Comparative Syntax of the Balkan Languages (Oxford ... - Cryptm.org

ADJECTIVAL DETERMINERS IN ALBANIAN AND GREEK 193spreading contexts). Note that both Abney (1987), who treats prenominal adjectivesas heads, and Cinque (1994), who argues that prenominal adjectives occupyspecifier positions, use the fact that prenominal adjectives in English and Italian,respectively, do not take complements as arguments in favor of their respectiveproposals. Abney argues that prenominal adjectives do not take complementsbecause their complement is either the NP or the extended projection of anotherAP. Cinque argues that prenominal adjectives do not take complements due to a"well-known restriction on maximal projections overtly found on a left branch,[which] is their inability to take complements on their right", as shown in (14):(14) I I suoifedeli (*alla causa) sostenitorihis faithful to the cause supporters(Cinque 1994.3)Thus, independently of the structure one assumes for prenominal attributiveadjectives, what needs to be explained is why in Greek, among other languages,examples like that in (12) are grammatical, contrasting with the ungrammaticalityof similar examples in English or Italian (cf. (14)).NotesThe main ideas discussed in this paper were first presented at the GLOW 1996Workshop on the Syntax of Balkan languages, University of Athens. 1 am indebtedto the audience for their input. I am also grateful to M. Espanol-Echevarria and B. D.Joseph for comments, and to R. Kayne, A. Ralli, D. Sportiche, and D. Kallulli fordiscussion. The usual disclaimers apply.1. The Albanian data in this paper come from Newmark, Hubbard, and Prifti(1982), a grammar of Standard Albanian, and the generous help of D. Kallulli, towhom I am deeply indebted.2. Following Chomsky (1995), in (3b), I assume that djalin enters the syntaxfully inflected and moves to D to check its categorial N feature against that of D. Thelast step in the derivation of (3b) is head movement of djalin to D.3. Not all adjectives must bear an adjectival determiner in Albanian. Two classesof adjectives are found in the language: those that must always be preceded by an adjectivaldeterminer (called "articulated adjectives" in traditional grammars), and thosethat are never preceded by an adjectival determiner (called "unarticulated adjectives"in traditional grammars). The two classes of adjectives are clearly distinguished, differentadjectives belonging to different classes. Descriptively, the classification criterionappears to be a morphological one. Following the description in Newmark etal. (1982.184), the following adjectives are never preceded by the adjectival determiner:adjectives derived by an agentive suffix like -ar, -tar, -ist, - ik, -iv, -or, -tor,or -es, for instance, amtar 'official', vendimtar 'decisive', komunist 'communist',alkoolik 'alcoholic', objektiv 'objective', dimeror 'wintry', punetor 'working',orpires 'drinking'; compound adjectives (with some rare exceptions like ishumendrituri Naim 'the most-illustrious Nairn'), for instance, ditegjate 'longlived',orekonomiko-shoqeror 'socioeconomic'; and adjectives derived from names ofplaces, for instance, tiranas 'of, from Tirana'. In this essay, 1 concentrate solely on