Relational adjectives used predicatively (but not qualitatively)

Abstract

Relational adjectives are representative attributive-only adjectives, but ascripitive copular sentences such as His razor is electric, where electric has the same relational reading as in electric razor, have been observed. In the literature, such problematic sentences have been approached from semantic and pragmatic perspectives, which correctly draw attention to the relational adjective’s basic function of classification. In this paper, we first present an in-depth cross-linguistic inquiry into the phenomenon and reveal commonalities and differences between English and Japanese. Then, we endeavor to show that the observed facts can be explained by extending Adger’s (2013) analysis of relational nominals to relational adjectives.