and B are opposite.’

The normal way of expressing the complement of a symmetric predicate is the preposition cu ‘with’, but many adjectival symmetric predicates also allow the dative, and some of them take only the dative, or choose between the dative and a different preposition:

(vii.a) Adjectives which take either cu ‘with’ or the dative: analog ‘analogous’, asemănător ‘similar’, complementar ‘complementary’ (which can also combine with faţă de ‘with respect to’), conex ‘related, connected’, conform ‘consonant’, corespunzător ‘correspon-dent’, echivalent ‘equivalent’;

(vii.a’) Adjectives which normally take cu ‘with’, but can also take the dative: contem-poran ‘contemporary’, corelativ ‘correlative’, egal ‘equal’, identic ‘identical’, similar ‘similar’, vecin ‘neighboring’;

(vii.b) Adjectives which take either the dative or the preposition de ‘of ’: apropiat ‘close’ (with the dative, especially when referring to interpersonal relations, in a metaphorical use);

(vii.c) Adjectives which can take either the dative or the complex preposition faţă de ‘compared to, with respect to’; some of them only exceptionally allow cu ‘with’: contrar ‘contrary, opposite’ (selection of cu is regular when contrar functions as an adverb), opus ‘opposite’; others do not seem to allow cu at all: invers ‘inverse’, antagonic ‘antagonistic’, străin ‘alien’ (străin can also take de ‘of ’ when it has not a symmetrical reading).

Some of these adjectives have derived meanings for which the symmetry property may not hold – e.g. Acest lucru îmi este străin ‘This thing is alien to me’, where alien(x, y) means that x does not know sufficiently about y. Likewise, opus ‘opposite’ can also mean ‘opposing, hostile’.

(viii) Adjectives with meanings related to transfer and possession: dator ‘owing, indebted’ (which can also take an accusative complement expressing what is owed, see §5.3), părtaş ‘partaking’ (normally combining with la).

(ix) Other: consecvent ‘consistent’, historically related to the verb ‘to follow’, can take either the dative or (more often) the preposition cu ‘with’.

Where there is a choice between the dative and a preposition, the dative is mostly used in the written register.

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When the adjectival phrase occupies the predicate position of a copular verb, a pro-nominal dative can be realized as a clitic or be clitic-doubled (see also (396a), (397)–(400), (402a)):

(403) a. Soarta ne este potrivnică. fate-the us.cl.dat is hostile ‘Fate is against us.’ b. Soarta (îi) era potrivnică fetei. fate-the (3sg.dat.cl) was hostile girl-the.dat ‘Fate was against the girl.’

If the adjective is adnominal, dative personal and reflexive pronouns appear only in the strong form, without being doubled, which is due to the fact that clitic movement cannot target a phrase embedded inside a DP or an NP:

(404) E un popor foarte asemănător nouă. is a people very similar us.dat ‘It’s a nation very similar to us.’

5.2 Prepositional complements

5.2.1 The preposition cu5.2.1.1 The preposition cu with symmetric predicates. As we have seen in the pre-vious section (§5.1), the PP introduced by cu ‘with’ is the normal way of expressing the complement of (inherently) symmetric predicates; we resume the hallmarks of inherently symmetric predicates (described in §5.1 above, see (402)) by an example with an adjective taking cu ‘with’:

(405) a. Astăzi ziua este egală cu noaptea |= Astăzi noaptea este today day-the is equal with night-the today night-the is egală cu ziua equal with night-the

b. Astăzi ziua şi noaptea sunt egale. today day-the and night-the are equal b′. Toate aceste linii sunt egale. all these lines are equal

Here are examples of adjectives denoting symmetric predicates which combine with cu: analog ‘analogous’, asemănător ‘similar’, comparabil ‘comparable’, compatibil ‘com-patible’, complementar ‘complementary’, concomitent ‘concomitant’, concordant ‘concor-dant’, conex ‘related, connected’, conform ‘consonant’, congruent ‘congruent’, contemporan

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‘ contemporary’, corelativ ‘correlative’, corespunzător ‘correspondent’, echivalent ‘equivalent’, egal ‘equal’, identic ‘identical’, incompatibil ‘incompatible’, înrudit ‘cognate’, omonim ‘hom-onymous’, paralel ‘parallel’, proporţional ‘proportional’, simetric ‘symmetrical’, similar ‘simi-lar’, simultan ‘simultaneous’, sincron ‘synchronic’, sinonim ‘synonymous’ tangent ‘tangent’, vecin ‘neighboring’.

As we have seen in §5.1, there are some exceptions to the realization of the argument of a symmetric adjective by a cu(‘with’)-PP: some symmetric adjectives only take the dative or the complex preposition faţă de ‘with respect to’ (antagonic ‘antagonistic’, străin ‘alien’ – in the symmetric reading), others take the dative or the preposition de ‘of ’ (apropiat ‘close’, depărtat ‘far’). There are also symmetric adjectives which only take de: diferit ‘different’, deosebit ‘different’, distinct ‘distinct’, depărtat ‘far, remote’, or faţă de (contradictoriu ‘con-tradictory’). Contrar ‘contrary’ and opus ‘opposite’ only exceptionally allow cu (they nor-mally select the dative or faţă de). Looking at these examples, the following generalization emerges: symmetric adjectives which express opposition or difference do not normally combine with cu.

The adjective comun ‘common’ describes a relation which can roughly be described as possession, in which a single entity is associated to more than one possessor. For a given possessum, the relation between possessors is symmetrical (if x shares y with z, than z shares y with x). In one selectional pattern, the possessors are expressed by dative DPs (see §5.1 above under (iii)):

(406) problemă comună Franţei şi Germaniei problem common France-the.dat and Germany-the.dat ‘problem common to France and Germany’

In another pattern, one possessor is expressed as a possessor of the external argument of comun and the other one is introduced by cu (see (407a)); alternatively, like for all sym-metric predicates, all possessors appear in a single plural argument, introduced as the pos-sessor of the external argument of comun (in this example, graniţă ‘border’; see (407b)):

(407) a. Franţa are o graniţă comună cu Germania. France has a border common with Germany ‘France has a common border with Germany.’ b. Franţa şi Germania au o graniţă comună. France and Germany have a border common ‘France and Germany have a common border.’

Nouns denoting symmetrical relations can also take cu when they appear bare in predica-tive position, a use in which they are hard to distinguish from adjectives – see Chapter 8 §2.1.2 and Chapter 2 §7.2.1.

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5.2.1.2 The preposition cu with interpersonal behavior predicates and as a comitative adjunct. Besides its use with symmetric predicates, the preposition cu ‘with’ also appears in a construction where it is closer to its basic, independent meaning (in which it is not imposed by selection), with the consequence that it is often difficult to say whether we are dealing with a complement or an adjunct.

The independent meaning of a preposition can be best seen when the PP appears in postcopular position, because in that case the relation is exclusively expressed by the prep-osition (the copula is only a support for the verbal features – such as tense and mood – of the clause). In this configuration, cu ‘with’ expresses inclusion in the same situation as the subject and can be paraphrased by the symmetric predicate împreună ‘together’:

(408) Maria e cu mine. Maria is with me

(409) Eu şi Maria suntem împreună. / Maria e împreună cu mine. I and Maria are together Maria is together with me

With this meaning – which is usually called ‘comitative’ –, we expect cu-PPs to be able to appear unselected, as adjuncts; in such a use, the cu- PP can be paraphrased by a temporal clause with copula + cu: with y = ‘when x (the subject) is with y’:

(410) Maria e veselă cu mine = Maria e veselă când e cu mine Maria is cheerful with me Maria is cheerful when is with me ‘Maria is cheerful with me’ = ‘Maria is cheerful when she’s with me’

Related to this use, cu-PPs can show the referent in whose presence a certain quality is manifested, which can be, for some properties, the referent with respect to which the qual-ity is manifested. In this case, the cu-PP behaves as an argument, insofar as the adjectival predicate is not merely a property, but involves a relation (the quality is intrinsically ori-ented towards another entity):

(411) Maria e exigentă / drăguţă cu angajaţii. Maria is demanding / kind with employees-the ‘Maria demands a lot of her employees / is kind with her employees.’

When used as an argument, the cu-PP is no longer paraphrasable by a temporal clause (see (411′b), where ‘#’ indicates that the example does not have the same meaning as (411)); sometimes, it can be paraphrased by a PP headed by faţă de ‘towards’ (see (411a′)):

(411′) a. Maria e exigentă faţă de angajaţi. Maria is demanding towards employees b. # Maria e exigentă când e cu angajaţii. Maria is demanding when is with employees-the

Many adjectives referring to human qualities whose manifestation involves a relation with other people can enter this construction: agresiv ‘agressive’, amabil ‘nice, kind’, ascultător

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‘obedient’, aspru ‘harsh’, atent ‘attentive’, binevoitor ‘benevolent, friendly’, brutal ‘brutal’, bun ‘good, kind’, caustic ‘caustic’, clement ‘clement, merciful’, crud ‘cruel’, curtenitor ‘courteous’, distant ‘distant’, docil ‘tractable, docile’, drăgăstos ‘affectionate’, drăguţ ‘nice’, duios ‘affection-ate, tender’, duşmănos ‘hostile’, grijuliu ‘thoughtful’, indulgent ‘indulgent’, inofensiv ‘harm-less’, intransigent ‘intransigent’, ironic ‘ironical’, îndatoritor ‘obliging’, îngăduitor ‘indulgent’, înţelegător ‘lenient’, mărinimos ‘generous, magnanimous’, milos ‘compassionate’, necuviin-cios ‘disrespectful, impolite, indiecent’, neglijent ‘careless, neglectful’, neîncrezător ‘distrust-ful’, neînduplecat ‘inflexible’, nemilos ‘pitiless’, nepoliticos ‘rude, impolite’, politicos ‘polite’, prevenitor ‘obliging’, prietenos ‘friendly’, rău ‘bad, mean’, răutăcios ‘malicious’, rece ‘cold’, respectuos ‘respectful’, rezervat ‘stand-offish’, sarcastic ‘sarcastic’, sever ‘severe, harsh’, sfios ‘shy’, sincer ‘sincere’, solidar ‘sympathetic’, supărăcios ‘touchy, irritable’, suspicios ‘suspicious’, tandru ‘tender’, timid ‘shy’, violent ‘violent’, zgârcit ‘tight-fisted’.

A use in which cu appears to be closer to its independent, comitative meaning is with the adjective singur ‘alone’: normally, this adjective indicates that there are no other per-sons in a certain situation; as cu indicates the presence of another participant to that situa-tion, the combination singur cu+DP ‘alone with + DP’ indicates that the external argument and the referent of the cu-DP are the only participants to the situation:

(412) Eram singur cu ea. was.1sg alone with her ‘I was alone with her.’

5.2.1.3 Other uses. The preposition cu can also appear with the adjectives plin ‘full’ (which can also take de ‘of ’, see §5.2.2), consecvent ‘consistent’ (which can also take the dative and is historically related to the verb ‘follow’; see §5.1 above). Its use with plin is probably derived from the possessum meaning of cu, which can be seen in the postcopular position – casa e cu grădină ‘the house is with garden’ = ‘the house has a garden’. The use of cu with consecvent might be related to the comitative meaning (if x follows y, x is together with y). Expectedly, cu also appears with adjectives derived from verbs selecting cu (e.g. resemnat cu ‘resigned (to)’ < a se resemna cu ‘to resign oneself (to)’).

5.2.2 The preposition deThe preposition de, roughly equivalent with Engl. of, appears in the following configurations:

(i) It marks the argument corresponding to the direct object with deverbal adjectives and has a similar argument role, which we can call Theme, with adjectives which are not derived from verbs (at least synchronically) but have a similar meaning to some transitive verbs:

(i.a) Deverbal adjectives. Here is an example:

(413) a. Acest om iubeşte dreptatea. this man loves justice-the

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b. om (foarte) iubitor de dreptate man (very) lover of justice

Among deverbal words with an agentive meaning, the possibility of taking a Theme argu-ment is mostly restricted to those in -tor. These derivatives are ambiguous between adjec-tives and nouns, and as nouns they can take the genitive (see Chapter 11 on deverbal nouns), e.g. iubitor al naturii ‘lover gen nature-the.gen’. In (413b), the use of the degree head foarte ‘very’ indicates an adjectival status. Cases of adjectives formed with other suffixes which take a Theme argument are very rare – e.g. dornic (de) ‘eager, longing’ (<dori ‘to desire’). As adjectives in -nt do not take a Theme, we find isolated cases in which an -nt adjective related to a transitive verb enters a different argumental pattern: neglijent ‘neglectful, care-less’, although related to the transitive neglija ‘neglect’, takes the prepositions faţă de ‘with respect to’ or cu ‘with’ (see §5.2.7 below and §5.2.1.2. above).

(i.b) Adjectives with meanings related to transitive verbs, expressing desire, capacity, belief or knowledge: lacom ‘greedy’ (lacom de x = care doreşte (în exces) x ‘which desires x’), setos ‘thirsty (for)’, avid ‘greedy, avid (for)’, capabil ‘capable’ (capabil de x = care poate face x ‘which can do x’), apt ‘fit, suited, capable’ (apt de x = care poate face x ‘which can do x’), sus-ceptibil ‘liable, capable’ (susceptibil de x = care poate suferi/primi/face x ‘which can undergo/receive/do x’), sigur ‘sure, certain’ (sigur de x = care crede că x este sigur ‘which believes x is sure’), nesigur ‘unsure’, conştient ‘aware’, suspect ‘suspected’ (suspect de x = căruia i se suspectează x ‘about which one suspects x’).

We might include here adjectives with the meaning ‘deserving to receive (x)’: demn ‘wor-thy’, vrednic ‘worthy’ (demn de x = care se cuvine să primească x ‘which ought to receive x’).

(ii) Adjectival participles take de-PPs expressing the Cause or Theme of a psychologi-cal predicate:

(414) Sunt surprins de acest lucru. am surprised of this thing ‘I’m surprised of this thing.’

In the passive configuration, the external argument of verbs can be realized by a so-called ‘Agent PP’ which is introduced by de ‘of ’ or by de către ‘by’ (lit. ‘of/from towards’). Adjecti-val participles differ from verbal participles in that they can combine only with de, exclud-ing de către (see also §1.2.3 above):

(414′) *Sunt surprins de către acest lucru. am surprised by this thing

As we have seen in §1.2.3 above, another characteristic feature of adjectival participles is the combination with degree heads.

Most adjectival participles taking a de- argument express psychological states, the external argument being the Experiencer: copleşit ‘overwhelmed’, decepţionat ‘disappointed’,

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deprimat ‘depressed’, descurajat ‘depressed, discouraged’, exasperat ‘exasperated’, fascinat ‘hypnotized, fascinated, captivated’, fericit ‘happy’, indignat ‘revolted, indignant (at)’, indis-pus ‘indisposed’, interesat ‘interested’, intrigat ‘intrigued’, încântat ‘delighted’, îngrijorat ‘worried’, îngrozit ‘terrified’, înspăimântat ‘frightened’, mirat ‘astonished’, neliniştit ‘anxious’, orbit ‘bewildered’, plictisit ‘bored’, preocupat ‘preoccupied’, revoltat ‘revolted’, stresat ‘wor-ried, stressed’, supărat ‘upset’, surprins ‘surprised’, tulburat ‘anxious’, uimit ‘astonished’, uluit ‘amazed, astounded’, etc.

With physical properties, the de-PP with a resultative participle is to be seen as an adjunct expressing Cause (see (415)). This does not hold for psychological states, because they are ‘oriented’, they presuppose a ‘content’ (e.g. I am necessarily preoccupied with something, astonished at something, etc.).

(415) piele arsă de soare skin burned by sun ‘skin burned by the sun’

(ii′) Some of the psychological adjectives which introduce the Theme/Source as a de-PP are not participial: bucuros ‘glad, happy’ (the related verb se bucura ‘be glad’ also takes de), mândru ‘proud’ (which has a derived verb which takes a cu-PP: a se mândri), sătul ‘satiated’.

(iii) Adjectives derived from verbs taking de or lexically related to verbs taking de, with the basic meaning of contact or separation: dependent ‘dependent’, ataşat ‘attached’, izolat ‘isolated’, liber ‘free’ (compare a elibera de ‘to free of ’, a scăpa de ‘to free of ’), separat ‘separated’, responsabil ‘responsible’, vinovat ‘guilty’ (cf. învinui (de) ‘to charge (with)’) etc.

The ablative (i.e. separative) meaning of de can explain its use with the adjective străin ‘alien’, in the non-symmetrical reading ‘not involved in’, ‘stranger to’, ‘unknown to’:

(416) Sunt străin de aceste intrigi / de acest oraş. am alien of these intrigues of this city ‘I’m not involved in these intrigues / I’m a stranger to this city.’

In this reading, the order of arguments can be reversed, in which case the complement is marked by the dative:

(417) Oraşul îmi era cu totul străin. city-the me.cl.dat was completely unknown ‘The city was completely unknown to me.’

(iv) Adjectives denoting difference (which might be related to the ablative meaning of de): diferit ‘different’, distinct ‘distinct’, deosebit ‘different’.

(v) Adjectives expressing the relation of containing, where the container is the exter-nal argument and the ‘locatum’ is the de-PP: plin ‘full’, greu (de) ‘having plenty of, full of ’ (lit. ‘heavy’), gol ‘empty, devoid’. The adjective plin and the related verbs umple ‘fill’ can also take a cu-PP.

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(vi) Adjectives denoting spatial relations: apropiat ‘close’, depărtat ‘far’. Apropiat can also take the dative, especially in the metaphorical meaning which applies to interpersonal relations. Depărtat might also be related to predicates of separation (see (iii) above).

(vii) With specific adjectives expressing human abilities or deficiencies, a de-PP can be used to indicate the body part in which the property is manifested:

(418) a. surd de o ureche deaf of an ear ‘deaf of an ear’ b. greu de cap hard of head ‘stupid’ c. bun de gură good of mouth ‘with a ready tongue’ d. iute de picior swift of foot ‘swift-footed’

With this meaning, we normally find adjuncts in la ‘at, to’ (see next sub-section). Perhaps de-PPs should also be considered adjuncts in this use. However, we find lexical restrictions (not all adjectives allow this phrase), which suggests selection is involved.

(viii) The adjective bun ‘good, fit, suited’ takes a de-PP; the meaning is ‘which can be used for/as’:

(419) a. E bun de muncă = E potrivit să muncească is good of work is fit subj works ‘He’s fit for working’ b. E bun de ciorbă = E bun pentru ciorbă = E potrivit is good of pottage is good for pottage is fit pentru a fi pus în ciorbă for to be put in pottage ‘It’s good for the pottage.’ c. E bun de vopsea = E potrivit pentru a fi folosit is good of paint is fit for to be used ca vopsea as paint ‘It can serve as paint.’

5.2.3 The preposition laMost of the arguments introduced by the preposition la ‘to, at’ can be subsumed under a notion ‘Goal’ (see types (i)–(iii) below), appearing with the following classes of adjectives:

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(i) Psychological states involving an active orientation (or lack thereof): atent ‘atten-tive, attending, intent (on)’, surd ‘deaf (to)’.

(ii) Adjectives which express a reaction to something (or lack thereof): imun ‘immune’, sensibil ‘sensitive’, insensibil ‘insensitive’, indiferent ‘indifferent’, receptiv ‘receptive, respon-sive, open (to)’, deschis ‘open (to)’, (im)permeabil ‘(im)pervious, (im)permeable’, rezistent ‘resistent’, mofturos ‘hard to please, fastidious, fussy’, pretenţios ‘hard to please, demanding, exigent’, exigent ‘exigent’. Most of these adjectives can also take faţă de ‘with respect to’.

(iii) Adjectives with a (proper) goal argument: bun ‘good (at)’, folositor ‘useful’, util ‘useful’, necesar ‘necessary’, potrivit ‘fit, suited, adequate’, eficient ‘efficient’, eficace ‘effective, efficient’. Here, the la-PP can be replaced by a pentru (‘for’)-PP.

(iv) Adjectives of capacities, where la introduces the domain of the capacity: priceput ‘skillful’, bun ‘good (at)’; this use appears to be very similar to that in (iii), but notice that in this case la cannot be replaced by pentru (priceput la tâmplărie/*pentru tâmplărie ‘skillful at/*for wood working), but only, to some extent, by în ‘in’ (priceput în prelucrarea lemnului ‘skillful in wood working’).

A similar use is that of indicating to which part of a referent the property applies, in which case it is likely that we are dealing with an adjunct: frumos la suflet ‘beautiful at soul’ “with a beautiful soul”, subţire la mijloc ‘thin at waste’ “slim-waisted”, negru la faţă ‘black at face’ “with a dark/gloomy face”.

We may include either here or under (ii) the la-PP with the adjective iute ‘quick’ in the meaning ‘ready’: iute la mânie ‘quick to anger, irascible’.

With valabil ‘valid’, the la-PP indicates the circumstances or domain in which a property holds. It is possible that the la-PP is a locative adjunct here, because it can be substituted by the wh- variant unde ‘where’: Unde e valabil biletul? ‘Where is the ticket valid?’

(v) Others: relativ ‘relative (to)’, părtaş ‘partaking’ (whose pattern is probably based on the related verbal idiom a lua parte (la) ‘to take part (in)’).

5.2.4 The preposition înThe preposition în ‘in’ appears only rarely with a selected argument. Examples of non-derived adjectives taking în are adjectives characterizing possession, where the comple-ment indicates the possessed entity: bogat ‘rich’ (e.g. bogat în flori ‘rich in flowers’, i.e. ‘having many flowers’), sărac ‘poor’.

Otherwise, în is found with adjectives derived from verbs taking în, e.g. încrezător ‘confident’ (<a se încrede (în) ‘to trust’).

More often, în appears with adjectives as an adjunct indicating the domain or circum-stance to which a certain property is restricted: e.g. strălucitor în conversaţie ‘brilliant in conversation’, competent în literatură ‘competent in literature’, energic în combaterea adver-sarilor ‘vigorous in fighting the opponents’, execrabil în politică ‘execrable/abominable in politics’ etc. Compared to the adjuncts with la which have a similar restrictive meaning

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(see §5.2.3, (iv)), în tends to be used with nouns denoting activities (e.g. eficient în com-baterea corupţiei ‘efficient in fighting against corruption’) or it indicates a larger abstract domain (such as literatură ‘literature’ in competent în literatură ‘competent in literature’, meserie ‘profession’ in priceput în meserie ‘capable/skillful in his/her profession’).

5.2.5 The preposition peThe preposition pe ‘on’ is selected by some psychological adjectives, most of them indicat-ing a hostile feeling, sometimes related to verbs selecting pe: supărat ‘upset, angry’ (adjec-tival participle of supăra ‘be upset, angry’), gelos ‘jealous’, invidios ‘envious’, furios ‘furious’, mânios ‘angry’ (cf. a se mânia pe ‘to be angry with’), pornit ‘badly disposed against’, sigur ‘sure (about)’ (often in the expression sigur pe sine ‘self-confident, well determined’), nervos ‘nervous (against)’, suspicios ‘suspicious (against)’.

Other uses are only found with adjectival participles, manifesting the inheritance of the selectional pattern of the verbal base: bazat pe ‘based on’ (<a se baza pe ‘to be based on’), axat pe ‘centered on, focused on’ (<a se axa pe ‘to focus on’), concentrat pe ‘focused on’ (<a se concentra pe), etc.

5.2.6 The preposition pentruThe preposition pentru ‘for’ expresses the goal or benefactive. It can be used to introduce an argument if the adjective assigns a goal or benefactive theta-role, e.g. necesar ‘necessary’, util ‘useful’, potrivit ‘fit, suited’, folositor ‘useful’, eficient ‘efficient’, eficace ‘effective, efficient’, prielnic ‘propitious’, propice ‘propitious’, indispensabil ‘indispensable’, suficient ‘sufficient’, vital ‘vital (for)’, decisiv ‘decisive’, esenţial ‘essential (for)’, important ‘important’, relevant ‘relevant’, bun ‘good’, excelent ‘excellent’, valoros ‘valuable, precious’, preţios ‘precious’, ines-timabil ‘invaluable, priceless’, nepreţuit ‘invaluable, priceless’, sănătos ‘healthy’, etc. It is also used with the antonyms of these adjectives: dăunător ‘harmful’, păgubitor ‘detrimental, prejudicial’, nefavorabil ‘unfavorable’, insuficient ‘insufficient’, inutil ‘useless’, irelevant ‘irrel-evant’, neimportant ‘unimportant’, neesenţial ‘unessential’, dezastruos ‘disastrous’, primejdios ‘dangerous’, periculos ‘dangerous’, etc. As we noticed in §5.1 and §5.2.3 above, many of these adjectives can also take the dative or the preposition la ‘to, at’.

Based on this benefactive meaning, pentru can also introduce Experiencers if they are positively or negatively affected, with adjectives such as: greu ‘hard’, dificil ‘difficult’, penibil ‘awkward, embarrassing’, uşor ‘easy’, plăcut ‘pleasant’, neplăcut ‘unpleasant’, jenant ‘embarrassing’.

Pentru can also be used with some adjectives relating a property or entity to a domain: definitoriu ‘defining’, caracteristic ‘characteristic’, tipic ‘typical’, specific ‘typical, character-istic’ (the latter three can also take the dative, see §5.1). Note that with definitoriu, the argument introduced by pentru corresponds to the object of the base verb defini ‘define’, something which is totally unusual.

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5.2.7 The complex preposition faţă deThe expression faţă de lit. ‘face of ’, meaning ‘towards (abstract), with respect to, compared to’, behaves as a complex preposition insofar as the first element, although it is a noun (faţă ‘face’), does not sit in a case position (it has no introductory element, although it does not occupy a nominative or accusative position). As we have seen in the previous sections, faţă de can be used as an alternative to some other argument-introducing elements:

(i) With adjectives indicating an attitude towards somebody: admirativ ‘admiring’, amabil ‘nice’, binevoitor ‘well-disposed, benevolent’, curtenitor ‘courteous’, devotat ‘devoted’, distant ‘distant’, drăguţ ‘nice’, duşmănos ‘hostile’, fidel ‘loyal, faithful’, îndatoritor ‘obliging’, îngăduitor ‘indulgent’, înţelegător ‘lenient’, loial ‘loyal’, necuviincios ‘disrespectful, impolite, indiecent’, neglijent ‘careless, neglectful’, nepoliticos ‘rude, impolite’, ostil ‘hostile’, părtinitor ‘biased, partial’, politicos ‘polite’, recunoscător ‘grateful’, respectuos ‘respectful’, rezervat ‘stand-offish’, sincer ‘sincere’, suspicios ‘suspicious’, etc. These adjectives can also take cu ‘with’. Some of them (binevoitor ‘well-disposed, devotat ‘devoted’, fidel ‘loyal, faithful’, loial ‘loyal’, ostil ‘hostile’, recunoscător ‘grateful’) can also take a dative complement;

(ii) With adjectives indicating a reaction to something (which can also take la ‘at, to’): nepăsător ‘insensitive’, sensibil ‘sensitive’, insensibil ‘insensitive’, imun ‘immune’, indiferent ‘indifferent’;

(iii) With adjectives indicating hierarchical relations: inferior ‘inferior’, secundar ‘sec-ondary’, subordonat ‘subordinate’, preponderent ‘prevailing’, predominant ‘predominant’;

(iv) With adjectives denoting spatial or temporal relations: apropiat ‘close’, depărtat ‘far’, anterior ‘prior, anterior’, exterior ‘exterior’, etc.;

(v) With symmetric adjectives expressing opposition: invers ‘inverse’, opus ‘opposite’, antagonic ‘antagonistic’, contradictoriu ‘contradictory’, complementar ‘complementary’.

5.2.8 Other prepositionsAs adjectives are typically stative predicates, we do not expect to find them with arguments expressing source or goal of motion, unless they are derived from verbs (e.g. descendent (din) ‘stemming (from)’ related to descinde ‘stem from’). An exception is the adjective originar ‘(coming/stemming) from, native to’, which, although not derived from a verb, expresses origin and therefore takes the ablative preposition din ‘from’.

The adjective intermediar ‘intermediate’ takes the preposition între ‘between’.Locative PPs and adverbials inside APs are argumental in some situations:(a) With adjectives that indicate frequency inside a domain: frecvent ‘frequent’, rar

‘rare’, des ‘frequent’, preponderent ‘prevailing’, predominant ‘predominant’:

(420) casele predominante aici / în România / la munte houses-the predominant here in Romania at mountain ‘houses prevailing here / in Romania / in the mountains’

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(b) With adjectives indicating presence, absence: prezent ‘present’, absent ‘absent’ (the latter normally takes an ablative PP, expressed in Romanian by de ‘of ’ + locative: din ‘from’= de+în ‘from + in’, de la ‘from (at)’, de pe ‘from (on)’, de aici ‘from here’, etc.).

5.3 Inherent accusative with the adjective dator

The adjective dator ‘owing, indebted’ takes a DP without any introductory element as the Theme, expressing what is owed (see (421a)) or the benefit which must be paid back (see (421b)), the external argument as the Source of (the promised) transfer and a dative DP as the Goal:

(421) a. Îi sunt dator o mie de lei. him.cl.dat am indebted a thousand of lei ‘I owe him a thousand lei.’ b. Îi sunt dator viaţa. him.cl.dat am indebted life-the ‘I owe him my life.’

The Theme complement is a DP in the unmarked case form. It can be called ‘accusative’, but it should be noticed that DPs with a distinct accusative marking, which are personal pronouns, cannot appear in this construction. The prepositional object marker pe is also excluded:

(422) a. *Mi-l este dator (pe el). me.cl.dat-3msg.cl.dat is indebted dom him Intended meaning: ‘(S)he owes me him / him to me.’ b. *Îmi era dator pe el /pe cineva. me.cl.dat was.3sg indebted dom he dom somebody Intended meaning: ‘(S)he owed me him / somebody.’

These constructions are not excluded by the meaning of dator, because the Theme of this adjective can also mean ‘benefit which must be paid back’, as we have seen in (421b), and we can think of a person as this benefit (for instance, a begotten child or a person whose life has been saved). Moreover, in a society which accepts slavery a person can appear as the Theme even in the first meaning of dator.

It can thus be concluded that distinct object marking only appears with structural accusative case. With dator, we have an instance of inherent case – a case selected by a given lexeme (the adjective dator) rather than licensed by a functional category (the active Voice of transitive verbs). We can call this case ‘accusative’, but it is in fact a zero-marked case, totally identical to the nominative (the two cases are formally distinguished only in some personal pronoun forms, but such forms cannot appear after dator, because they require the use of the object marker pe).

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Inherent accusative can also be found with verbs – verbs with two accusatives, one structural and one inherent (e.g. a învăţa pe cineva ceva ‘teach somebody something’) and verbs taking measure phrases (e.g. a cântări zece kilograme ‘to weigh ten kilos’). As has been noticed in the literature, dator resembles the latter type, as the Theme normally indicates a quantity (îi sunt dator zece lei/trei boi/două sticle de vin ‘I owe him ten lei/three oxen/two bottles of wine’). However, unlike measure verbs, dator is not limited to measure phrases; it can combine with bona fide DPs, as shown by (421b) and by the following example:

(423) Ce îi eşti dator ? what him.cl.dat are.2sg indebted ‘What do you owe him?’

Dator can also take cât ‘how-much’, but this does not show that it has a MeasP complement, because cât can appear in any DP-position, if the quantity is questioned: cât a mâncat? ‘how much did (s)he eat?’, cât este pe jos? ‘how much (of it) is on the floor?’, etc.

Besides a DP which is assigned inherent accusative, dator can also take a cu (‘with’)-PP expressing what is owed. The relation of owing can also be expressed by a verb, which is derived from the adjective: datora ‘owe’.

5.4 Clausal arguments

5.4.1 IntroductionAdjectives taking clausal arguments can either take a nominal external argument (see (424)), or can lack an external argument, in which case the clause is traditionally analyzed as the subject of the clause containing the adjective (see (425)):

(424) a. persoanele sigure că vom învinge persons-the sure that will.1pl win ‘The persons sure that we’ll win’ b. Maria e sigură că vom învinge. Maria is sure that will.1pl win ‘Maria is sure that we’ll win.’

(425) Este posibil să fie acasă. is possible subj be.3sg home ‘It’s possible that (s)he’s home.’

Although clauses of the type illustrated in (425) do not pattern entirely with subject DPs, we will use the term ‘subject clause’ for expository purposes. Another argument for using this term is that they may be substituted by DPs, which act as regular subjects:

(426) a. Acest lucru este posibil. this thing is possible

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b. Toate aceste întâmplări nu i se păreau posibile. all these events not cl.3sg.dat refl seem.impf.3pl possible ‘All these things didn’t seem possible to him.’

For complement clauses which are not subject clauses we will use the term object clauses.The selection of the type of subordinate clause is mostly driven by semantics, the rules

being the same as for clausal complements of verbs. Leaving a more precise characteriza-tion for the second volume, we notice here that the indicative mood, introduced by the complementizer că ‘that’, is used if the subordinate clause is presupposed to be true (the predicate is ‘factive’) or at least the selecting predicate is assertive, the subordinate being taken to be true with a certain degree of probability by the subject of the epistemic state denoted by the adjective or by the speaker (see (427)):

(427) a. Ion e sigur că va învinge. Ion is sure that will.3sg win ‘Ion is sure he’ll win.’ b. Este foarte probabil că vom pierde. is very probable that will.1pl lose ‘It’s very likely that we’ll lose.’

The subjunctive is used if these conditions are not fulfilled – in what we can call irrealis contexts; in addition, it can be used with some emotive factive predicates (see §5.4.2.1 below, under (ii), for a possible explanation):

(428) Sunt bucuros că te găsesc aici / să te găsesc aici. am glad that you.acc find.1sg here subj you.acc find.1sg here ‘I’m glad to find you here.’

The infinitive is mostly used as a variant to the subjunctive. Exceptionally, it can also replace an indicative clause. The supine only appears in irrealis contexts (see §5.4.4):

(429) a. Nu e capabil de a exprima ce simte / Nu e capabil să not is capable of to express.inf what feels not is capable subj exprime ce simte. expresses what feels ‘(S)he’s not capable to express what (s)he feels.’ b. oameni siguri de a reuşi / că vor reuşi people certain of to succeed.inf that will.3pl succeed ‘people certain of success / that they will succeed’ c. lucru vrednic de reţinut / vrednic să thing worthy of keep_in_mind.sup worthy subj fie reţinut be.3 kept_in_mind ‘thing worthy to be kept in mind’

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Indirect interrogatives are used if the subordinate clause is evaluated with respect to the real world but its degree of probability is unknown:

(430) a. Ne întrebăm dacă va veni. refl ask.1pl if will.3sg come ‘We wonder whether (s)he’ll come.’ b. Nu ştiu dacă a reuşit. not know.1sg if has succeeded ‘I don’t know whether (s)he succeeded.’

The complementizer că ‘that’, typical of the indicative, can also combine with the condi-tional mood (even with factive predicates, see conştient ‘aware’ in the following example):

(431) Sunt sigur /conştient că am putea pierde. am sure /aware that would.1pl can lose ‘I’m sure/aware that we might lose.’

However, as the indicative is characteristic for că, we shall use the term ‘declarative indica-tive clauses’ for CPs headed by că.

5.4.2 Finite clauses5.4.2.1 Object clauses. According to the type of the finite clausal complement, adjec-tives which take finite object clauses can be divided into the following classes:

(i) Adjectives that only take the indicative:(i.1) Factive adjectives which do not involve an emotive/evaluative component take declar-ative indicative clauses: conştient ‘aware’, nedumerit when it means ‘puzzled’, vinovat ‘guilty’ (the following examples show that the subordinate clause remains true if the matrix clause is questioned or negated):

(432) a. Eşti conştient că putem pierde totul? are.2sg aware that can.1pl lose everything ‘Do you realize that we can lose everything?’ b. Nu sunt vinovat că s-a întâmplat aşa. not am guilty that refl-has happened so ‘It’s not my fault that it turned out like that.’

With vinovat ‘guilty’, if the speaker is not committed to the truth of the guilt, the condi-tional mood is used in the subordinate:

(433) A fost găsit vinovat că ar fi cauzat accidentul. has been found guilty that would.3 prf caused accident-the ‘He has been found guilty of having allegedly caused the accident.’

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(i.2) Adjectives of strong belief – sigur ‘sure, certain’, încredinţat ‘confident’ – take declar-ative indicative clauses. The adjective sigur can take an indirect interrogative when it is under negation:

(434) a. Sunt sigur că vine. am sure that comes ‘I’m sure (s)he’s coming.’ b. Nu sunt sigur că/dacă vine. not am sure that/if comes ‘I’m not sure (s)he’s coming.’ c. Nu sunt sigur cine are dreptate. not am sure who has justice ‘I’m not sure who’s right.’

(ii) Adjectives that can take either the indicative or the subjunctive:(ii.1) Emotive adjectives (adjectives expressing affective attitudes towards a fact or possi-bility): bucuros ‘glad’, fericit ‘happy’, încântat ‘delighted’, măgulit ‘flattered’, mândru ‘proud’, mulţumit ‘satisfied’, satisfăcut ‘satisfied’, furios ‘furious’, uluit ‘amazed’, uimit ‘ surprised’, surprins ‘surprised’, şocat ‘shocked’, speriat ‘afraid, scared’, preocupat ‘ preoccupied’ (in the sense ‘worried’), îngrijorat ‘worried’, îngrozit ‘terrified’, scandalizat ‘shocked’, indignat ‘indignant, revolted’, revoltat ‘revolted’, liniştit ‘assured’, etc. All of these adjectives can take the indicative if the truth of the complement clause is presupposed (i.e. if they are factive):

(435) a. Eşti fericit că a câştigat Obama? are.2sg happy that has won Obama ‘Are you happy that Obama won?’ b. Nu sunt mândru că mă consideră prieten. not am proud that me considers friend ‘I’m not proud that he considers me as his friend.’

Adjectives typically oriented to a possibility – speriat ‘afraid, scared’, îngrijorat ‘worried’, preocupat ‘preoccupied, worried’, îngrozit ‘terrified’, etc. – can take the indicative even if the truth of the complement clause is not presupposed (in (436), the non-specific determiner vreun shows that the sentence is taken as a possibility; see Chapter 4 §3.2.4 on vreun):

(436) Sunt speriat că va câştiga stânga / că fac am afraid that will.3sg win left-the that do.1sg vreun rău. some bad-thing ‘I’m afraid the left will win / that I’m doing something bad.’

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These adjectives can be factive if the complement clause describes a fact which can lead to or be indicative of the undesirable eventuality; thus, in the following example, his/her being pale is a fact, but the object of worry is not this fact itself, but rather the illness which this fact may indicate:

(437) Sunt îngrijorat că este aşa palid. am worried that is so pale ‘I’m worried that (s)he’s so pale.’

If the subordinate clause is a fact, it can also be introduced as a causal clause, with pentru că ‘because’ (lit. ‘for that’), deoarece ‘because’, etc.:

(438) a. Sunt mândru pentru că mă consideră prieten. am proud for that me considers friend ‘I’m proud because he considers me his friend.’ b. Sunt îngrijorat pentru că este aşa palid. am worried for that is so pale ‘I’m worried because (s)he’s so pale.’

The subjunctive can be used in the following circumstances:(a) The event/situation which causes the emotional state is not presented as a real fact,

but only as a possibility. With the adjectives of the ‘afraid’-type, which we can call future-oriented, this happens by virtue of their meaning; probably due to the negative desire component of the meaning of these adjectives, the subjunctive clause obligatorily takes negation; thus, (439a) is equivalent to (439b):

(439) a. Sunt îngrijorat să nu pierdem trenul. am worried subj not miss.1pl train-the ‘I’m worried we may/will miss the train.’ b. Sunt îngrijorat că vom pierde trenul. am worried that will.1pl miss train-the ‘I’m worried we will miss the train.’

With the other adjectives, the complement clause expresses mere possibility when the main clause itself is irrealis:

(440) Aş fi bucuros să vină. would.1sg be glad subj comes ‘I’d be glad if (s)he comes.’

The subjunctive clause can be paraphrased by a conditional clause:

(441) Aş fi bucuros dacă vine / dacă ar veni. would.1sg be glad if comes if would.3sg come ‘I’d be glad if (s)he comes/if she came’.

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This possibility reading obtains even if the main clause has the indicative mood. Thus, (442) can be used to refer to a possible future event, as indicated in the translation, in which case it can be paraphrased as in (442′). Likewise, (443) can have a meaning para-phrasable by (443′), in which it refers to an event which was possible at the time of the event introduced by the main predicate:

(442) Sunt bucuros să vină. am glad subj comes ‘I’m glad he may come.’

(442′) Sunt bucuros dacă vine. am glad if comes ‘I’m glad if he comes.’

(443) Eram bucuros să câştige englezii. was.1sg glad subj win.3pl english-the

(443′) Eram bucuros dacă câştigau englezii / aveau să was.1sg glad if win.impf.3pl english-the / have.3pl subj câştige englezii. win.3pl English-the ‘I would have been glad if the English had won.’

Besides this reading, such sentences also have a realis (factive) reading, discussed under point (b) below.

(b) The subordinate clause refers to a real fact (the truth of the subordinate clause is presupposed), in which case the subjunctive is equivalent with the indicative:

(444) Sunt bucuros să te întâlnesc = Sunt bucuros că am glad subj you.acc meet.1sg am glad that te întâlnesc you.acc meet.1sg ‘I’m glad to meet you.’

The use of an irrealis mood with emotive factive predicatives is frequent accross languages. A possible explanation is that these predicates involve some reference to alternatives to the real world, indicating that even under different courses of events, if the eventuality denoted by the subordinate clause took place, it would cause the same affective state in the ‘subject’ (the external argument of the adjective). In other words, we would have here at the same time a factive reading and the reading we noticed in (442)–(443).

This use of the subjunctive is subject to two constraints. First, the subjunctive can-not take the perfect tense. In order to express an attitude towards a previous event, the indicative must be used (see (445)). With an irrealis meaning, the subjunctive can take the perfect tense (see (446)):

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(445) a. *Sunt bucuros să-l fi cunoscut. am glad subj-him prf known b. Sunt bucuros că l-am cunoscut. am glad that him-have.1 known ‘I’m glad to have met him.’

(446) Aş fi bucuros să-l fi cunoscut. would.1sg be glad subj-him prf known ‘I would be glad if I had met him.’

Secondly, the subjunctive clause preferably has the Experiencer of the adjective as the sub-ject (its subject must be controlled), see (447a–b) (with an irrealis meaning, there is no problem in using the subjunctive, see (447c)):

(447) a. Sunt surprins să-l văd. am surprised subj-him see.1sg ‘I’m surprised to see him.’ b. ??Sunt surprins să nu mă creadă. am surprised subj not me believes c. Aş fi surprins să nu mă creadă. would.1sg be surprised subj not me believes ‘I’d be surprised if (s)he didn’t believe me.’

Note that many of the adjectives discussed here are participial. We treat them as adjectives rather than passive verbal forms because they do not allow de către ‘by’ and, correlatively, take degree heads typical of adjectives:

(448) Sunt (foarte) uimit de (*către) copilul tău. am.1sg very amazed of towards child-the your ‘I’m very amazed at your child.’

(ii.2) Evaluative adjectives qualifying the behavior of a person. Such adjectives assign an evaluative quality to a person, and the clausal complement introduces the fact by which this quality manifests itself:

(449) Eşti drăguţ să-mi ceri părerea / că îmi are.2sg kind subj-me.dt ask.2sg opinion-the that me.dat ceri părerea. ask.2sg opinion-the ‘You’re kind to ask my opinion/It’s kind of you to ask my opinion.’

Other examples of adjectives of this type are: bun ‘good’, amabil ‘kind’, generos ‘generous, open-handed, kindhearted’, nesimţit ‘shameless, impertinent’, nepoliticos ‘impolite’, crud ‘cruel’, sadic ‘sadistic’, deştept ‘smart’, şmecher ‘sly, cunning’, abil ‘skilful’, înţelept ‘wise’, nebun ‘crazy’, tâmpit ‘dull’, prost ‘stupid’, imprudent ‘reckless, imprudent’. With some adjectives, the

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clause does not refer to the behavior of the person, but just expresses the reason for assign-ing the property to the person: norocos ‘lucky’, ghinionist ‘unlucky’.

The rules for the use of the moods are the same as for (ii.1). We only notice that the factive use if more frequent here, but reference to a possibility is nevertheless allowed:

(450) Dacă ai fi drăguţ să-mi ceri părerea, … if would.2sg be kind subj-me.dat ask.2sg opinion-the ‘If you were so kind to ask my opinion, …’

In (451), as the subjunctive refers to a possible situation, the definite description ‘the peo-ple stupid to believe him’ has a non-specific interpretation, referring to any people stupid to believe him. By contrast, the use of the indicative in (452) indicates a true event, and therefore the definite description must be specific, referring to the people which actually have been so stupid to believe him. Notice however that this sentence is marginal (presum-ably because the indicative is or allowed when the adjective is used attributively):

(451) Nu vorbesc cu oamenii proşti să-l creadă. not speak.1sg with people-the stupid subj-him believe.3 ‘I don’t speak to those stupid to believe him.’

(452) ?? Nu vorbesc cu oamenii proşti că l-au crezut. not speak.1sg with people-the stupid that him-have.3pl believed Intended meaning: ‘I don’t speak to the people who were stupid to believe him.’

Unlike for type (ii.1), the clause cannot be substituted by a nominal complement.For other languages, it has been claimed that the clause is not a complement, but

rather an adjunct. But in Romanian the clause can appear with nominals derived from these adjectives, in a form which only characterizes arguments: de + Infinitival (see (453); on infinitival complements of nouns, see Chapter 9 §2.1).

(453) prostia /imprudenţa /amabilitatea lui de a face asta stupidity-the imprudence-the kindness-the his of to do.inf this

Some of these adjectives (drăguţ ‘nice, kind’, generos ‘generous, open-handed, kindhearted’, amabil ‘kind’, nepoliticos ‘impolite’, imprudent ‘reckless’) allow an alternative pattern in which they are predicated of the event – the clause acting as a subject clause, see 5.4.2.2 below (type ii.1) – and the person is introduced by the idiom din partea ‘from side-the’, which takes a genitive or pronominal possessor:

(454) E drăguţ din partea ta să-mi ceri părerea / că is kind from side-the your subj-me.dat ask.2sg opinion-the that îmi ceri părerea. me.dat ask.2sg opinion-the ‘It’s kind of you to ask my opinion.’

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But the existence of these two patterns for one and the same adjective is more restricted than in English. The construction with a subject clause is impossible for bun ‘good’, deştept ‘sly, smart’, prost ‘stupid’, şmecher ‘sly, cunning’, nebun ‘crazy’, nesimţit ‘shameless, imper-tinent’ (see (455b–b′)) and for the adjectives which do not refer to behavior – norocos ‘lucky’, ghinionist ‘unlucky’ (see (456b–b′)). In these cases, Romanian can use a predicative abstract noun (see (455c), (456c)), introducing the person either with din partea (lit.) ‘from side-the’ (see (455c)) or, in the case of the adjectives which do not refer to behavior, with pentru ‘for’ (see (456c)):

(455) a. Eşti prost să nu-mi spui / că nu-mi spui. are.2sg stupid subj not-me.dat tell.2sg that not-me.dat tell.2sg ‘You’re stupid not to tell me / that you don’t tell me.’ b. *Este prost din partea ta să nu-mi spui / că is stupid from side-the your subj not-me.dat tell.2sg that nu-mi spui. not-me.dat tell.2sg

b′. It’s stupid of you not to tell me / that you don’t tell me. c. Este o prostie din partea ta să nu-mi spui / că is a foolishness from side-the your subj not-me.dat tell.2sg that nu-mi spui. not-me.dat tell.2sg ‘It is stupid of you not to tell me.’

(456) a. Eşti norocos să mă vezi / că mă vezi. are.2sg lucky subj me.acc see.2sg / that me.acc see.2sg ‘You’re lucky to see me.’ b. *E norocos {pentru tine / din partea ta} {să mă is lucky for you from part-the your subj me.acc vezi / că mă vezi}. see.2sg / that me.acc see.2sg

b′. It’s lucky for you to see me. c. E un noroc pentru tine {să mă vezi / că is a luck for you subj me.acc see.2sg / that mă vezi}. me.acc see.2sg ‘You’re lucky to see me.’

The adjectives that allow the construction with a subject clause can also be predicated on a noun referring to the event: lucru drăguţ/generos/amabil/nepoliticos/imprudent ‘thing

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kind/generous/kind/impolite/reckless’. The converse is not true (e.g. one can say faptă bună ‘deed good’, but not *A fost bun/bine din partea ta să… ‘it was good of you to…’).

(iii) Adjectives that only take the subjunctive:(iii.1) Adjectives denoting volition (desiderative predicates) or caution, behavior oriented to a certain goal: avid ‘greedy, avid’, dornic ‘longing, eager’, însetat ‘thirsty’, nerăbdător ‘impatient, eager’, decis ‘decided’, gata ‘ready’, pregătit ‘prepared’, interesat ‘interested’, griju-liu ‘careful’, atent ‘careful’, dispus ‘ready (to), willing (to)’, grăbit ‘hurried’;(iii.2) Adjectives expressing deontic, teleological or circumstantial modality (including capacities): demn ‘worthy’, vrednic ‘worthy’, dator ‘indebted, obliged to’, obligat ‘obliged’, liber ‘free’ (= “which is allowed to do something”), apt ‘fit(ted), capable’, capabil ‘capable’, inapt ‘incapable’, menit ‘destined’, susceptibil ‘liable’;(iii.3) Adjectives taking a goal argument: bun ‘good’, suficient ‘sufficient’, insuficient ‘insuf-ficient’, potrivit ‘fit, suited’.

Here are some examples:

(457) a. Sunt atenţi să nu greşească. are.3pl careful subj not make-a-mistake.3 ‘They are careful not to make a mistake.’ b. E liber să plece. is free subj go.3 ‘He’s free to go.’ c. Nu e apt să participe la competiţie. not is fit subj participate.3 at competition ‘He’s not fit to take part in the competition.’

Adjectives of type (iii.3), which take a goal argument, differ from the others in that the subjunctive behaves as a purpose clause: it freely allows the complementizer ca immedi-ately before the subjunctive marker să, whereas for complement subjunctives the standard language disallows ca if it is not separated from să by another constituent:

(458) a. Suma e suficientă ca să cumpărăm mobila. sum-the is sufficient ca subj buy.1pl furniture-the ‘The sum is sufficient for us to buy the furniture.’ b. Ioana e nerăbdătoare (??ca) să cumpărăm mobila. Ioana is impatient ca subj buy.1pl furniture-the ‘Ioana is anxious that we should buy the furniture.’

Moreover, with type (iii.3) the complementizer ca can be preceded by the preposition pen-tru ‘for’, which is typical of purpose clauses:

(459) a. Rochia nu e potrivită pentru ca s-o port dress-the not is suited for ca subj-it.acc wear.1sg

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la recepţie. at reception ‘The dress is not suited for me to wear at the reception.’ b. E bun pentru ca să fie deputat. is good for ca subj be.3 deputy ‘He’s fit to a be a deputy.’

The preposition pentru ‘for’ also appears in the infinitive counterpart of this construction (see §5.4.3).(iii.4) Adjectives describing the psychological effect of an object, where the clause specifies the event by which the object manifests this effect:

(460) a. carte plăcută s-o citeşti în pat book pleasant subj-it read.2sg in bed ‘book pleasant to be read in bed’ b. voce plăcută s-o asculţi voice pleasant subj-it listen.2sg ‘voice nice/pleasant to listen’ c. chestiuni interesante să le discutăm împreună issues interesting subj them discuss.1pl together ‘issues interesting to be discussed together (by us)’

These adjectives can also take the supine (see §5.4.4.1 below).

(iv) Adjectives which take the subjunctive or an indirect interrogative:These are desiderative predicates (cf. (iiia) above) which can also mean ‘eager/trying

to know/find out’ (which explains the indirect interrogative): curios ‘curious’, preocupat ‘preoccupied’, interesat ‘interested’:

(461) a. persoane curioase să afle rezultatul / să ştie cine persons curious subj learn.3 result-the subj know.3 who a învins has won ‘People curious to learn the result/to know who won’ b. persoane curioase cine a învins / dacă a învins persons curious who has won if has won ‘Persons curious who won/if (s)he won’

5.4.2.2 Subject clauses. The conditions for the use of the indicative and the subjunctive that we have seen above for object clauses also hold for subject clauses.

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The adjectives appearing in this pattern can only be predicative, as they lack a nominal external argument. They usually appear after the copula, but can also occur in other pred-icative environments, e.g. after considera ‘consider’:

(462) Consider important să se ia o decizie de pe acum. consider.1sg important subj refl takes a decision by now ‘I consider it important that a decision be taken now.’

Like in §5.4.2.2, we classify these adjectives according to the mood of the finite clause:(i) Adjectives that only take the indicative:(i.1) Factive epistemic predicates: cunoscut ‘known’, ştiut ‘known’:

(463) E ştiut că ei sunt cei mai buni. is known that they are the more good ‘It’s well-known that they are the best.’

(i.2) Epistemic and evidential predicates indicating certainty: sigur ‘certain’, cert ‘certain’, adevărat ‘true’, drept ‘right, true’, clar ‘clear’, evident ‘obvious’, neîndoielnic ‘indisputable’, indubitabil ‘indisputable’, incontestabil ‘incontestable, indisputable’, indisputabil ‘indisput-able’. Sigur ‘certain’ and clar ‘clear’ can take an indirect interrogative when negated:

(464) a. E clar că ne aude. is clear that us hears ‘It’s clear (s)he can hear us.’ b. Nu e clar că/dacă ne aude. not is clear that/if us hears ‘It’s not clear that/whether (s)he can hear us.’

Clar ‘clear’ and evident ‘obvious’ can also take a wh- clause:

(465) E clar / evident cine va câştiga. is clear / obvious who will win ‘It’s clear / obvious who will vin.’

(ii) Adjectives that can take either the indicative or the subjunctive:(ii.1) Evaluative predicates: bine ‘good’ (the form of bun when there is no source of agree-ment, see §1.1 above), rău ‘bad’, regretabil ‘regrettable’, important ‘important’, frumos ‘nice’, extraordinar ‘extraordinary’, minunat ‘wonderful’, urât ‘bad, ugly’, oribil ‘horrible’, greşit ‘wrong’, ruşinos ‘shameful’, nobil ‘noble’, inadmisibil ‘intolerable’, înţelept ‘wise’, periculos ‘dangerous’, primejdios ‘dangerous’, util ‘useful’, uimitor ‘amazing’, surprinzător ‘surprising’, ciudat ‘strange’, curios ‘strange’, supărător ‘annoying, disappointing’, revoltător ‘revolting’, enervant ‘annoying’, plăcut ‘pleasant’, îmbucurător ‘gladdening, heartening’, reconfortant ‘comforting’, dureros ‘painful’, trist ‘sad’, penibil ‘embarrassing, awkward’, jenant ‘embarrass-ing’, groaznic ‘horrible, terrible’, normal ‘natural, normal’, firesc ‘natural’, nefiresc ‘unnatural’,

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incredibil ‘incredible’, amuzant ‘funny, amusing’, caraghios ‘ridiculous, funny’, ridicol ‘ridic-ulous’, dezamăgitor ‘disappointing’, etc.

The indicative is used if the predicate is factive (the truth of the complement clause is presupposed):

(466) (Nu) e bine că le scrieţi → Le scrieţi (not) is good that them.dat write.2pl them.dat write.2pl ‘It’s (not) good that you’re writing to them’ → ‘You’re writing to them’

The subjunctive is used when the subordinate clause only expresses a possibility (occurring in generalizations, hypothetical contexts, etc.), but can occur even if its truth is known in the context, in conditions similar to those described in §5.4.2.1 above under (ii.1) (see (468)):

(467) E bine să le scrieţi is good subj them.dat write.2pl ‘It’s good that you should write them/for you to write them’ ≠> Le scrieţi them.dat write.2pl ≠> ‘You’re writing to them/ You write to them’

(468) E ciudat să-l văd aici. is strange subj-him see.1sg here ‘It’s strange to see him here.’

As we have mentioned in §5.4.2.1 above (under (ii.2)), some evaluative adjectives allow expressing the person which performs the evaluated action by a PP introduced by din partea ‘from side-the (of)’ (see Example (454), and (469a) here). Some of these adjectives also allow a pattern in which the person appears as the external argument (discussed in §5.4.2.1 under (ii.2), see (449)–(451)), but not all of them (see (469)):

(469) a. A fost {amabil /frumos} din partea ta {să-mi has been kind / beautiful from part-the your subj-me.dat scrii / că mi-ai scris}. write.2sg that have.2sg-me.dat written ‘It was kind/nice of you to write me.’ b. Ai fost {amabil /*frumos} {să-mi scrii / că have.2sg been kind / beautiful subj-me.dat write.2sg that mi-ai scris}. have.2sg-me.dat written ‘You were kind/nice to write me.’

(ii.2) Epistemic modal predicates: only verosimil ‘likely, credible, plausible’, plauzibil ‘plau-sible’ and credibil ‘credible’; most adjectives of this type only take the subjunctive, see (iii.1) below.

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(470) E verosimil că au ajuns / să fi ajuns. is credible that have.3pl arrived / subj prf arrived ‘It is plausible that they have arrived.’

(iii) Adjectives that only take the subjunctive:(iii.1) Adjectives expressing epistemic and circumstantial modality: probabil ‘likely’, posibil ‘possible’, improbabil ‘unlikely’, imposibil ‘impossible’.

These words can take the indicative when they are used as adverbs heading the clause by themselves, without a copular verb (see (471b)); as adjectives, they must take the copula and can only combine with the subjunctive (see (471a)):

(471) a. E probabil să nu se mai întoarcă / *că nu se is probable subj not refl again returns / that not refl mai întoarce. again returns ‘It’s likely (s)he won’t come back.’ b. Probabil că nu se mai întoarce. probably that not refl again returns ‘Probably (s)he won’t come back.’

The claim that the predicates in the construction illustrated by (471b) are not categorially adjectives, but rather adverbs, is demonstrated by the behavior of adjectives in -esc, which have a distinct adverbial form, in -eşte:

(472) a. Fireşte că nu se mai întoarce. naturally that not refl again returns ‘Of course, (s)he won’t come back.’ b. *Firesc că nu se mai întoarce. natural that not refl again returns

(iii.2) Adjectives expressing deontic and teleological modality: obligatoriu ‘obligatory’, necesar ‘necessary’, (ne)permis ‘(dis)allowed’, interzis ‘forbidden’, (ne)recomandat ‘(not) recommended’, (ne)indicat ‘(not) recommended’, etc.:

(473) E obligatoriu să-i spunem. is obligatory subj-3sg.dat tell.1pl ‘We have to tell him/her.’

(iii.3) Adjectives qualifying an action in terms of likeliness of success: greu ‘hard, difficult’, uşor ‘easy’, dificil ‘difficult’, etc.

(474) Va fi greu să ajungem pe lumină. will.3sg be hard subj arrive.1pl on light ‘It will be difficult for us to get there before dawn.’

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These adjectives may also have a psychological reading (resembling evaluative adjectives). They can introduce the performer of the action as an Experiencer, which can appear in the dative (see §5.1 above, type vi.c) or as a pentru-PP:

(475) E uşor pentru mine să rezolv problema / Mi-e uşor să is easy for me subj solve.1sg problem-the me.dat-is easy subj rezolv problema. solve.1sg problem-the ‘It’s easy for me to solve the problem.’

These adjectives can also take the supine and enter a special raising construction with the supine (the so-called “tough construction”), see §5.4.4.3 below.

(iv) Adjectives which take the indicative, the subjunctive or an indirect interrogative:Adjectives such as interesant ‘interesting’, important ‘important’ express a psychological effect, like evaluative adjectives (ii.1), but also an attitude towards a piece of information (like those under (iv) in §5.4.2.1), which allows them to take an indirect interrogative:

(476) a. E interesant că aşa mulţi s-au retras. is interesting that so many refl-have.3pl withdrawn ‘It’s interesting that so many people withdrew.’ b. Va fi interesant să vedem cu ochii noştri. will.3sg be interesting subj see.1pl with eyes-the our ‘It’ll be interesting to see with our eyes.’ c. E interesant cine va veni / dacă va veni. is interesting who will.3sg come if will.3sg come ‘It’s interesting who will come / if (s)he comes.’

5.4.3 Infinitival clauses5.4.3.1 Infinitival vs. finite clauses. With most types of adjectives which take object clauses, listed in 5.4.2 above, the infinitive can alternate both with indicative and subjunc-tive clauses (see (477)). The infinitive is specific to a high, literary register.

(477) a. conştient că este în pericol / de a fi în pericol aware that is in danger of to be in danger ‘aware of being in danger’ b. dornic să-l revadă / de a-l revedea eager subj-him sees-again of to-him see-again ‘wishing to see him again’

When the adjective can take both the indicative and the subjunctive as a complement, the infinitive can replace both moods ((478) is a factive context; the subjunctive cannot have

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the perfect tense in this context, see (478c), which indicates that the infinitive ‘replaces’ the indicative; (479) is a context which favors the irrealis reading; the infinitive is equivalent there to b):

(478) a. Sunt bucuros de a-l fi cunoscut. am glad of to-him prf known ‘I’m glad to have met him.’ b. Sunt bucuros că l-am cunoscut. am glad that him-have.1 met ‘I’m glad I met him.’ c. *Sunt bucuros să-l fi cunoscut. am glad subj-him prf met

(479) a. Aş fi încântat de a-l putea convinge. would.1sg be delighted of to-him can convince ‘I’d be glad to be able to convince him.’ b. Aş fi încântat să-l pot convinge. would.1sg be delighted subj-him can.1sg convince ‘I’d be delighted to be able to convince him.’ c. #Aş fi încântat că-l pot convinge. would.1sg be delighted that-him can.1sg convince

Among the adjectives taking an object clause, examined in §5.4.2.1 above, those in class (ii.2), which qualify persons through their behavior, cannot take the infinitive:

(480) a. ??Eşti amabil (de) a-mi oferi acest cadou. are.2sg kind of to-me.dat offer this present b. *Eşti prost (de) a-i spune. are.2sg stupid of to-3sg.dat tell

This impossibility may be correlated with the fact that these adjectives do not take nomi-nal complements either. Indeed, infinitives have some nominal properties – see the next sub-section (§5.4.3.2) on their ability to take prepositions such as de ‘of ’, la ‘at, to’ and pentru ‘for’.

In subject clauses, the infinitive can alternate with the subjunctive, but not with the indicative:

(481) a. E evident că va veni / *să vină. is obvious that will.3sg come subj comes ‘It’s obvious that (s)he will come.’ b. *E evident de a veni. is obvius of to come

(482) E important de a rămâne aici. is important of to remain here ‘It’s important to remain here.’

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= E important să {rămânem / rămână /rămâi is important subj remain.1pl remain.3 remain.2sg / rămân / rămâneţi} aici. remain.1sg remain.2pl ‘It’s important that we/(s)he/they/you/I should remain here.’ ≠ E important că {rămânem / rămâne /rămâi is important that remain.1pl remain.3sg remain.2sg / rămân / rămâneţi} aici. remain.1sg/3pl remain.2pl ‘It’s important that we/(s)he/they/you/I are remaining here.’

5.4.3.2 Introductory elements. Whenever an adjective selects a particular preposition, the infinitival is normally introduced by this preposition, which suggests that the infinitive has a nominal distribution. The preposition is in most cases de ‘of ’, the preposition typical of the Theme role (see §5.2.2 above), as illustrated in (483)–(484); with the Purpose role, we find the preposition pentru ‘for’ (see (485)); with adjectives selecting la ‘at, to’, we can find an infinitive introduced by la (see (486)):

(483) a. Sunt mândru de a-l fi cunoscut. am proud of to-him prf known ‘I’m proud to have met him.’ b. Sunt mândru de această faptă. am proud of this deed ‘I’m proud of this deed.’

(484) a. Nu e capabil de a conduce statul. not is capable of to govern state-the ‘(S)he’s not capable of governing the state.’ b. Nu e capabil de crimă. not is capable of murder ‘(S)he’s not capable of murder.’

(485) a. Suma e suficientă pentru a-l cumpăra. sum-the is sufficient for to-it buy ‘The sum is enough for buying it.’ b. Suma e suficientă pentru plata salariilor. sum-the is sufficient for payment-the salaries-the.gen ‘The sum is sufficient for the payment of the salaries.’

(486) a. Nu sunt bun la a găsi cuvintele potrivite. not am good at to find words-the right ‘I’m not good at finding the right words.’ b. Nu sunt bun la asta. not am good at this ‘I’m not good at this.’

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With the adjective dator ‘owing’, which takes inherent accusative (see §5.3 above), we expectedly find no introductory element at all (see (487)); but one can also find the prepo-sition de ‘of ’, extended on the model of the other adjectives (see (488)):

(487) a. Sunt dator a–l cumpăra pentru el. am indebted to-it buy for him ‘I owe him to buy it for him.’ b. Îi sunt dator asta. 3sg.dat am indebted this ‘I owe him/her this.’

(488) Omul este dator de a cultiva, în sens spiritual, imensul man-the is indebted of to cultivate in sense spiritual huge-the câmp al lumii. field gen world-the.gen ‘Man has the duty to cultivate, in spiritual sense, the huge field of the world.’ (www.ziarullumina.ro/)

The preposition de can be omitted, in a very bookish register:

(489) a. Căutăm un avocat capabil a comunica în (www.avocatnet.ro) search.1pl a lawyer capable to communicate in limba engleză. language-the English ‘We’re looking for a lawyer capable of communicating in English.’ b. vrednică a sta în mâinile (Călinescu, C. 55, apud worthy to stay in hands-the Dindelegan 2012: 71) unui Polyphem a.gen Polyphem ‘worthy of resting in the hands of a Polyphem’

When the adjective does not take a nominal argument with the same meaning, the infini-tive can appear either without any preposition or with the preposition de:

(490) Oricine e liber (de) a alege orice profesie. anybody is free (of) to choose any profession ‘Everybody is free to choose any profession.’

The element de is probably not to be analyzed as a complementizer, because, unlike in French or Italian, it cannot introduce direct object or subject clauses with verbs. Instead, it appears in NPs and APs, the environments which also characterize de as a functional preposition (see Chapter 8 §1.2.3, §3 for de as a functional preposition inside NPs and §5.2.2 above for de with deverbal adjectives, introducing the argument corresponding to the verb’s direct object).

Notice that de can also appear in subject clauses following the adjective (see also (482)):

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(491) E bine de a afla cât mai curând. is good of to find-out how-much more soon ‘It’s preferable to find out as soon as possible.’

When the subject clause occurs in the preverbal position, de is excluded:

(492) (*De) a vorbi astfel nu e bine / frumos. of to speak like-that not is good / nice ‘To talk like that is not good/nice.’

This fact suggests that subject clauses following adjectives are to be analyzed as comple-ments of the adjective.

5.4.3.3 The subject of the infinitive. In object clauses, the subject of the infinitive is normally controlled (bound) by the external argument of the adjective:

(493) a. oameni nerăbdători de a ne înlocui people impatient of to us replace ‘people impatient to replace us’: λx. people(x) ∧ x is impatient to replace us b. Mariai este sigură de a învinge (PROi). Maria is sure of to win ‘Maria is sure to win’: Maria is λx. x is sure that x will win

One can nevertheless find examples in which the subject of the infinitive is not controlled, but is either overtly expressed, in postverbal position (see (494a)) or remains null and refer to a previously mentioned entity (see (494b); pro notates the null subject):

(494) a. Ar fi încântat de a i se would.3sg be delighted of to 3sg.dat refl aproba vederile. (Călinescu, I.L.R. 476, apud approve views-the Dindelegan 1992: 71) ‘He’d be delighted if his views were approved.’ b. În toamna lui 1898, fruntaşi socialişti, inclusiv Gherea, in autumn-the gen 1898 leaders socialist including Gherea observând proporţiile noticing magnitudes-the dezvoltării [cluburilor săteşti]i, au devenit development-the.gen clubs-the.gen village.adj have become îngrijorati de a nu se transforma proi în centre de worried of to not refl transform in centers of

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instigare şi provocare a unor revolte sociale. instigation and provocation gen some.gen revolts social (http://www.scritube.com/istorie/ Disputa-asupra-bazelor-constit214641022.php) ‘In the autumn of 1898, socialist leaders, including Gherea, noticing the

proportions of the development of the [village clubs]i, became worried that theyi should not turn into centers of instigation and provocation of social riots.’

In subject clauses, as the infinitive’s subject has no potential controller, it normally has arbitrary human reference:

(495) a. E firesc a căuta plăcerea. is natural to seek pleasure-the ‘It’s natural to seek pleasure.’ b. E frumos a întoarce şi celălalt obraz. is beautiful to turn also the-other cheek ‘It’s kind/noble to turn the other cheek.’ c. E greu a satisface pe toată lumea. is hard to satisfy dom all people-the ‘It’s hard to satisfy everybody.’

5.4.4 Supine clausesThe supine has less contexts of occurrence than the infinitive, but in these contexts it is fully alive in all the registers of the language (unlike the infinitive). Some of its contexts are common with the subjunctive, others are specific to the supine – the so-called ‘tough-construction’, see §5.4.4.3. It always has an irrealis interpretation, and therefore it can never be replaced by an indicative clause.

The narrower distribution of the supine can be explained by the fact that it has very limited possibilities of argument licensing: the subject can never be licensed inside the supine, and the object cannot receive distinct accusative marking (clitics are not allowed and the prepositional marker pe is marginal, ungrammatical for many speakers). There-fore the supine mostly appears in control and raising configurations and tends to refer to generic situations.

One can distinguish an active supine, which allows expressing the direct object (see (496)), and a passive supine, in which the external argument can be introduced by de, de către ‘by’ (this construction is not acceptable for all speakers in the complement use of the supine, which we examine here; it is more acceptable in the modal reduced relative use, on which see Chapter 9 §§3.1, 3.3):

(496) E important de rezolvat mai întâi aceste probleme. is important sup solve.sup more before these problems ‘It’s important to solve these problems first.’

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(497) %Maria e greu de convins de un necunoscut. Maria is hard sup convince.sup by a stranger

Notice that the active and passive supine are not morphologically distinguishable, which makes the analysis difficult sometimes.

The introductory element de also has an unclear status: in some contexts it can be analyzed as a special supine marker (a mood marker akin to subjunctive să), in others, as a preposition, as it alternates with other prepositions (la, în) and with infinitives or DPs introduced by de.

We will discuss the supine according to the classification we have been using here into object clauses and subject clauses. But here we must add a third type, the construction in which the (deep) object of the supine becomes the external argument of the [adjective + supine] constituent. We will use the established term ‘tough-construction’ for this type.

5.4.4.1 Object clauses. The supine appears with the following classes of adjectives:(i) Evaluative adjectives attributing a quality to an object – which sometimes repre-

sents a psychological effect of this object – where the clause specifies the event by which the object manifests this quality:

(498) a. probleme interesante de discutat problems interesting sup discuss.sup ‘problems interesting to discuss’ b. muzică plăcută de ascultat music pleasant sup listen.sup ‘music pleasant to listen to’ c. fapte oribile de privit deeds horrible sup look.sup ‘deeds horrible to see’ d. masă excelentă de pus pe terasă table excellent sup put.sup on terrace ‘table excellent to put on the terrace’ e. Casa (…) e frumoasă de privit, dar nu house-the is beautiful sup look.sup but not de locuit. (ovanova.wordpress.com/) sup live.sup ‘The house was beautiful to look at, but not to live in.’

Other adjectives of this type are minunat ‘wonderful’ (e.g. privelişte minunată de privit ‘sight wonderful to see’), superb ‘superb’, uimitor ‘amaizing’ (e.g. locuri uimitoare de văzut ‘places amaizing to see’), extraordinar ‘extraordinary’ (e.g. piesă extraordinară de văzut ‘play extraordinary to see’), încântător ‘charming’ (culoare încântătoare de privit ‘colour charming to look at’), reconfortant ‘conforting’ (roman reconfortant de citit ‘novel conforting to read’),

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amuzant ‘amusing’ (amuzantă de ascultat ‘amusing to listen’), caraghios ‘ridiculous, funny’ (dansuri caraghioase de văzut ‘dances funny to see’), ruşinos ‘shameful’ (faptă ruşinoasă de mărturisit ‘deed shameful to confess’), penibil ‘embarrassing’ (amintire penibilă de povestit ‘souvenir embarrassing to tell’), dureros ‘painful’ (lucruri dureroase de spus ‘things pain-ful to tell’), enervant ‘irritating, annoying’ (engleză enervantă de ascultat ‘English annoy-ing to hear’), periculos ‘dangerous’ (e.g. lucruri periculoase de făcut ‘things dangerous to do’), înţelept ‘wise’ (lucruri înţelepte de făcut ‘things wise to do’), disponibil ‘available’ (piesă disponibilă de ascultat ‘piece/tune available to listen’).

The (deep) object of the supine is normally coreferent with the external argument of the adjective. We can analyze this as an instance of control if we assume that the supine is passive here, so that its deep object is its grammatical subject. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that sometimes one can find an agent-PP in the supine clause (although such occurrences are quite rare):

(499) subiect care ar fi interesant de ascultat subject which would be interesting sup listen.sup de către public (psaico.info/2007/08/) by public ‘subject that would be interesting to be listened by the public’

Exceptionally, the deep object of the supine is not controlled by the external argument of the adjective. One can even find an expressed object in this case (which means that the supine has active voice, see (500a)):

(500) a. Apa e excelentă de făcut baie. water-the is excellent sup make.sup bath ‘The water is excellent to take a bath.’ b. vreme plăcută de stat afară weather pleasant sup stay.sup outside ‘weather pleasant for staying outdoors’

Some of these adjectives allow attributing the property to the event itself, leaving the supine as the only argument of the adjective (see §5.4.4.2 below):

(501) a. Ar fi interesant de discutat aceste probleme la şedinţă. would.3sg be interesting sup discuss.sup these problems at meeting ‘It would be interesting to discuss these problems at the meeting.’ b. E plăcut de ascultat muzică în timpul mesei. is pleasant sup listen.sup music in time-the meal-the.gen ‘It’s pleasant to listen to music while having meal.’

Among the adjectives exemplified here, frumos ‘beautiful’, oribil ‘horrible’, excelent ‘excellent’ do not seem to allow this use.

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We may include in this class adjectives where the clause expresses the goal for which the object is used: bun ‘good (for)’, potrivit ‘fit’ – see also excelent ‘excellent’ in (498d), (500a):

(502) a. covor bun de pus în sufragerie carpet good sup put.sup in dining-room ‘carpet fit to be put in the dining-room’ b. vreme bună de făcut plimbări weather good sup do.sup strolls ‘weather good for strolling’

Notice however that in this case the construction in which the clause is the only argument does not have exactly the same meaning:

(503) E bine {de pus / să punem} covorul în sufragerie. is good sup put.sup subj put.1pl carpet-the in dining-room ‘It’s good to put the carpet in the dining-room.’

(ii) Adjectives selecting the prepositions de ‘of ’, la ‘at, to’, pentru ‘for’. In this case, since the introductory element de alternates with the prepositions la and pentru, it is to be ana-lyzed as a preposition rather than as a mood marker.

(ii.1) Among the adjectives selecting de, the supine can be found with adjectives of deontic or circumstantial modality – demn ‘worthy’, vrednic ‘worthy’, musai ‘by all means to..’, gata ‘ready’ –, adjectives denoting volition – nerăbdător ‘impatient, eager’, dornic ‘desir-ing’, interesat ‘interested’ –, adjectives denoting capacities – apt ‘capable’, capabil ‘capable’. The adjectives denoting volition and capacities take an active supine:

(504) a. nerăbdător de mers la plimbare impatient of go.sup to stroll ‘anxious to go for a walk’ b. dornic de primit oaspeţi eager of receive.sup guests ‘eager to receive guests’ c. Cine e interesat de mers la munte? who is interested of go.sup to mountain ‘Who’s interesting to go to the mountains?’

The adjectives demn and vrednic ‘worthy’ take a passive supine (its deep object is controlled by external argument of the adjective):

(505) a. om demn de urmat person worthy of follow.sup ‘person worthy to follow’

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b. text vrednic de studiat de către cercetători renumiţi text worthy of study.sup by researchers renowned ‘text worthy to be studied by renowned scholars’

With gata ‘ready’, the supine can have either voice (it is passive in (506a) and active in (506b–c)):

(506) a. mâncare gata de servit meal ready of serve.sup ‘meal ready to serve’ b. suntem gata de mers are.1pl ready of go.sup ‘We’re ready to go’ c. Hotelul e gata de primit clienţii. hotel-the is ready of receive.sup clients-the ‘The hotel is ready to receive the clients.’

When the supine is active, gata has an additional psychological or teleological meaning (see (506b–c). Without these additional meanings, the active supine is impossible:

(507) Vulcanul e gata {să erupă /*de erupt}. volcano-the is ready subj erupts / of erupt.sup ‘The volcano is ready to erupt.’

Note that the analysis of de as a preposition is not possible for type (i) above, because those adjectives cannot take de (‘of ’)+DP:

(508) a. *muzică plăcută de ascultare music pleasant of listening b. *carte interesantă de lectură book interesting of reading

(ii.2) The supine can also appear with adjectives selecting la ‘to, at’ – bun ‘good (at)’, ‘dispus ‘ready to, willing to’, util ‘useful’, folositor ‘useful’ – and pentru ‘for’ – bun ‘good (for)’, util ‘useful’:

(509) a. Nu e dispusă la făcut gesturi de împăcare. not is willing to do.sup gestures of reconciliation ‘She’s not willing to make gestures of reconciliation.’ b. E bun la strâns fonduri pentru campanie. is good at collect.sup funds for campaign ‘He’s good at raising funds for the campaign.’ c. om folositor la cărat găleţi man useful at carry.sup buckets ‘man good for carrying buckets’

(510) a. plajă bună pentru făcut castele de nisip beach good for make.sup castles of sand ‘beach good for making sand castles’

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b. carne bună pentru făcut la grătar meat good for do.sup at grill ‘meat good to put on the grill’ c. articol util pentru scos petele item useful for remove.sup stains-the ‘item useful for removing the stains’

As can be seen from the examples in (509), with la the supine is always active. With pentru, we can find an active supine (see (510a, c)), but it is also possible for the supine’s deep object to be controlled (see (510b)). When the subject or deep object of the supine is not controlled, the external argument of the adjective is interpreted as the instrument of the supine verb.

5.4.4.2 Subject clauses. The supine appears with most of the adjectives which can take the subjunctive, except those expressing epistemic modality:

(511) E posibil {ca lumea să creadă asta / *de crezut (asta)}. is possible that people subj believes this sup believe.sup this ‘It’s posible that people believe this.’

The impossibility of appearing in epistemic modality contexts, even as an irrealis, might be due to the lack of a covert controller in the matrix.

We can thus find the supine with the following classes of adjectives:

(i) Psychological evaluative adjectives, showing the psychological effect of a (possible) event/situation (the psychological ones among those in §5.4.2.2 under (ii.1) and (iv)): inte-resant ‘interesting’, uimitor ‘amazing’, surprinzător ‘surprising’, ciudat ‘strange, funny’, recon-fortant ‘comforting’, dureros ‘painful’, enervant ‘annoying’, plăcut ‘pleasant’, îmbucurător ‘gladdening, heartening’, trist ‘sad’, penibil ‘embarrassing, awkward’, jenant ‘embarrassing’, groaznic ‘horrible, terrible’, amuzant ‘funny, amusing’, ridicol ‘ridiculous’, dezamăgitor ‘dis-appointing’, etc.

(ii) Adjectives expressing deontic and teleological modality (the deontic ones among those under (ii.1) in §5.4.2.2 and those under (iii.2)): bine ‘good’, important ‘important’, frumos ‘nice’, urât ‘bad, ugly’, rău ‘bad’, extraordinar ‘extraordinary’, minunat ‘wonderful’, oribil ‘horrible’, ruşinos ‘shameful’, inadmisibil ‘intolerable’, periculos ‘dangerous’, primej-dios ‘dangerous’, util ‘useful’, obligatoriu ‘obligatory’, necesar ‘necessary’, (ne)permis ‘(dis)allowed’, interzis ‘forbidden’, (ne)recomandat ‘(not) recommended’, (ne)indicat ‘(not) rec-ommended’, etc.

(iii) Adjectives qualifying an action in terms of likeliness of success: greu ‘hard, dif-ficult’, uşor ‘easy’, dificil ‘difficult’, etc.

These adjectives take an active supine (in the following examples, the lack of agree-ment on the copula shows that the DP following the supine is not a postverbal subject, but rather the direct object of the supine):

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(512) a. E bine de ştiut întrebările dinainte. is good sup know.sup questions-the from-before ‘It’s good to know the questions in advance.’ b. Ar fi interesant de văzut reacţiile. would.3sg be interesting sup see.sup reactions-the ‘It would be interesting to see the reactions.’

Some speakers do not find these examples fully acceptable, preferring constructions in which the deep object of the supine is either raised (see the tough- construction, §5.4.4.3 below) or controlled (type (i) in §5.4.4.1 above). For these speakers, the supine can license a direct object only when selected by prepositions (see §5.4.4.1 above, type (ii)) or verbs (e.g. a ter-mina de… ‘to finish’).

If the adjective has an additional Experiencer argument expressed by a dative, the subject of the supine is controlled by this argument:

(513) Mi-e greu de spus cine are dreptate. me.dat-is hard sup say.sup who has right ‘It’s hard for me to tell who’s right.’

Many of the adjectives of the first two types have an alternative pattern in which the property is attributed to an object and the clause shows the circumstances under which the object manifests the property (see §5.4.4.1 above, type (i)):

(514) a. E amuzant de citit povestirea lui. is amusing sup read.sup story-the his ‘It’s amusing to read his story.’ b. Povestirea lui e amuzantă de citit. story(f)-the his is amusing.fsg sup read.sup ‘His story is amusing to read.’

Those of type (iii) and some of those of type (ii) enter the special tough- construction, which is discussed in the next sub-section.

5.4.4.3 The tough-construction. In this construction, the deep object of the supine becomes the external argument of the [Adjective + Supine] constituent. Notice that the main verb agrees with deep object of the supine (see (515a)), although the adjective doesn’t (unlike in type (i) in §5.4.4.1, illustrated in (514b)):

(515) a. Faptele sunt greu de înţeles. deeds(fpl)-the are hard.msg sup understand.sup ‘The deeds are hard to understand.’ b. fapte greu de povestit deeds(fpl) hard.msg sup report.sup ‘deeds hard to report’

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c. Consideram acele fapte greu de înţeles. considered.1sg those deeds(fpl) hard.msg sup understand.sup ‘I considered those dees hard to understand.’

The subject-verb agreement in (515a)) indicates that the supine’s deep object is the subject of the main clause, rather than a topic extracted from the supine clause. In (515b) we can see the [Adjective+Supine] complex in an attributive position, attached to an NP correspond-ing to the supine’s deep object (i.e. the deep object of the supine is the external argument of the [Adjective+Supine] constituent). Example (515c) shows that the [Adjective+Supine] can be the predicate of an object small clause (whose subject is marked accusative by the main verb).

According to the current view, in the construction illustrated in (515c) the accusative DP is the subject of the non-verbal predicative constituent, forming together with it a ‘small clause’; the accusative marking of the subject of a subordinate clause by the main verb is known as exceptional case marking; therefore, this construction is called exceptionally case marked con-struction, or, abbreviated, ECM construction.

An important difference between the tough-construction and the construction in (514b) is that the adjective cannot be predicated of the subject in absence of the supine clause:

(516) #Faptele sunt grele. deeds-the are hard.fpl

The tough-construction, which is common accross languages of Europe, is usually analyzed as involving raising, either of the overt subject (see (517a)) or head noun itself (see (517a′)) or of a null operator (see (517b)) which creates a predicate attributed to the subject or head noun:

(517) a. Autoruli e [greu de înţeles _i]. author-the is hard sup understand.sup a′. autori [greu de înţeles _i] author hard sup understand.sup b. Autorul e [Opi greu de înţeles _i]. author-the is hard sup understand.sup b′. autor [Opi greu de înţeles _i] author hard sup understand.sup

We will not decide here between these alternatives, but we agree with the general idea these analyses have in common, namely, that the subject or head noun in tough-constructions is not an argument of the adjective. This is made particularly clear in Romanian by the lack of agreement between the adjective and the subject or head noun (see (515), (518)).

The name ‘tough-construction’ (henceforward, TC) is due to the fact that the adjective tough and its synonyms and antonyms are the most frequent items that head this construction – see Rom. greu ‘hard, tough’, dificil ‘tough, difficult’, uşor ‘easy’. Besides these, there is a limited number of adjectives expressing circumstantial or deontic/teleological modality which can appear in this construction: imposibil ‘impossible’, posibil ‘possible’, bine ‘good’, util ‘useful’ (bine can be viewed as a non-agreeing form of the adjective bun ‘good’, see §1.1):

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(518) Iată câteva cuvinte bulgăreşti bine de ştiut. see some words Bulgarian good sup know.sup ‘Here are some Bulgarian words good to know.’

All the adjectives that enter this construction can also take a subject supine clause, belong-ing to the types (ii)–(iii) in §5.4.4.2 above:

(519) E greu de vorbit cu el / să vorbeşti cu el. is hard sup talk.sup with him subj talk.2sg with him ‘It’s hard to talk to him. / It’s hard for one/for you to talk to him.’

In case the supine verb is transitive, there is a preference to use the TC instead of a supine subject clause – in other words, there is a preference to case-license the supine’s object outside the supine clause. Some examples are marginal (see (520a)), but others are accept-able, at least for certain speakers (see (520b–c)) (in (520a–b), the lack of verb agreement with the DPs aceste fapte ‘these deeds’ and bagajele ‘the luggage (pl)’ indicate that they are not postposed subjects of a TC, but rather direct objects of the supine verb); the examples which are perfectly acceptable seem to allow regular activities (see ‘carrying the luggage’ in b) or quantified objects (note that c even allows the direct object marker pe, which is normally disallowed in supine clauses):

(520) a. ?E greu de înţeles aceste fapte. is hard sup understand.sup these deeds ‘It’s hard to understand these deeds.’ b. E greu de dus bagajele fără maşină. is hard sup carry.sup luggage(pl)-the without car ‘It’s hard to carry the luggage without a car.’ c. %E greu de minţit (pe) toată lumea / atâţia oameni. is hard sup lie.sup (dom) all people-the so-many people ‘It’s hard to lie to everybody / to so many people.’

The TC must be used if the supine’s deep object belongs to those DPs which must have distinctive accusative marking; some speakers allow the prepositional object marker (see (520c)), but DPs which require clitic-doubling (such as accusative personal pronouns and proper names) are excluded in supine clauses by all speakers:

(521) a. *E greu de (o) înţeles pe ea / pe Maria. is hard sup (her.cl) understand.sup dom her dom Maria b. Ea /Maria e greu de înţeles. she Maria is hard sup understand.sup

In other Romance languages, adjectives do agree in TCs. Agreement can also be found in non-standard varieties of Romanian:

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(522) a. datorii uşoare de plătit (Dindelegan 1992: 81) debts(f) easy.fpl sup pay.sup b. pasaje ale Bibliei care par mai dificile passages(n) gen Bible-the.gen which seem more difficult.fpl de înţeles sup understand.sup (omulintreingersidemon.ro/index.php) ‘passages of the Bible that seem more difficult to understand’

The agreeing TC is not always easy to distinguish from the construction discussed in §5.4.4.1 under (i) – plăcută de ascultat ‘pleasant sup listen.sup’, for which we assumed that the subject or head noun is a genuine argument of the adjective: indeed, if something is pleasant to listen, then listening to it is also pleasant. A criterion to distinguish it from an agreeing TC is the possibility of predicating the adjective of the subject in the absence of the subordinate clause, without a substantial difference in meaning. For example, a book interesting to read is an interesting book (by contrast, a deed hard to understand is not a hard deed).

Concerning the syntactic analysis, if the tough adjective is the head of the constituent, we expect it to agree, even though the subject or head noun is not its external argument. Thus, the agreeing TC, found in other Romance languages and used by at least some speak-ers of Romanian does not raise particular problems in addition to the type of movement involved (see (517)).

The failure to agree of Romanian tough adjectives has led researchers to assume that they are not heads, but rather specifiers of some (functional) projection whose lexical head is the supine (this projection may be labelled Mood, if de is analyzed as a Mood head):

(523) teorii [MoodP greu [de înţeles]] theories hard sup understand.sup

The problem with this analysis is that the adjective does no longer have the property of selecting a clause, which leaves the parallelism with the subject clause construction unac-counted for.

This problem can be solved if one assumes the theoretical possibility of multi-headed constructions – constituents which have an internal head – which selects a complement – and a different external head, which is ‘seen’ as a head from outside, determining the distribution of the constituent. In TCs, the adjective would be the internal head, as it selects the supine, but the supine (more precisely, the verbal functional projection characteristic of the supine mood) would count as the external head. Such an analysis is possible because supines can appear in the same environments as TCs, as modal reduced relatives (see also Chapter 9 §§3.1, 3.3):

(524) a. Fapta e de înţeles / greu de înţeles. deed-the is sup understand.sup hard sup understand.sup ‘The deed is understandable/is hard to understand.’

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b. faptă de înţeles / greu de înţeles deed sup understand.sup hard sup understand.sup ‘understandable deed/deed hard to understand’ c. Desenul e de făcut / e uşor de făcut. drawing-the is sup do.sup is easy sup do.sup ‘The drawing is to be done/is easy to do.’ d. lucru de făcut / uşor de făcut thing sup do.sup easy sup do.sup ‘thing to do/easy to do’

Under this analysis, TCs are reduced relatives (or participials) of the same type as modal re-duced relatives, having the supine as the external head. The lack of agreement on the adjective is due to the fact that the adjective is not the external head. As for the supine, it always lacks agreement features (see the first variants of the examples in (524)).

A similar parallelism between TCs and modal reduced relatives is found in German. There, it is clear that the verb is the external head, because it bears agreement in prenominal position:

(525) a. Das Buch ist zu lesen / schwer zu lesen. (German) the book is to read.inf hard to read.inf ‘the book is to read/hard to read.’ b. ein zu lesendes Buch / ein schwer zu a to read.inf-d-nsg.nom/acc book(n) a hard to lesendes Buch read.inf-d-nsg.nom/acc book(n) ‘a book to read/a book hard to read’

The possibility of assigning both a head and a non-head status to the adjective might be correlated to the widespread absence of distinctive adverbial morphology in these two languages (Romanian and German; this is a feature which distinguishes Romanian from the other Romance languages).

Another construction which can be analyzed as a multiheaded constituent is that of modified numerals. Thus, in (526), the preposition peste is the internal head, taking the nu-meral as a complement (peste always takes a complement, it cannot function as a modifier), but the distribution of the whole constituent is that of a numeral, which entitles zece to be seen as the external head:

(526) cei [[peste [zece]] studenţi] the above ten students

Like for subject clauses (see §5.4.4.2 above), the subject of the supine in TCs can be under-stood as coreferent with an additional Experiencer argument of the adjective:

(527) Aceste mişcări sunt greu de făcut pentru mine. these moves are hard sup make.sup for me

The subject can also be expressed by an Agent-PP:

(528) idei greu de înţeles de către copiii de şcoală ideas difficult sup understand.sup by children-the of school ‘ideas difficult to understand by school children’

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This fact, as well as the parallel with modal reduced relatives, noticed in (524) above, indi-cates that the supine in TCs is passive. Therefore, the type of movement involved in TCs is not of the type found in English, combining A-bar and A-movement, but it only involves the type of movement found with passive participles: the deep object of the verb becomes the external argument (subject or head noun) of the [Adj+Supine] constituent.

Documents

The Adjective (with Alexandra Cornilescu)