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This chapter discusses the different morphological markers found on (adjectival) predicative complements and depictive secondary predicates in Swiss German dialects. Swiss German dialects can be subdivided into three groups based on the pattern of adjectival inflection and depictive marking that they show. The first group is one where secondary predicates and predicative complements are unmarked and are therefore not formally distinguished from adverbials, thus comparable to Standard German. The second group is one where both depictives and predicative complements demonstrate obligatory agreement with their controller, comparable to Romance and many Australian languages. The final group is one where depictives, but not predicative complements, take a marker which is restricted to this construction, a cross-linguistically rare phenomenon. This chapter also shows evidence of the emergence of a depictive marker in another dialect area, and develops the historical relation between the two phenomena.

Do dependents in the noun phrase form a layered structure, in which all constituents are binary? Arguments have been offered for this analysis, which on closer inspection often take their conclusion as a premise. The first part of this chapter argues that as they stand none are at all convincing. The second part explores an alternative analysis in which constituency is reduced to a minimum, units are distinguished by their syntactic functions within a sequence, and any word within a sequence may form a closer relation with those that follow or precede it. This may again be associated with an intonation in which they are linked. Closer relations are also formed, more readily, between dependents and heads

The first part of this chapter discusses the traditional definition of an adjective and the way it has developed in the history of grammar. It questions the validity of syntactic categories at the level of the traditional parts of speech, and in particular the criteria by which words in a- such as asleep are distinguished as adjectives from similar adverbs. The second part discusses the view implicit in dictionaries that words classified as nouns or adverbs undergo conversion to adjectives when their function is attributive. The argument emphasizes the restricted uses of adverbs as premodifiers, as opposed to their more general syntactic function as postmodifiers, and the concept of microsyntax as a syntax of words individually.

This final chapter, which is much shorter than the others, tries to draw some morals for the study of syntax generally. These concern especially the distinction between functions and categories, and the importance of polysystemic analysis; the basis on which units are grouped into categories at different levels of abstraction; the extent to which analysis into constituents is justified; and the dangers of adopting theories of syntactic constructions which are restricted too precisely.

This chapter distinguishes the predicative and attributive positions of adjectives, and illustrates their divergence in Modern English, especially in the different senses adjectives may have in one position or the other. It follows recent grammars in distinguishing the attributive from a postpositive construction, and discusses the classification of adjectives in terms of the range of syntactic functions they can have. A brief section at the end lays out a plan for the book as a whole.

Yidiñ shows signficant differences in grammar from its southerly neighbour Dyirbal. While Dyirbal employs a system of four genders, Yidiñ has a set of about twenty noun classfiers which serve to categorise things in the world. Classifiers are of two distinct types. [I] Those classifying specific nouns according to the INHERENT NATURE of their referents—bama ‘person’, mangum ‘frog’, jugi ‘tree’, buri ‘fire’, walba ‘stone’, jabu ‘solid inanimate matter other than stone or wood’, and so on. [II] Those classifying specific nouns according to the FUNCTION or USE of their referents: edible flesh food (miña), edible non-flesh food (mayi), drinkable liquid (bana), habitable place (bulmba), purposeful noise (gugu), or movable thing (wirra). The system of four genders in Dyirbal and the set of twenty or so noun classifiers in Yidiñ each encodes a great deal of semantic information but in dissimilar ways, due to their different roles in the language.