Three puzzles about denominal adjectives in-<i>EUX</i>

Abstract

French adjectives in- EUX (e.g., laiteux ‘milky’) usually have all the properties of true intersective adjectives. However, they sometimes behave like ordinary denominal adjectives e.g., presidential (no predication, no gradation, argument-saturating capacity). It is argued that this change is tied to the nature of the relationship between the base N ( lait in laiteux ) and the N which heads the NP the denominal adjective occurs in. Assuming that the denominal adjective’s semantics is equivalent to that of its base noun, three cases have to be distinguished. In the first one, the adjective functions as an argument of a predicate denoting an event and involving causal chaining, e.g., presidential trip . In the second one, the adjective is an argument of an event denoting predicate but the latter involves an internal causation instead of causal chaining, e.g., averse neigeuse ‘snowfall’. In the third, the relationship is based upon an internal link between the two nouns (e.g., pont dangereux ‘dangerous bridge’) and the A is intersective.