From partial to full conversion in English deadjectival nominals

Abstract

The literature on noun phrases apparently headed by adjectives such as the rich or the old often focuses on aspects like their semantic interpretations, their constraints (cf. Glass, 2019; Alexiadou, 2021), or their interpretation as one or another type of conversion, typically partial vs. full (Soares Rodrigues, To appear), or syntactic vs. morphological (Iordachioaia, 2023). However, the extent to which morphologically complex adjectives (e.g., by suffixation of -al , -ed , -ful ) participate in these constructions and their eventual degree of full lexicalisation as nouns has received considerably less attention in the literature. This paper overviews morphologically complex deadjectival nominals that display full conversion, as evidenced by their nominal inflection in the BNC and COCA. Specifically, it explores the profile of the structures where nominal inflection is attested, according to the quantitative data of the structure of the noun phrase and to the realisation of the Determiner system, of frequency, and of distribution according to language variety and register, which are then statistically validated for results using Log-Likelihood (LL) and Chi-Square tests. The results reveal both similarities and differences in usage between -al and -ic derivatives. Both exhibit similar lexicalisation properties as nouns, but they differ in how the Determiner system is formally realised. Some units allow a limited range of combinations (e.g., the definite article and zero Determiner), whereas others prove more open to combination with quantifiers (e.g., (a) few, many, several).