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It has been postulated that cross-linguistically, all attributive adjectives are base-generated in prenominal position (as in English: “the red flower”). Postnominal position in the surface structure of some languages (e.g. Spanish: la flor roja, “the flower red”) is explained by theories of noun-movement. Within such theories it has generally been assumed that English is not subject to noun-movement in adjectival phrases since attributive adjectives in English are normally prenominal. However, an English construction exists in which the adjective always appears postnominally, namely [indefinite pronoun + adjective phrases] such as “something borrowed, something blue,” and so on. Are these constructions subject to noun-movement as some theorists have proposed? This presentation examines arguments within a DP-framework both for and against noun-movement as an explanation in the derivation of these phrases in an effort to develop a uniform theory accounting for these linguistic phenomena and to uncover additional evidence of universals in the human language faculty. |
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