Syntactic Features Of English Adjectives

Within the principle and parameter framework, this dissertation gives a detailed investigation of categorical features, classification and distribution of English adjectives and of syntactic structures of adjective phrases. Determiners and adjectives are syntactically distinct in a variety of ways, in respect of their distribution. Based on all these reasons, it can be concluded that adjectives and determiners are two distinct categories and determiners cannot be analyzed as adjectives in English. By contrast, adverbs can be treated as a special class of adjectives in English. Under standard analysis, adjective phrases can take PP and to-infinitive clause as complement. Adverbs can occur in Spc of AP. By adopting Deg analysis, it is possible to explain why adjectives can be taken as heads of noun phrases and why sequences like too difficult a question can has the status of a typical DP. There are three main positions of adjectives: attributive, predicative and postpositive. This dissertation demonstrates their distribution respectively. Through detailed discussion of three typical functions of adjectives (attributive modification, headed by a degree word and resultative secondary prediction) , it can be concluded that adjectives can occur in those environments while nouns and verbs cannot.