Die Semantik der Adjektivstellung

This book advances a complete theory of adjective position in the Romance languages in the framework of a Construction Grammar based on cognitive linguistic principles. AdjN is presented as a "construction" whose kernel meaning is located on the text-pragmatic level. It limits the interpretative scope for the respective adjective in such a way that its contribution to the overall meaning of the NP is explicitly not that of restricting its reference. The study demonstrates how the very various stylistic effects the AdjN has so frequently been described as having can be derived from this kernel meaning in a motivated way by regarding them in terms of metonymic concatenation and pragmatic implicature.