A CONTRASTIVE VIEW OF ADJECTIVES IN CROATIAN, POLISH AND ENGLISH: SUBJECTIFICATION AS A LOCAL PHENOMENON

A study of English adjectives (Athanasiadou 2006) suggested that subjectification (defined as the degree to which the conceptualizer plays a role in construing the objective scene; Langacker 2000) may be helpful in examining the various uses of adjectives in English. In this paper we attempt to do the same, comparing and contrasting three languages: English (as the point of reference), and Croatian and Polish. Croatian and Polish were selected because they allow relatively free combinations, with the caveat that Polish uses postposition for classifying senses. We examine whether subjectification may be taken as the organizing principle behind the prenominal, postnominal and predicative positions found in the three languages, i.e. whether the role of subjectification is global – working across constructions, or local – working within a construction. Examples from three languages showed that although subjectification does play a role in the various positions, it may not be taken as the organizing principle behind the differences. We argue that this is due to the fact that subjectification is a local phenomenon which works within a single construction, which is delimited formally and functionally. This is corroborated by other subjectified constructions. We believe that this is due to the gradual nature of subjectification, which requires recoverable links to previous stages.


Introduction
Adjectives in English, Croatian and Polish may appear prenominally, postnominally and predicatively.There have been a number of studies dealing with the characteristics of the adjectives and their position in the three languages (see e.g.Bolinger 1967;Teyssier 1968;Szupryczyńska 1980;Śliwiński 1984;Znika 1988;Rutkowski 2006;Danielewiczowa 2007;Marković 2010).For instance, the prenominal position is subject to discussions about the order of adjectives based on semantic criteria (Dixon 2006).It is frequently claimed that the order is based on a varying level of subjectivity -more subjective uses being further away from the head noun, and more objective uses being closer to it.The postnominal position is frequently related to temporary and occasional properties in English (e.g.Bolinger 1967), and has been suggested as a permanent characteristic for Croatian (for an overview see Marković 2010: 246ff).It has a special status in Polish, where it is used for classifying adjectives (see e.g.Śliwiński 1984).The predicative position has been frequently termed as basic, due to various transformational-generative approaches, where the attributive position is obtained by transformation from the predicative position (as in Znika 1988).
More recently, a study of English adjectives (Athanasiadou 2006) suggested that subjectification (defined as the degree to which the conceptualizer plays a role in construing the objective scene; Langacker 2000) may be helpful in examining the various uses of adjectives in English.It was found that it indeed may be helpful, that it appears to varying degrees in different positions, and depends on the type of adjectives used.In this paper we will attempt to do the same, comparing and contrasting three languages: English (as the point of reference), and Croatian and Polish.Both Croatian and Polish allow various combinations relatively freely, with the caveat that Polish uses postposition for classifying senses.
Given that subjectification was shown to appear in various adjectival uses, adjectives may be useful in investigating it.More specifically, we will try to examine whether subjectification may be taken as the organizing principle behind the various positions and meanings found in the three languages, or just a factor that plays a role, which is not necessarily crucial.In other words, we will be examining whether the role of subjectification is global -working across constructions, or local -working within a construction.Based on these three languages we will try to prove that subjectification is a local phenomenon, working within a single constructional schema rather than across constructional schemas.Therefore, it may not be seen as the organizing principle behind the various positions of adjective.
This paper is organized as follows.In the second section we discuss semantic classes of adjectives and subjectification as the organizing principle of various linguistic phenomena in different languages.Sections three and four deal with the characteristics of attributive, predicative and prenominal positions in the three languages, discussing them in terms of cognitive grammar.Section 5 is the overall discussion of subjectification, followed by the conclusion.

Semantic classes of adjectives
There are various semantic definitions of adjectives.Traditional and more recent Croatian and Polish grammars distinguish between descriptive adjectives (qualitative adjectives, e.g.dobro dijete 'good child'), material adjectives (referring to the material that something is made out of, e.g.drvena klupa 'wooden bench') and possessive adjectives (referring to possession and similar relations; e.g.bratov kaput 'brother's coat', kozje mlijeko 'goat's milk'; Barić et al. 1990: 93).A more recent Croatian grammar adds relative adjectives (Silić and Pranjković 2005: 133-134), making the category of possessive adjectives more precise.In other grammars semantic categories may be smaller, including adjectives of similarity, characteristic qualities, etc. (Bąk 1977: 232-237).Corpus-based English grammars traditionally include two groups, one identifying qualities (termed descriptors in Biber et al. (1999: 508) and qualitative adjectives in Sinclair et al. (1990: 62ff)), and the other identifying something as a member of a class (termed classifiers or classifying adjectives (Biber et al. 1999: 508;Sinclair et al. 1990: 62).Other groups of adjectives are also mentioned (e.g.color adjectives, emphasizing adjectives, postdeterminers (Sinclair et al. 1990: 62ff)).What is common to all these traditional grammars is that their divisions tend to be clearly semantically based, relying on intuition and corpus data rather than on theory.
More theoretically-minded grammars use a different approach to semantic definitions.For instance, Quirk et al. (1985: 434-436) model adjectives by applying three scales: stative vs. dynamic (whether they can be temporally restricted), gradable vs. non-gradable (whether they can be graded or intensified) and inherent vs. non-inherent (whether they characterize the referent of the noun directly).Each of these scales can be applied to an adjective, thus, "central adjectives" have all three of these characteristics (e.g.big boat), and more peripheral adjectives may have only two, e.g., non-gradability and non-inherence (e.g.medical student).A more recent Polish functional grammar distinguishes (derived) adjectives based on whether they refer to characteristic qualities, relations to other objects, modified characteristic or time/place (Grzegorczykowa, Laskowski, and Wróbel 1998: 469).
Significantly, their criterion is based on word-formation, and thus roughly corresponds to the way in which we tend to grammatically code a situation in terms of things, relations and grounding.In cognitive grammar, a thing is a technical term referring to conceptually independent entities, which occupy some conceptual space.In grammatical terms, a noun would be a typical example of a thing.Relations refer to a set of connections between entities -they are conceptually dependent in that they are based on interconnections between things (Langacker 1987).Verbs are typical relations.Grounding refers to the way in which a particular expression is related to the speech event, its participants and circumstances -for instance, the definite article is a typical linguistic expression providing grounding.
Things, relations and grounding form the basis of the criterion used by Radden and Dirven in their cognitive grammar of English (Radden and Dirven 2007), which distinguishes scalar, deadverbial, denominal and determining adjectives.Importantly, in this definition adjectives do not inherently belong to a certain category, but rather tend to be used in a particular way.Thus, a single adjective may be used in different ways depending on the situation and the conceptualizer's construal.This is in line with the tenets of cognitive grammar (Langacker 1987), and with what has been known about adjectives for quite some time (Bolinger 1967).Scalar adjectives may be placed on a scale, based on some norm (e.g.tall girl ), and they characterize an event or a state.Deadverbial adjectives are similar to them in the sense that they also refer to the manner of an action: in a heavy smoker it is the action of smoking that is described as heavy, and not the person herself.This also illustrates the previous point about construal: whereas in a heavy smoker "heavy" is deadverbial, in a heavy person it is scalar.Denominal adjectives are thing-like (term from Athanasiadou 2006) and evoke participants in an event: a proverbial expression refers to a particular type of expression (which is a thing, and a speechevent participant).Finally, determining adjectives have a specifying or grounding function -they may, for instance, serve as additional determiners (e.g. the only goal-getter refers to the uniqueness of the referent).We will follow this division, which is most suitable for our purposes in this paper.

Adjectives and subjectification
In this section we turn to subjectification, in an attempt to explicate its relationship with adjectives.Subjectification in the Langackerian sense is the relationship between the subject and object of conception in a viewing arrangement (cf.e.g.Langacker 1990;Langacker 2005;Langacker 2006).There are two extremes on the scale of conceptualizing a particular scene, which is best explained in terms of the viewing metaphor.Thus, when we conceptualize a scene we focus on an objective arrangement of elements appearing in the real world.For instance, this may happen when we see someone running, and say: (1) She ran from the room and up to her bedroom. . .In (1) a person is conceptualized as running from one place to another.The conceptualizer's involvement in this scene is minimal -the conceptualizer need only conceptualize what is an objective arrangement of elements.This is termed the optimal viewing arrangement, when the conceptualizer focuses on the object of conception, leaving himself/herself out of the scene.This is shown in Figure 1: the object (bold circle) is in the immediate scope of view, whereas the conceptualizer (C) is outside the maximal scope of view.In other words, there is a relatively objective relationship between some items present in the immediate scope of view, and understanding this relationship does not require the conceptualizer's presence in the onstage region.In a more subjective configuration, the conceptualizer plays a more important role in construing the objective scene.The objective relationship between the property and the object becomes gradually more attenuated, and more dependent on the conceptualizer (Langacker 2000: 298-299).To go back to the example of running, this would be the case when the conceptualizer conceptualizes a static scene as if it were a dynamic one.Thus, for instance, we may say that roads run, as in: (2) The quarry roads ran from south to north...In (2) there is no actual running -the scene of a road connecting south and north is a relatively static one -but the conceptualizer conceptualizes it as dynamic.This dynamicity of conceptualization is not objectively coded within the extralinguistic reality itself, but crucially depends on the conceptualizer's construal.It is in this sense that the conceptualizer, to a somewhat larger degree than previously, figures in the conceptualization.As shown in Figure 2, the conceptualizer moves closer to the object of conception, and becomes part of the maximal scope of view.The construal of the object of conception in this sense is more subjective than previously -there is an attenuation of the objective relationship, and the conceptualizer becomes progressively more prominent.The change from objective to subjective construal has been frequently noted in studies dealing with the order of prenominal adjectives in English.Thus, if a noun is modified by more than one adjective, the adjectives closer to the noun tend to express inherent properties, and those further away from the head tend to be more subjective.Various authors and grammars offer formulas noting this order in semantic terms -for instance, adjectives denoting color will appear closest to the noun, as opposed to adjectives referring to value which will appear furthest away (cf.e.g.Dixon 1982: 24-25;Biber et al. 1999: 599; a short overview is available in Athanasiadou 2006: 218-219).In cognitive linguistic terms this may be explained by the fact that certain semantic classes of adjectives facilitate a more objective or subjective conceptualization, which seems to be reflected cross-linguistically (Dixon 2006: 10).This is why there is a strong tendency for English color adjectives to appear closer to the noun (in 85% of the cases according to Biber et al. (1999: 600)): we perceive them as most objective or least dependent on the subjective standard of reference.
Subjectification -or subjectivity in general -may also be connected with gradability, because the standard may be defined by more "objective" or more "subjective" criteria (discussion based on Pander Maat 2006).In other words, the standard may be explicitly mentioned (and hence more objective).In an expression such as John is taller than Mark, the standard -Mark -is overt, and the conceptualizer is outside the maximal scope of view (as in Figure 1).In examples such as John is tall the standard of comparison is non-explicit and crucially depends on the conceptualizer's involvement -the scene is subjectified, and the conceptualizer is in the maximal scope of view (as in Figure 2).
The previous discussion shows that subjectification may be involved in adjectives in at least two ways -in the organization of their order when used attributively and in grading them.In what follows we will attempt to take this view one step further and examine whether subjectification may be taken as the principle organizing predicative vs. attributive use and prenominal vs. postnominal position.This has already been suggested for English by Athanasiadou (2006), but Croatian and Polish, which are significantly freer in adjective position, may provide us with new evidence.

Attributive and predicative constructions and their characteristics
In various generative traditions the predicative position of adjectives has been taken as the basic position, from which attributive uses can be obtained by transformational rules (for a short overview see Marković 2010: 118-128; this approach is seen in e.g.Znika 1988;Katičić 1991).However, there are various reasons why predicative adjectives should not be taken as basic, the most convincing related to typology -cross-linguistically, adjectives are unmarked in attributive position, whereas they tend to be marked in predicative position (Croft 1990: 140-141).Moreover, there are differences in meaning between the two positions and some restrictions of the predicative position (as noted already by Bolinger 1967: 2) point to the fact that it should not be taken as basic.

Preference for the predicative position
The predicative position allows the use of scalar adjectives, such as deep, dubok 'deep' or głęboki 'deep'.Thus, we may easily say . . . the river is deep. . ., Sava zbog niskog vodostaja nije bila duboka 'the water was low, so the Sava was not deep', and woda jest dość głęboka 'the water is rather deep'.It also allows deadverbial adjectives, as in The CPA's plan was intelligent, Freelandove intervencije u načelu su vrlo inteligentne 'overall, Freeland's interventions are very intelligent', Zabieg jest na tyle inteligentny. . .'the operation is intelligent'.However, some types of adjectives in English, Croatian and Polish show a strong preference for the predicative position, and these do not seem to be the most typical examples of adjectives.2They seem to be related to prepositional phrases and participles or other adjectives related to verbs.The reason behind this is the fact that the predicative construction is used to assign properties, and is relational in nature.
In English, corpus results show that these are: adjectives beginning with a-(ablaze, afraid, etc.), other adjectives such as glad, ill, ready, lucky, tired, etc. (Sinclair et al. 1990: 72;Biber et al. 1999: 508).Thus, a sentence such as (3) with ablaze in predicative position is possible, whereas the prenominal attributive position of the adjective, as in ( 4) is impossible.
(3) Even the church was ablaze.
(4) *the ablaze church Note that adjectives beginning with a-are historically related to prepositional phrases.For instance, according to the OED (Simpson and Weiner 1989) ablaze is historically related to on + blaze, and the pattern is applicable to other such adjectives as well.
Some of the predicative-only adjectives tend to be followed by a phrasal or clausal complement (Sinclair et al. 1990: 73-74;Biber et al. 1999: 515-516), as in (5), where ablaze is followed by a prepositional phrase specifying its meaning.
Other items that are restricted to the predicative position include participles.For example, as Bolinger notices, only those perfect participles which leave a mark on something may be used attributively -a scratched surface is possible whereas *a scratched head is not (Bolinger 1967: 9).Thus, in English the predicative-only position is quite clearly related to items that are verb-like in their origin or current use.
The trend is similar in Croatian and Polish: the only class that is at least partially restricted to the predicative position includes l-participles, l-adjectives, n-participles and the present participle.
Historically, l-participles in current Slavic developed from Proto-Indo-European verbal adjectives ending in *-lo.Most of them were reanalyzed as participles in compound tenses, and can therefore only be used in compound tenses (e.g.perfect, pluperfect, etc.), i.e. with various forms of the be-copula (Migdalski 2006: 31).Some Proto-Indo-European adjectives were not reanalyzed, and still keep some adjectival traits (Migdalski 2006: 32).For instance, they can be used attributively (as shown in the Croatian example (6) and the Polish example ( 7)), but it seems that only several allow grading (as in Polish ( 8)) or modification with very (as in (9).(9) najbardziej wytrwali maratończycy ('marathon runners with the greatest stamina') Indeed, it seems that in modern Slavic languages there is no productive connection between the l-participles and l-adjectives -it is impossible to take any l-participle and make it into an l-adjective: (10) U zrakoplovu, koji je stigao iz Dušanbea, . . .('in the plane which arrived from Dushanbe') (11) *stigli zrakoplov ('the arrived plane') Even in Polish, where the copula is lost in the 3 rd person of the perfect tense suggesting a more adjective-like treatment, prenominal attributive use is impossible: (12) Pociąg przyjechał ('the train arrived') (13) *przyjechały pociąg ('the arrived train') Quite naturally, this is also impossible with passive meanings, because Slavic languages have the n-participle available in these situations.Moreover, it seems that the restrictions on the prenominal use of n-participles do not obtain (as in ( 14)-( 17).
(14) Izdavač je pročitao knjigu ('the publisher read the book') (15) *pročitala knjiga ('the read book') 3 We conducted an informal corpus search in the IPI PAN corpus looking for a string ending with -lszy and -łszy, which is the formal ending of the comparative form of the l-participle.The only l-adjectives that appeared in various forms were (naj)dojrzalszy 'ripe(st)'and (naj)trwalszy '(most) enduring', whereas others no longer have a clear connection with l-participles (okazały 'splendid', zagorzały 'ardent').This suggests that their overall character as adjectives is problematic.Also, a study on the formation of adjectives in Polish showed that the number of adjectives newly formed from verbs was relatively small (Smółkowa and Tekiel 1977: 45-54).
(16) Poruka je pročitana prije početka praizvedbe. . .('the note was read before the beginning of the premiere') (17) Dobro su primljena i druga dva pročitana referata ('the other two presented papers were well received') The difference between the l-and the n-participles in prenominal position seems to stem from their active vs. passive nature.L-participles express the fact that energy was temporarily expended by a source of energy.The energy itself is gone, and only the fact of it having been expended in some non-present moment is there (i.e. the l -participle expresses non-immediacy; cf.Stanojević and Geld 2007).This is why stigao 'arrived' in (10), przyjechał 'arrived' in ( 12) and pročitao 'read' in ( 14) signal an action that is not immediately present.It cannot be construed as permanent (which seems to be a characteristic of the attributive position), and hence ( 11) and ( 13) are impossible.In other words, the action performed by an agent cannot be seen as a characteristic describing the agent, if the agent is no longer doing the action.Sentences such as ( 15) are inconsistent with the active meaning of the l-participle.The cases where l-adjectives do appear (as in ( 6)-( 9) are limited, non-productive and frequently allow for passive or at best medial construal.Thus, the previously expended energy (by some entity) results in a relatively permanent characteristic of the referent (e.g. a more mature playing style in ( 8)).This is precisely why n-participles may be used prenominally: the entity expending the energy and the referent of the n-participle are two different entities.Although the energy itself is gone, the item upon which it was expended is still clearly present and linguistically coded.For example, in (17) the "energy" of having been read is, so to speak, still present.In this sense n-participles imply a permanence of a particular attribute in a particular situation (Belaj 2004: 22).Note that the same logic can be used to explain why Polish allows prenominal attributive use of present participles ending in -ący (skaczący 'jumping', czytający 'reading', etc.), as in: (18) znaczek z wizerunkiem skaczącego Adama Małysza ('the stamp showing Adam Małysz jumping') The participle in -ący signifies that the action is concurrent to the moment of speaking.In (18) the action of jumping coincides with the moment of speaking, and this is why it may be coded as prenominal and attributive -it is Małysz's relatively permanent characteristic within the described situation.It may describe the agent, because the agent is still doing it.The same is true of Croatian participles in -ći (e.g.ratujuće partizanske čete 'the fighting partisan troops', zadivljujuće siromaštvo 'extreme poverty'; examples from Katičić 1991: 462).However, Croatian is much more limited in this sense -participles in -ći do not freely form adjectives, and the existing adjectives that may be used prenominally tend to be grammaticalized (Katičić 1991: 462).
Overall, there seems to be a very limited set of items that could be claimed to be restricted to the predicative position (as noted by Bolinger (1967: 2)), and, we can add, they are not the most typical of adjectives.They include participles (in English, Croatian and Polish), some items historically related to participles (l-adjectives in Croatian and Polish) and prepositional phrases.Thus, the restriction on the predicative position in all three languages seems to be connected with relationality: items that are synchronically or diachronically clearly relational in nature (and not thing-like) are restricted to the predicative position.

Preference for the attributive position
Just like the predicative position, the attributive position also allows the use of scalar adjectives: deep river, duboka rijeka 'deep river', głęboka rzeka 'deep river'.Moreover, it also allows deadverbial adjectives, e.g.intelligent solution, inteligentno rješenje iz zemlje Kretenske, 'the intelligent solution from the Land of Idiots', inteligentne rozwiązywanie problemów 'the intelligent solution of problems'.In addition to these, however, there are some adjectives which show a very strong preference for the attributive position.They are strongly non-relational in nature, which can be connected with the fact that the attributive construction tends to be thing-like.This is the case in all three of the examined languages.
There are a number of English adjectives which tend to be attributive only (for a list see e.g.Biber et al. 1999: 508).This primarily includes classifying adjectives (Sinclair et al. 1990: 71), i.e. adjectives used in a denominal sense, as illustrated in ( 19) and ( 20).(24) *Ten wyścig był samochodowy ('this was a car race' lit. the race was car) However, as previously mentioned, this depends on the construal.Thus, in (25) the quality of the traffic is described, on a scale from none, through only car traffic to the traffic of all vehicles (including both cars and trucks).
( The difference between the short and long forms is morphologically available only for some neuter and masculine singular adjectives, and not for all cases (unavailable in the instrumental (Marković 2010: 127)).This is to say that it is disappearing in Croatian (Sawicka 1984).It has already been lost in Polish, and now appears with a very limited set of adjectives: zdrów 'healthy', gotów 'ready', pełen 'full', godzien 'worthy', ciekaw 'curious', pewien 'certain', and perhaps some others (Bąk 1977: 240-241;Grochowski, Karolak, and Topolińska 1984: 338)

Discussion
In terms of cognitive grammar, the predicative position of adjectives is viewed as part of a larger construction: the copulative subject-complement sentence pattern.This construction is mainly used to assign properties to an entity and include it in a category (Radden and Dirven 2007: 269ff), 4 and is what we see in a typical example such as ...the river is deep.The function of the adjective is non-referential: when a property is assigned, we may see it as locating an entity with regard to a reference point (as argued by Pander Maat 2006).In the example ...the river is deep, the river is located with regard to the reference point of depth.The copulative sentence pattern is also used for change of state (They fell in love), and various location, motion and possession senses (see Radden and Dirven 2007: 269ff).All of these examples show that the construction is essentially relational in naturea relationship between the thing and a property is established.This is precisely why adjectives that are clearly relational in nature (i.e. of verbal or prepositional origin) go best with this construction.This is also why denominal adjectives do not appear in it, as will be shown in the next section.Scalar adjectives can occur in this construction because they are not clearly thing-like (they imply some relationality, inherent in locating an entity with regard to a reference point).
While scalar and deadverbial uses of adjectives appear quite freely both attributively and predicatively, denominal uses, morphologically marked definite uses (in Croatian and Polish) and determining uses are restricted to the attributive position.The reason behind this is the thing-like referential quality of the attributive construction.
The attributive construction is not about assigning properties but about referring to items.Adjectival modification is part and parcel of the thing which is referred to.In an attributive construction, the quality is not assigned, but it is given as unquestionable.Attributive modification is thing-like in nature, because it is crucially determined by the (non-relational) nominal head.This is why it can be easily modified by denominal adjectives, which have the same thing-like, non-relational schematic structure.
Furthermore, any expression with a clear referent in the structural world needs to be grounded.One of the formal ways of doing this in Croatian is to use the definite form of the adjective, which expresses uniqueness (Sawicka 1984: 57-59) (feminine singular adjectives have a single form and thus seem to be vague as to grounding).In Croatian, long forms cannot appear in predicative position because their uniqueness is in conflict with the non-referential character of the predicative position. 5Emphasizing adjectives (in all three languages) also have a tinge of grounding, because they tend to be used with unique referents.Grounding is part and parcel of the reference of a phrase, and this is why it appears attributively: predicative use is non-referential.
The partial relationality of scalar and deadverbial adjectives allows their use in 5 Because of this some Croatian adjectives that only have the long/definite form do not appear in predicative position (e.g.glavni 'main ', puki 'mere', bivši 'former';Marković 2010: 124).Croatian appears to have kept the original Old Church Slavic distinction of definiteness/indefiniteness, with long forms being definite, and short indefinite (Lunt 2001: 142).As opposed to Croatian, Polish and other Slavic languages have reinterpreted it, taking the long form as unmarked and adjectival (which is why it can be used both predicatively and attributively), and the short form as marked and verbal (which is why it is used only predicatively; Dalewska-Greń 1997: 489-491).We cannot venture here into the reasons why this might have happened, but the same mechanism of incongruence is at play: examples such as (32) do not work because the temporary nature of the short form is in conflict with the prenominal attributive position which tends to express permanence.
the attributive construction, because the properties they refer to may be seen as permanent enough to be used in a thing-like construction.As soon as we enter a more verbal (relational) realm, which is characterized by relative non-permanence (as in, e.g., various participles, etc.), attributive use is no longer possible (3.1).

Prenominal vs. postnominal position
In this section we turn to the differences between the prenominal and postnominal position in the three languages.All three languages show the expected behavior according to which complemented adjectives appear postnominally.In addition to this, English allows postnominal use of adjectives describing temporary characteristics.Unlike Croatian and English, in Polish the postnominal position signals the denominal use of the adjective.Finally, both Croatian and Polish allow some other adjectives to appear postnominally.
In English qualitative modifiers may appear prenominally and postnominally.The prenominal position in contemporary English is usually connected with permanence of quality, whereas modifiers in postnominal position usually describe temporary or occasional properties (Bolinger 1967: 9-12;Radden and Dirven 2007: 144-145).Let us have a look at the following examples from the BNC.
(34) Living things use the energy of visible light as a source of information about the world.
(35) If there are four satellites visible, a military user on the ground with a portable receiver can . . .
In (34) visible light refers to light which is construed as permanently visible, as if its visibility was a relatively objective characteristic.As opposed to that, in (35) there are a number of satellites in the sky, but only some are visible at a particular time.This is why the adjective is postposed.This also explains why adjectives are usually postposed if they modify indefinite pronouns (e.g.something cold, somebody smarter ; Biber et al. 1999: 519) -an object with an indefinite referent -which is transient in its very nature -simply does not go well with a permanent quality being predicated of it.A more structure-oriented explanation is the one offered by Huddleston and Pullum, who argue that indefinite pronouns have fused determiner-heads (Huddleston and Pullum 2005: 121), which means that the adjective cannot occur in its usual prenominal position -postnominal position is the next best thing.Note that the two explanations are actually not mutually exclusive -in fact, structural and semantic factors tend to work together.Adjectives followed by complements do not usually appear in prenominal position.Thus, although an adjective such as capable may appear both attributively (the capable chaplain) and predicatively (Polar plants must be capable of being frozen for several months each year ), when complemented capable cannot appear in prenominal position: (36) *capable of being frozen for several months each year polar plants However, postnominal position is possible, as in (37).
(37) polar plants capable of being frozen for several months each year.
Despite the pervasiveness of the prenominal restrictions illustrated in (36), they are far from absolute.For instance, the language of advertising has been long known not to abide by them in examples such as new ready-to-spread Pillsbury Frosting Supreme or World's easiest-to-use dictating machine (examples from Rush 1998: 164).Prenominal adjectives with complements are usually hyphenated, which formally marks their "special status" in prenominal use (as seen in most examples given by Rush (1998: 163-164)).
Generally speaking, the postnominal position is available in all Slavic languages, but seems to be less common in South Slavic languages (Siewierska and Uhliřová 1998: 134).In Croatian, with uncomplemented adjectives it is primarily a stylistic marker used in a lofty, literary style (Katičić 1991: 383;Silić and Pranjković 2005: 314).In this sense it seems to be available to most scalar and deadverbial adjectives -i.e.those which are compatible with this type of style.It may also be used to express emotional involvement using the vocative case (e.g.prijatelju stari 'my old friend' or svinjo pokvarena 'you dirty scoundrel'; Marković 2010: 247), and various biblical references (život vječni 'eternal life', Duh sveti 'Holy Spirit', muka Isusova 'the Passion of Jesus').Uncomplemented adjectives also appear in some names of historical persons, institutions and terminology (e.g.Ljudevit Posavski, Županija splitsko-dalmatinska 'Split-Dalmatia County', kesten pitomi 'sweet chestnut') (Silić and Pranjković 2005: 314;Marković 2010: 246-248).This is far from absolute, though, and has many counterexamples (Jadransko more 'Adriatic Sea', šumska jagoda 'wild strawberry').On the whole, the postnominal position in Croatian offers limited availability for uncomplemented adjectives, and English examples such as (35) have been found to correspond to Croatian relative clauses (Ivir 1983: 30-31) and predicative constructions (ako su vidljiva četiri satelita. . .'if four satellites are visible').
All of these categories of the postnominal position are also available in other Slavic languages (Siewierska and Uhliřová 1998: 135), including Polish (e.g.Bolesław Śmiały; Instytut Medyczny 'Medical Institute'; mamusiu miła 'mommy dearest').Additionally, Polish is the only Slavic language which favors postnominal placement of uncomplemented denominal adjectives (Siewierska and Uhliřová 1998: 134).Adjectives in postnominal position are traditionally seen as expressing a central characteristic, related to the whole class, i.e. classifying in nature, and not appearing in predicative position in the same sense (cf.e.g.Śliwiński 1984: 23-24 and references mentioned therein).These include examples such as (23), and other such as przystanek tramwajowy 'tram stop', semantyka generatywna 'generative semantics', język obcy 'foreign language', etc.They are typical denominal uses, referring to participants in an event.As has been mentioned, they tend not to appear in predicative position, and if they do their meaning is different (see 3.2; also see Rutkowski (2007: 143-148)).
Parallel to English, Croatian and Polish adjectives with complements tend to be used predicatively or postnominally (as in ( 38)-( 41)).
(38) On je ponosan na svoju djecu ('he is proud of his children') (39) otac ponosan na svoga sina ('a father proud of his son') (40) Po ostatnim gwizdku sędziego byłem dumny z chłopców ('after the referee's final whistle, I was proud of the boys') (41) Ojciec dumny z syna ('a father proud of his son') This type of behavior is expected, based on the typology of the three languages (for details see Marković 2010: 243-244).Prenominal use of complemented adjectives is also available in Croatian and Polish, as in ( 42) and ( 43).

Discussion
The occurrence of postnominal complemented adjectives is amenable to a widescope structural explanation in terms of Role and Reference Grammar.Simply put, postnominal adjectives are more verb-like than prenominal adjectives, and as such can be heads of phrases.When used prenominally, they are not heads of phrases, and therefore cannot take additional complements (see Matasović 2000: 107-109).In a more cognitive vein, the postnominal construction may be analyzed as an in-between construction, with some characteristics of the prenominal attributive construction and some characteristics of the predicative construction (as analyzed in Teyssier 1968: 243-249).In what follows we build on Teyssier's (1968) and Athanasiadou's (2006: 228-230) ideas.The postnominal adjective is juxtaposed to a noun, and may be construed as closer to the attributive or the predicative construction.
When uncomplemented adjectives are used in the postnominal construction, they are closer to the attributive construction: thing-like, referential and marked in relation to the prenominal pattern.Such appositive use includes all uncomplemented adjectives in the three languages, and their markedness is realized differently, depending on the language.In English, it seems to be a matter of permanence (visible stars) vs. temporariness (stars visible), the latter being the marked form.In Polish and Croatian, postnominal uncomplemented adjectives add stylistic effects, and are used to identify in an absolute or emphatic manner (which may, in fact, be analyzed as nominalization (Marković 2010: 246)).In the case of Polish denominal uses, postposition is not seen as marked but as the norm.Regardless of how this came about7 , Polish uses postposition to mark the thing-like character of the adjective.Therefore, the distinction is grammatical, bringing the postnominal construction with uncomplemented adjectives closer to the regular attributive construction.
The postnominal construction is closer to predicative use when it appears with complemented adjectives.8Its only major difference is the fact that it is based on juxtaposition, as opposed to linking using the copula.Other than that, it is similar to the predicative construction, because it is used to assign characteristics and is non-referential and ungrounded.For example, this is seen in Croatian from the fact that the long form of the adjective cannot be used postnominally when complemented (cf.( 45)).Similarly, emphasizing adjectives as in *rubbish utter are possible neither in English nor Polish (*szaleństwo istne 'madness utter') (Polish example from Danielewiczowa 2007: 227-228).Moreover, characteristics which appear in complemented adjectives, being "heavy" (because of complementation), are unlikely to refer to a permanent or intrinsic quality or characteristic, and will therefore not normally appear prenominally, but may easily appear predicatively.
The fact that complemented adjectives also appear in prenominal position is related to various reasons in the three languages.In English, this is most probably related to construing a characteristic or quality as intrinsic.This is exactly what we see in hyphenated English forms (e.g.new ready-to-spread Pillsbury Frosting Supreme).The pragmatic features of such formations (vividness, colourfulness, greater impact; Rush 1998: 164) correspond to the mentioned characteristics of the prenominal position -they describe permanence and inherence.Thus, the fact that Pillsbury's frosting is ready to spread is not a mere description of a temporary characteristic, but is construed as the inherent quality of the frosting.This is the way in which the structure achieves its greater impact, sought by the advertisers.The complemented structure is also available prenominally in Croatian and Polish, as seen in ( 42) and ( 43).No systematic data are available for Croatian, but it would be reasonable to assume that prenominal complemented use is less frequent than postnominal complemented use.Polish frequency data and grammars suggest that both the prenominal and postnominal complemented forms are of equal status (Śliwiński 1984: 52), which is in harmony with the wider availability of the postnominal position in Polish.Generally, Croatian and Polish permit complemented constructions more readily than English, which may be due to accessibility issuesinflections in Slavic languages help recover the relations between complements and adjectives, which tends to be a word-order issue in English.
5. Overall discussion: adjectives and subjectification Athanasiadou (2006) has shown that the predicative position only allows a single subjectification configuration, with the conceptualizer within the maximal scope of view, but external to the onstage region.She has also shown that the (prenominal) attributive position in English is open to the entire array of subjectification -from the most objective to the fully subjective configuration.This is confirmed by Croatian and Polish.In fact, in all three languages the predicative position is used to ascribe characteristics, but not to refer to entities.Therefore, only those items which are non-referential in nature (and hence, do not have grounding) are allowed in this position.This is why participles are used in the predicative construction: they are relational, and are not incompatible with the level of subjectification inherent in assigning.Assigning necessarily involves a certain amount of subjectification: the conceptualizer can assign a quality which is felt to be assignable, i.e. at least partially subject to construal.This is why denominal adjectives cannot be used in predicative position -they are seen as too objective to be assigned at will.Subjectification is not full: the conceptualizer may assign only those properties which are recoverable from the objective world.The relationship between the object of conceptualization and its property is only partially attenuated, i.e. the conceptualizer is within the maximal scope of view, but outside the immediate scope.
As opposed to that, the attributive construction allows a full range of subjectification configurations.Denominal uses are the least subjectified -the element referred to is simply identified, without any involvement on the speaker's part: it is completely recoverable from the objective world.Scalar and deadverbial uses involve more subjectification, because they require the definition of a reference point by which a particular quality is assessed.Deadverbial uses are additionally limited in duration (and their duration is also defined by the conceptualizer), i.e. they involve a somewhat greater degree of subjectification than scalar uses.In both scalar and deadverbial uses the association with the objective world is attenuated to some degree by the existence of a reference point and duration, both of which are defined by the conceptualizer.Emphasizing adjectives are completely subjectified because they require the conceptualizer's judgment to become part of the expression.Thus, in utter nonsense there is no "objective" measure of "utterity" that may be available to anyone but the conceptualizer.
Long forms of adjectives in Croatian add grounding and uniqueness to their trajector.For example, novi auto 'new car', is a unique instance of a trajector (auto 'car') described by the adjective (novi 'new').Thus, we may observe two levels of subjectification: one related to the uniqueness of the trajector (defined subjectively through grounding) and the other related to the characteristic of the scalar adjective novi (defined subjectively in relation to the scale of newness).
In English uncomplemented and complemented postnominal adjectives tend to express temporariness, which is in contrast to the permanence normally expressed by prenominal structures.The adjectives appearing in this position are rather limited, and tend to be deadverbial.They present a very specific situation, and the conceptualizer is close to the object of conception, which means that the pattern is subjectified to a certain extent (Athanasiadou 2006: 228-229).
In Croatian, uncomplemented adjectives are subject to the same remarks given for the prenominal position (denominal adjectives as least subjectified, scalar and deadverbial as more subjectified).Emphasizing adjectives cannot appear here (as seen above), which means that extreme subjectification will not appear in this position.Polish does not seem to be a special case in this respect, despite the fact that the postnominal position is unmarked for denominal adjectives.
Complemented adjectives are closer to predicative use, which would suggest that all of them might exhibit a single level of subjectification.However, as is clear from the previous discussion, the postnominal position in Polish and Croatian actually has the characteristics of both the prenominal and predicative position.In other words, its function is not unilaterally determinable: it is both to assign and to refer.This is why it would be difficult to claim that there is a single level of subjectification in these adjectives.
Finally, the crucial issue that we set out to answer is whether subjectification can be taken as the organizing property of the different positions of adjectives.Thus, the predicative construction has only a single subjectification level, whereas the attributive construction has a range of subjectification levels.All of this suggests a dual layering of subjectification.On the one hand, subjectification may be inherent in the construction in which the adjective is used, which is the case in the predicative construction.On the other hand, subjectification may vary within a single (attributive) construction depending on the "types" of adjectives (denominal, deadverbial, scalar, emphasizing).This duality (constructional meaning and the meaning of the item) is also visible in Croatian long adjectives.All of this suggests that subjectification does not work as a sweeping organizing principle across largescale constructions and distinguishing them, but rather as a precise mechanism working within a single construction based on particular meaning relations.This is why it can distinguish meanings of different adjectives in prenominal and postnominal position -not because of a characteristic of the position but of the type of adjectives appearing in it.Sometimes, however, the meaning of a grammatical construction may take precedence over the meaning of items appearing in it, which is what we see in the predicative construction.However, in cognitive grammar, the predicative construction may be treated as a single item, albeit a complex and schematic one.
In order for subjectification to work, what seems important is that larger formal and functional factors unify the items in question.In the case of adjectives, these include adjective types (denominal, deadverbial, scalar and emphasizing), and construction type (in the case of the predicative construction).In other cases of subjectification, other form-function pairings are involved.For instance, in the Spanish dative (Maldonado 2000) these are the various forms of pronouns with different meanings, and in the English possessive construction (Langacker 1993), the verb to have in different positions used with various (more or less schematic) items.Importantly, both of these are related to a limited set of forms with limited formal changes.It is in this sense that subjectification seems to be a local rather than a global phenomenon.It can only work if there are formal and functional factors already unifying a particular construction.Subjectification, it seems, cannot be a unifying factor.Its local character is crucially related to its gradual nature -in order for an objective relationship to be attenuated, the conceptualizer's involvement must be easily recoverable.Therefore, subjectification must work in a gradual, step-by-step fashion, ensuring the links to the previous stages.This can only be done if it is limited to local domains.When the links to previous stages are no longer recoverable, subjectification becomes one of the forces driving grammaticalization, becoming more global, but at the same time, not being so readily identifiable as subjectification.

Conclusions
In this paper we examined the way in which the position of adjectives (prenominal, postnominal or predicative) correlates with subjectification (defined in the Langackerian sense).Examining examples from three languages, English, Croatian and Polish, we showed that although subjectification does play a role in the various positions, it may not be taken as the organizing principle behind the differences.We argued that this was due to the fact that subjectification is a local phenomenon which works within a single construction, which is delimited formally and functionally.This is corroborated by other subjectified constructions.We believe that this is due to the gradual nature of subjectification, which requires recoverable links to previous stages.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2.More subjective construal Subjectification has been proposed as the organizing principle of various grammatical phenomena in different languages. 1Thus, sentence (2) is an example of fictive motion (for a short overview see Langacker 2008: 528-531).Other phenomena range from, for instance, the description of the dative case (Maldonado 2002 in Spanish; Stanojević and Tuđman Vuković forthcoming in Croatian), to modal verbs (cf.e.g.Pelyvás 2006), possessive constructions (cf.e.g.Langacker 1993; Cienki 1995) and complementation (Vesterinen 2010).The change from objective to subjective construal has been frequently noted in studies dealing with the order of prenominal adjectives in English.Thus, if a 3

( 19 )
As I move round I see the numerals of a digital clock.(20) ?this clock is digital Similarly, in Croatian and Polish denominal adjectives do not typically occur in predicative position, e.g.: (21) AMG je aktivan i na području automobilističkih utrka ('AMG is also involved in car racing') (22) *Ova utrka bila je automobilistička ('this was a car race' lit. the race was car) (23) wyścig samochodowy ('a car race') In Croatian (and to some extent in Polish) the attributive-only restriction is systematic with a morphological class of adjectives.Namely, Croatian has kept two adjectival declensions: a short-form declension (nov auto 'a new car') and a longform declension (novi auto 'a new car').Long forms can only be used in attributive position (26) and cannot occur in predicative position (27), whereas short forms are available in both positions (as in (28) and (29).
Przez kilka godzin po wypadku na drodze między Jasłem a Pilznem ruch był samochodowy.('several hours after the accident the road between Jasło and Pilsen was only open to car traffic') (28) Ako u Francuskoj kupite nov auto ('if you buy a new car in France') (29) Taj je model u potpunosti nov... ('that model is brand new')