Adjective Order and Adnominal Modification in Naasioi

Abstract

This squib presents new data involving adjective order which are problematic for analyses of adjectives as merged in the specifiers of fixed sequences of functional heads. In order to capture the fact that the order of attributive adjectives is often fixed and predictable, Cinque (2010) proposes that the structural location of these adjectives is in a functional layer above NP, with phrasal movement yielding the correct orderings of adjectives both with respect to the noun they modify, and also within the adjective string. This squib presents evidence from Naasioi to suggest that adjectives in this language are freely ordered within the DP, both with respect to other adjectives, and also to the noun they modify. It will be argued that the Naasioi data are incompatible not only with the analysis of attributive adjectives as occupying the specifier of functional heads, but also with the hierarchy that is assumed to underly this ordering.