| Sumario: | In this paper I present a conceptual analysis of adjectival subordination. It is argued that adjectival subordination conveys the conceptual operation of eventive characterization of individuals. This operation consists in using an event to characterize an individual; it is claimed that many syntactic properties of adjectival subordination in the world's languages follow from this conceptual operation, and that a full explanation of the typology of this type of subordination can only be produced in a semantic framework. It is also shown how adjectival subordination interacts with other syntactic processes such as incorporation, verbal adjectivization and substantivation, elision, anaphora and how these interactions can be accounted for in the conceptual framework sketched in this paper. The examples illustrating the main points are drawn from Georgian, Chukchi, Hungarian, Basque and Spanish, since the investigation is typologically oriented.
|