The realization of binominal concepts in French and Polish – relational adjective constructions and beyond

Clasmeier, Christina; Hennecke, Inga

Abstract

The expression of binominal concepts, i. e. the combination of two nominal concepts, varies between the world’s languages qualitatively as well as with regard to quantitative proportions (Pepper 2020; Pepper et al. 2023). The combination of a noun and a relational adjective (NArel) is a frequently applied option, amongst others in Polish and French, which we focus on in this paper. Both languages show high proportions of postponed attributive adjectives and deviate from the other Slavic respective Romance languages in this trait. In our paper we take a constructionist perspective and compare the expression of binominal concepts in Polish and French based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis of AN and NA constructions and their constructional equivalents (especially N Prep N) in the Polish and French translations of Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (Parasol Corpus). The results show that NArel constructions are of high relevance for the expression of binominals in Polish with lower proportions for NNgen, N Prep N and ArelN, whereas in French N Prep N is predominant, followed by NArel.