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Part of the book series: Synthese Language Library ((SLAP,volume 19))

Abstract

In this paper I wish to address certain questions relating to the fact that adjectives in Modern High German have the property of being able to assign case to their complement NP. In particular, I wish to raise three questions: (1) why is it that adjectives in Germah have this property at all?, (2) why are the cases that are assigned to the complements of adjectives dative and genitive, but not accusative and nominative?, and (3) why does there appear to be a correlation between the existence in a language of a morphological case system and the possibility for adjectives to assign case?

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© 1983 D. Reidel Publishing Company

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van Riemsdijk, H. (1983). The Case of German Adjectives. In: Heny, F., Richards, B. (eds) Linguistic Categories: Auxiliaries and Related Puzzles. Synthese Language Library, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6989-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6989-6_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-009-6991-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-6989-6

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