NUMBER AND ADJECTIVES: THE CASE OF FRENCH ACTIVITY AND QUALITY NOMINALS

INTRODUCTION

This article is dedicated to the examination of the role of Number with regards to adjective distribution in French. We focus on two kinds of abstract nouns: activity nominals and quality nominals. Both display particular behaviours with regards to adjective distribution: activity nominals need to appear as count nouns to be modified by qualifying adjectives; concerning quality nominals, they are frequently introduced by the indefinite un(e) instead of the partitive article (du / de la) when modified. Our analysis of adjectives is based on the idea that they can have two uses, which correlate with syntactic and semantic restrictions and are distinguishable on semantic grounds. Adjectives are understood either as taxonomic, i.e. as denoting a subkind of the modified noun, or as qualifying, in which case they express a property of the noun. Whereas taxonomic adjectives qualify as direct modifiers in the sense of [START_REF] Cinque | The syntax of adjectives: a comparative study[END_REF], qualifying adjectives behave either as direct or as indirect modifiers.

To account for the restrictions on the modification on activity and quality nominals, along the lines of [START_REF] Borer | Structuring Sense, volume I: In Name Only[END_REF], we suggest that the Num head un(e) is responsible for the partitioning of the noun's referent, which in turn enables the presence of a qualifying adjective.

The article is organized as follows. In Section 2, we define and illustrate the class of activity nominals (2.1.) and describe their behaviour with regards to both taxonomic and qualifying adjectival modification, paying particular attention to the fact that they must occur in count use to accept qualifying (vs. taxonomic) modification (2.2.). Consequently, we provide a syntactic analysis of both kinds of adjectival modification based on the presence vs. absence of Num(ber)P (2.3.), and relying on Cinques's (2010) approach to adjective attachment. In Section 3 we define quality nominals, and then compare them to activity nominals with regards to modification. We show that quality nominals accept various types of articles when modified, but that the choice of the article relates to the interpretation of the adjective (3.2.), these observations also match the description of activity nominals. In Section 4, we provide an articulated syntactic analysis of the distribution of the articles with various classes of adjectival modifiers in the presence of quality and activity nominals. In Section 5, we draw the conclusion of our article.

ACTIVITY NOMINALS

Definition

Activity nominals (Van de Velde 1995; Flaux & Van de Velde 2000; [START_REF] Haas | Les propriétés aspectuelles des noms d'activités[END_REF][START_REF] Haas | Du verbe au nom : calques et décalages aspectuels[END_REF] are nouns which are morphologically related to verbs denoting Activities, i.e. durative and atelic processes [START_REF] Vendler | Linguistics in Philosophy[END_REF][START_REF] Verkuyl | On the compositional nature of aspect[END_REF][START_REF] Smith | The parameter of Aspect[END_REF], as illustrated in (1):

(1) a. danse N / danser V b. marche N / marcher V 'dance' 'to dance' 'walk' 'to walk' c. natation N / nager V d. cuisine N / cuisiner V 'swimming' 'to swim' 'cooking ' 'to cook' In what follows, we will limit our attention to nouns related to intransitive verbs. Such nouns usually occur in structures such as (2) and (3) that exhibit a habitual reading:

(2) a. DP faire partitive article Activ.N.

b. Max fait {du jardinage / de la natation / de la marche}.

Max does {PART.ART.MASC gardening / PART.ART.FEM swimming / PART.ART.FEM walking} 'Max does some {gardening / swimming / walking}'.

(3) a. DP pratiquer definite article Activ.N.

b. Max pratique {le jardinage / la natation / la marche} tous les week-end.

Max practises {the gardening / the swimming / the walking} all the week ends Lit.: 'Max practices {gardening /swimming / walking} on weekends'.

According to Pivault (1994), in structures like (2) and (3), the DP subject is understood as an Agent, and the verb faire as a light verb, i.e. it lacks semantic content. Consequently, the semantic predicate of the sentence is the activity nominal itself. Note also that the non-countable character of activity nominals is revealed by the use of the so-called 'partitive article', which is the form of the indefinite article used to introduce mass nouns (cf. du vin '(some) wine' / de la bière '(some) beer').

As shown by the following examples, the atelic character of the verbal predicate is maintained by the corresponding noun, which is compatible only with PPs introduced by pendant 'for' but not by en 'in' 1 :

(4) a. Max a fait {du jardinage / de la marche} {pendant deux heures 'Max did (some) {gardening / walking} {for two hours / *in two hours}.' b. Zoé a pratiqué {la danse / la natation} {pendant dix ans / *en dix ans}.

Zoe has practiced {the dancing / the swimming} {for ten years / *in ten years}.

'Zoe has practiced {dancing / swimming} {for 10 years / *in ten years}.'

Another context in which activity nominals are particularly frequent is the subject position of generic sentences (5) (see [START_REF] Heyd | Les noms d'activités parmi les noms abstraits: propriétés aspectuelles, distributionnelles et interprétatives[END_REF]) and the object position of psychological verbs (6):

(5) a. {Le jardinage / la natation} est un loisir répandu. 'French people love walking.'

In fact, even nouns that are not related to verbs-and which usually refer to entities, abstract (7), concrete (8), and even animate (9) -can receive an activity interpretation when they occur as objects of the light verbs faire and pratiquer [START_REF] Heyd | Les noms d'activités parmi les noms abstraits: propriétés aspectuelles, distributionnelles et interprétatives[END_REF]). In such cases, they usually refer to sports, sciences or arts (Pivault 1994). An important fact is that, in (8a) and (9a), the nouns piano 'piano' and cheval 'horse' appear as mass nouns, and not under their usual count forms (8b, 9b):

(7) La syntaxe donne des maux de tête. 'These horses are black.'

We will now examine adjectival modification of activity nominals.

Adjectival modification of activity nominals

This subsection is dedicated to the examination of the properties of modified activity nominals. We first distinguish two types of adjective uses from both semantic and syntactic points of view. We then show that adjectival modification of activity nominals by qualifying adjectives depends on their use as count nouns.

Two kinds of adjectival modification

In what follows, we will consider two kinds of adjectival modification: 'qualifying' and 'taxonomic' modification 2 (see [START_REF] Knittel | Some remarks on adjective placement in the French NP[END_REF] The taxonomic vs. qualifying use of a given adjective can also be distinguished by the fact that, when the adjective has a corresponding quality noun, the noun / adjective alternation is possible only when the adjective is used qualifyingly (12), as shown by [START_REF] Fradin | Quelles bases pour les procédés de la morphologie constructionnelle ?[END_REF], 2009). In contrast, taxonomic uses of the same adjectives do not alternate with deadjectival nouns as illustrated by ( 13).

( Lit: 'This flower is very wild.'

In the following section, we examine the distribution of adjectives with activity nominals.

Qualifying modification

Let us now examine how the adjectives in the uses described above behave when combined with activity nominals.

The examples in ( 14) reveal that activity nominals can be modified by qualifying adjectives when the nouns denote specific entities or events, or when they refer to concrete objects ( 15 Lit.: '(Some) {dance / walk / motorbike} has been done by Mary.'

Narrow scope and adjacency with a verbal head are properties reminiscent of those displayed by incorporated elements (see [START_REF] Bittner | Canonical and non-canonical argument expressions[END_REF][START_REF] Hoop | Case configuration and NP interpretation[END_REF][START_REF] Geenhoven | Semantic incorporation and indefinite descriptions: Semantic and syntactic aspects of noun incorporation in West Greenlandic[END_REF][START_REF] Farkas | semantics of incorporation: from argument structure to discourse transparency[END_REF][START_REF] Mathieu | The mapping of form and interpretation: The case of optional WH Movement in French[END_REF], 2006 for French), which are also characterized by the lack of number inflection or variation 5 .

A first hypothesis to account for the impossibility of qualifying modification is to consider that it is directly linked to the incorporated status of the nominals (see [START_REF] Knittel | Le statut des compléments du nom en [de NP][END_REF][START_REF] Knittel | Possession vs. incorporation in the nominal domain: evidence from Fench event nominal dependencies[END_REF] We can consequently hypothesize that, in the case of activities, number inflection is a syntactic reflex of specificity. Since only specific use allows qualifying modification, one only finds modified number-inflected (vs. mass) activity nominals.

Taxonomic modification

As suggested above, taxonomic adjectives are used to refer to subtypes. This is shown by the following examples, which also reveal that only taxonomic modification is possible in generic DPs whose lexical head is an activity nominal:

(21) a. La danse orientale est une sorte de danse. We can conclude that taxonomic modification is possible in any context where activity nominals are found, and does not rely on the distinctions (±specific, ± incorporated, ± number-inflected) to which qualifying adjectives are sensitive.

The following subsection is dedicated to a syntactic analysis of this phenomenon.

Syntactic analysis

In this section, we provide a syntactic analysis to account for the contrast between qualifying and taxonomic modification of activity nominals. Our analysis relies on the structural relationship between the FPs hosting adjectival projections [START_REF] Cinque | The syntax of adjectives: a comparative study[END_REF] and NumP [START_REF] Ritter | Two functional categories in noun-phrases: evidence from Modern Hebrew[END_REF][START_REF] Carstens | The Morphology and Syntax of Determiner Phrases in Kiswahili[END_REF][START_REF] Valois | The internal syntax of DP and adjective placement in French and English[END_REF], and / or vP [START_REF] Harley | The morphology of nominalizations and the syntax of vP[END_REF].

The syntactic structure of activity NPs

Recall from the preceding examples that activity nominals need to occur in count use to enable qualifying modification. Along the lines of [START_REF] Ritter | Two functional categories in noun-phrases: evidence from Modern Hebrew[END_REF], [START_REF] Carstens | The Morphology and Syntax of Determiner Phrases in Kiswahili[END_REF][START_REF] Valois | The internal syntax of DP and adjective placement in French and English[END_REF], let us assume that NumP is the projection encoding number variability (i.e. singular vs. plural). Thus, a DP [START_REF] Abney | The Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect[END_REF] whose head is a count (activity) nominal, such as marche(s) 'walk(s)' or danse(s) 'dance(s)' ( 14), contains a NumP in its functional structure.

Along the lines of [START_REF] Shlonsky | The form of semitic noun phrases[END_REF], we also assume that there is no N movement in the DP (see also the arguments against N movement raised by Lamarche 1991, Laenzlinger 2005, Haegeman 2003, Knittel 2005) 7 . Rather, in order to account for the noun's number variability, we assume that NP moves to Spec,NumP.

However, as we saw previously, activity nominals can either occur as mass or as count nouns. This variability can be simply explained by the analyzes of [START_REF] Borer | Structuring Sense, volume I: In Name Only[END_REF], [START_REF] Kwon | Number from a syntactic perspective: why plural marking looks 'truer' in French than in Korean[END_REF],

and Zribi-Hertz & Glaude ( 2007), who argue that Number is an optional projection which is realized only for count nouns.

Since activity nominals describe events, we also assume that their functional structure contains an event projection vP, along the lines of [START_REF] Harley | The morphology of nominalizations and the syntax of vP[END_REF] and [START_REF] Alexiadou | On the role of syntactic locality in morphological processes: the case of (Greek) derived nominals. Quantification, Definiteness and Nominalization[END_REF] (see also [START_REF] Davidson | The logical form of action sentences[END_REF]. Finally, in agreement with [START_REF] Picallo | Gender and number in Romance[END_REF] and Iordachioaia & Soare (2009) in the case of event nominals, we consider that projections of nouns are characterized by a ClassP, which encodes their nominal character, and checks the noun's Gender features.

Consequently, danse 'dance' or marche 'walk' will be represented as in ( 25) when in count use, and as in ( 26) when used as?mass nouns; instead of a movement of NP to NumP, we assume that the whole ClassP moves to Spec,NumP. As noted by [START_REF] Cinque | The syntax of adjectives: a comparative study[END_REF]), after Bolinger (1967), direct adjectives modify the noun's reference, which is exactly the case of taxonomic adjectives.

Finally, Cinque notes that direct modification can give rise to idiomatic [N-A] readings. Even if this is not exactly the case here, one can observe that, in ski alpin 'alpine skiing', the adjective does not mean 'pertaining to the Alps', as is usually the case (cf. la flore alpine 'alpine flora', i.e. the flora of the Alps), but refers to downhill skiing. In the same way, in a string such as pêche automnale 'autumnal fishing', the adjective takes an individual level interpretation, since it refers to a kind of fishing that usually occurs in Autumn and displays specific characteristics, but cannot be used to describe a fishing party that accidentally occurred in Autumn.

Finally, the need to distinguish between these two kinds of modifiers is confirmed by the fact that they cannot be coordinated: Second, some of these adjectives also display an evaluative value that is superimposed on their original meaning. For instance, in une danse remarquable 'a remarkable dance', the adjective is primarily understood as 'great' rather than as 'noteworthy'. Thus, remarquable corresponds to a positive evaluation. In the same way, une course incroyable 'an incredible race' means 'a great race' rather than 'an unbelievable race'. Such adjectives are considered as direct modifiers in [START_REF] Cinque | The syntax of adjectives: a comparative study[END_REF] analysis. On the other hand, an adjective such as inattendu 'unexpected', which can only be understood as 'that was not expected' and occurs necessarily postnominally, is analyzed as an indirect modifier. As will be discussed in Section 4, adjectives of the inattendu type as well as those of the gracieux and remarquable type necessarily occur with un:

( 35), the distinction is between activity nominals introduced by the partitive article, which only accept taxonomic modification, and those introduced by the indefinite article, which combine with direct and indirect qualifying adjectives.

Our analysis led us to the same conclusion as [START_REF] Larson | Event and modification in nominals[END_REF], namely that the non-intersective reading of adjectives arises when the adjective applies to the event component of the nominal. If we assume that the type of movement at work here is remnant movement, as [START_REF] Shlonsky | The form of semitic noun phrases[END_REF] We can now examine quality nominals.

QUALITY NOMINALS

Definition

According to [START_REF] Rainer | I nomi di qualità nell'italiano contemporaneo[END_REF], who introduced the term, quality nominals are nouns morphologically built on adjectives (36a-b), and denoting properties. Along the lines of Van de Velde (1995), and Lit.: 'She has shown a courage.'

However, even if grammars do not mention this possibility, Kupferman (2004, 87) observes that modified quality nominals may be introduced by partitive articles in the context of copulative sentences ( 52). ( 53) shows that such strings, where un(e) is also possible 9 , are also found in other contexts, including negative sentences like (53c):

(52) a. Ce discours, c' était {de la / *une} grande éloquence. These questions are addressed in the following sections.

ADJECTIVAL MODIFICATION PATTERNS

In this section, we show that the modification patterns observed for activity nominals also apply to quality nominals, and that the same interactions between modification type and the mass / count distinction are observed. We then examine the properties of modified nominals introduced by un(e), and consider the hypotheses put forward by [START_REF] Kupferman | Le mot de: domaines propositionnels et domaines quantificationnels[END_REF] and [START_REF] Kleiber | Indéfini, Partitif et Adjectif : du nouveau[END_REF]. Finally, we propose an appropriate syntactic treatment for modified nominals with the indefinite article, based on [START_REF] Cinque | More on the indefinite character of the Head of restrictive relatives[END_REF][START_REF] Cinque | The syntax of adjectives: a comparative study[END_REF].

Qualifying modification

Recall from section 2.2.1. that activity nominals can be modified by qualifying adjectives when they occur as count nouns, i.e. when they are dominated by NumP. Like activity nominals, some quality nominals may also occur as count nouns (42b-44b). In such a case, they refer either to external manifestations of the quality in question, through words (42b) or actions (43-44b) or are used to designate concrete objects characterized by the property in question, as in ( 54):

(54) J' ai admiré les beautés du paysage.

I have admired the beauties of.the landscape 'I have admired the beauties of the landscape.' (i.e. the beautiful things in the landscape)

As expected from the behaviour of activity nominals, quality nominals also allow qualifying modification when they occur as count nouns.

( They also allow an evaluative reading, impardonnable 'unforgivable' being construed as 'very serious', and incroyable 'incredible' as 'enormous'. Since they pattern like gracieuse 'graceful' and épuisante 'exhausting' with activity nominals (34), they deserve the same analysis, i.e. that of direct modifiers.

Consequently, the structure proposed in (29a) for qualifying modification of activity nominals in count use can also be used for the examples in (55), as shown in (58). When the adjectives occur postnominally, we will consider that NumP has moved to Spec FP (58c), as with activity nominals.

Modified quality nominals introduced by the partitive article

Let us now examine structures in which modified quality nominals are introduced by the partitive article. Recall from Section 3.1. that quality nominals lack NumP in their mass use. As a consequence, the adjectives modifying them can only merge above ClassP.

Now, concerning quality nominals referring to states, the question of a potential event structure has to be raised. According to [START_REF] Kratzer | Severing the External Argument from its Verb. Phrase structure and the lexicon[END_REF], states display an event structure, syntactically encoded by a vP. [START_REF] Alexiadou | Statives and nominalizations[END_REF] and [START_REF] Borer | Structuring Sense, volume I: In Name Only[END_REF] consider that the possible insertion of for temporal adverbials proves the presence of an event structure. In the same vein, [START_REF] Grimshaw | Argument structure[END_REF] considers that modifiers such as constant, frequent, or subordinate clauses introduced by in order to reveal the presence of an event structure, which distinguishes event nominals, whether simple or complex, from results. We are now able to provide a description of the combination of adjectives and determiners for activity as well as quality nominals. When in count use, both classes accept any class of adjectival modifiers, i.e. direct taxonomic and non-taxonomic, and indirect. When in mass use, only subsective / taxonomic modification allows the partitive article to be used; conversely, nonsubsective direct as well as indirect modifiers coerce the replacement of the partitive by the indefinite un(e), a fact that deserves taking into account.

In fact, both [START_REF] Kleiber | Indéfini, Partitif et Adjectif : du nouveau[END_REF] and [START_REF] Kupferman | Le mot de: domaines propositionnels et domaines quantificationnels[END_REF] attempted to provide a semantic explanation for this constraint.

According to [START_REF] Kupferman | Le mot de: domaines propositionnels et domaines quantificationnels[END_REF], the referent of the modified mass noun has to stand in a partwhole relation with that of another noun in the sentence for un(e) to appear in the case of modification by a characterizing adjective (a qualifying adjective in our terms); this is indeed the case in the following example where eau 'water' is necessarily understood as eau du lac 'lake water':

(67) Le lac avait ce jour-là {une / *de l'} eau verdâtre.

the lake had that day {a / *PART.ART.FEM} water greenish

Lit.: 'The lake had that day a greenish water.' (Kupferman 2004, 77) Kupferman applies this analysis to quality nominals, which he analyzes as abstract parts of (human) referents, as exemplified by the parallel between ( 67) and ( 68 Lit.: 'Our concierge exhibited a great eloquence.' (Kupferman 2004, 87) Yet, the condition requiring a part-whole relationship seems to be too strong for activity nominals (65-66), which cannot be analyzed in this way.

On the other hand, [START_REF] Kleiber | Indéfini, Partitif et Adjectif : du nouveau[END_REF] explanation relies on the idea that the instance of the modified noun has to be delimited spatiotemporally for un(e) to appear. In the case of example (67), it is precisely the reference to lac 'lake' that enables the spatiotemporal delimitation of the noun's (i.e. Lit.:'A true courage allows facing all the ordeals.'

Leaving aside the idea of spatiotemporal delimitation, and taking Kleiber's argument the other way round, we suggest that the partitioning of a mass referent is a necessary condition for a nonsubsective adjective to appear, this partitioning effect being due to the presence of NumP, as suggested by Borer (2005, Chapter 4). According to Borer, NumP 13 is fundamentally a partitioning projection; its effect is to divide nouns, which primarily denote mass entities, into individuals, thus enabling the identification of particular occurrences of a given mass noun. In the cases under examination here, the occurrence of the mass noun distinguished by NumP is then given a particular qualitative feature by the adjective, giving rise to a referent distinct from that which is referred to by the unmodified noun. Still following Borer's analysis, we can consider that the indefinite singular article, which has both a dividing and a counting function, by contrast with other numerals, is generated under NumP and moved to the position of quantifiers, #P. On the other hand, Cinque (2010) suggests that weak indefinites merge under a specific projection labelled dP, which is inserted between the FPs of direct and indirect modification.

Taking both analyzes into account, we suggest that un(e) is generated under NumP and moved to dP, as in ( 70 Finally, the above analysis raises the question of the status of the partitive article. As we have seen above, this determiner appears with activity and quality nominals in two cases: when they are unmodified or when they are associated with taxonomic / subsective adjectives.

The major morphosyntactic peculiarity of the partitive lies in the fact that it is made up of two parts:

de, originally a preposition (see [START_REF] Carlier | From preposition to article: the grammaticalization of the French partitive[END_REF], which is considered as a quantifier by [START_REF] Kupferman | Le mot de: domaines propositionnels et domaines quantificationnels[END_REF] and [START_REF] Zribi-Hertz | Pour une analyse unitaire de DE partitif[END_REF], and a definite article, la in the feminine and le in the masculine, de+le being expressed as du 14 . Following Kupferman, and in the terms of our analysis, let us assume that de, as a quantifier, merges under dP. Now, despite the fact that le / la have the form of definite articles, they cannot allow such an analysis when they occur in partitives, which are indefinites 15 . One possible interpretation is that they are gender markers since, in French, in contrast to Italian or Spanish, for example, nouns do not exhibit gender marking, gender being only expressed by the article form in the singular. As such, they could merge under ClassP, and then move to dP, giving rise to the partitive, as shown below ( 72

CONCLUSION

In this article, we have argued that an accurate description of French modified abstract nouns such as quality and activity nominals must rely on the interaction between the presence of NumP, dP and the positions of adjectival projections in the functional structure of the noun.

We first showed that qualifying modification, whether direct or indirect in Cinque's (2010) terms, occurs only if the nouns exhibit number inflection, that is, when NumP is present in the functional nominal structure. Since NumP is restricted to activity and quality nominals with a specific interpretation, that is, to nouns occurring in non-generic and non-incorporated contexts, qualifying modification is restricted to such uses.

In contrast, taxonomic modification, which corresponds to the expression of subkinds, is independent of the presence of NumP and does not rely on the interpretation the quality and activity nominals receive. To account for these distributional properties, we hypothesize that, whereas taxonomically used adjectives select the nominal projection ClassP, qualifying adjectives necessarily select NumPs as their complements.

Yet activity and quality nominals also accept direct and indirect qualifying modification while keeping their eventive interpretation, provided they are introduced by the singular indefinite article instead of the partitive. Elaborating on [START_REF] Borer | Structuring Sense, volume I: In Name Only[END_REF] analysis, we propose that the indefinite un(e), which merges under NumP, allows partitioning of the mass referent. In this case, the adjective qualifies the instance of the noun distinguished by the means of un(e).

A final desirable consequence of the analysis proposed here is that no special stipulation is needed to account for the behaviour of quality and activity nominals with regards to modification, since it arises from independent adjectival (i.e. taxonomic vs. qualifying reading) and nominal (i.e. the mass / count distinction) properties.

  such as gracieuse and épuisante, the first hypothesis is that they are indirect modifiers. However, several facts prevent such an analysis. First, these adjectives can also occur prenominally (see (28)), a property characteristic of direct modification:

  Consider the representation in (36), from[START_REF] Cinque | The syntax of adjectives: a comparative study[END_REF], which illustrates the basic ordering of adjectival projections (the FP have been numbered to facilitate reference, I.M. and D.M. standing for 'indirect modification' and 'direct modification' respectively): suggest that NumP is in fact inserted in the above structure under FP4, and that FPs hosting taxonomic modification merge between NumP and ClassP in the case of activity nominals (the projections of indirect modification have been omitted in (37

  dry' cannot be modified by an adverb, and has no predicative use. It is also semantically different from léger in (10), in that it enables reference to a subkind of the noun it modifies or to members of this subkind, that is un gâteau sec 'a biscuit'. Taxonomic adjectives thus qualify as subsective modifiers.However, the examples in (11) are not syntactically ill-formed. Rather, the adjective is possible in predicative use provided it is understood as denoting a (accidental) property of a given cake (e.g. a stale cake), and not as a type of cake. This example shows that 'taxonomic' and 'qualifying' should not be understood as referring to adjective classes. Rather, they describe adjective uses, since

		a	cake	(very) light
		'a (very) light cake'
		b. Ce gâteau est (très) léger.
		this cake	is	(very) light
		'This cake is (very) light.'
	(11) a. un gâteau (*très) sec
		a	cake	(very)	dry
		Lit.: 'a dry cake' (i.e. a biscuit)
	≠	b. Ce gâteau est (*très) sec.
		this cake	is	(very)	dry
		Lit.: 'This cake is (*very) dry.'

. In the first type, adjectives used as qualifying modifiers express an extra property of the noun and accept predicative use and adverbial modification, as in example (10). In the other kind of modification, 'taxonomic' adjectives refer to subkinds of the head noun, can only be used attributively and cannot be modified by adverbs (11). The following examples illustrate the difference between these uses with contrasting interpretations: (10) a. un gâteau (très) léger In examples (10), the adjective léger 'light' can be modified by an adverb and exhibits predicative use. Semantically, it expresses an 'accidental' property of a cake individual. In (11), conversely, the adjective sec 'adjectives generally exhibit both behaviours (see McNally & Boleda 2004; Knittel 2005 for similar observations about relational adjectives).

  Recall from section 2.2. that qualifying modification is possible only for activity nominals that display number inflection, that is, if NumP is present in the DP structure; in contrast, taxonomic modification is independent of NumP.To account for this variation, we hypothesize that the projections hosting qualifying adjectives merge above NumP, whereas those hosting taxonomic adjectives merge above ClassP. More precisely, we claim that the projections of adjectives in qualifying use syntactically select NumP as their complement, whereas those of adjectives in taxonomic use select ClassP as their complement.

								13
	(25) 2.3.2. Adjective attachment DP b. Taxonomic modification: (29) a. Qualifying modification: b. *Elle a exécuté une danse gracieuse Qual orientale Tax .
	she has	D' performed DP DP a		dance	graceful	oriental
	D (31) a. Ils ont participé à une marche NumP D' D'	rapide Tax épuisante Qual .
	D D they have taken part	FP FP	Num' to a	walk	fast	exhausting
	Num Lit.: 'They took part in an exhausting fast walk.' ClassP AdjP F' F'
	[+Pl] F b. *Ils ont participé à une marche épuisante Qual rapide Tax . Class' F ClassP FP
	they have taken part		to a	walk	exhausting fast
								AdjP	Class vP F'
	These examples reveal that taxonomic adjectives necessarily occur closer to nouns than qualifying
			la	rapide		marche F	v' NumP
	v If we adopt Cinque's (2010) hypothesis that AdjPs are merged in the specifiers of F(unctional)Ps, NP la orientale danse les marches i rapides t i
	the resulting representations are: les danses i	gracieuses	t i
	les (27) a. Qualifying modification:	voyages i	t i	t i
	les b. Taxonomic modification: DP	danses i	t i	t i
				D' DP
	(26)	D {some / a}	DP (*oriental ) FP D'	dance	(oriental)
	b.	D' AdjP {de la / une} (*rapide) marche F' D FP	(rapide)
	D {some / a} (32) a. Du ski alpin ClassP (*fast)	F F'	walk	NumP (fast)
	Class' une (gracieuse) danse (gracieuse) PART.ART.MASC ski c. alpine a (graceful) dance (graceful) F FP 'alpine skiing'	Num'
	Class une (épuisante) marche (épuisante) vP Num [+Pl] ClassP AdjP F' b. *Ce ski est alpin d.
	a this skiing	les longues (exhausting) is alpine	walk	v' (exhausting) marches i F	t i ClassP
	v danses i Consequently, like in Cinque's (2010) analysis, we consider that the FPs hosting adjectives are NP les gracieuses t i la marche i rapide t i c. De la pêche sous-marine
	la marche i dominated by other FPs to which the ClassP / NumP is moved: t i t i la danse i orientale t i PART.ART.FEM fishing underwater
	la danse i 'underwater fishing'			t i	t i
	Consider now examples (30-31): d. *Cette pêche est sous-marine
	(30) a. Elle a exécuté this fishing is	une danse orientale Tax gracieuse Qual . underwater
	she	has	performed		a	dance	oriental	graceful
	'She performed a graceful oriental dance.'

Since adjectives such as rapide 'fast' and orientale 'oriental' necessarily appear postnominally (28ab), and that fatiguante 'tiring' and gracieuse 'graceful' can also occur in this position (28c-d), we need to account for their placement.

(28) a.

{de la / une} (*orientale) danse (orientale)

adjectives. This adjacency requirement is in fact described by

[START_REF] Sproat | The cross-linguistic distribution of adjective ordering restrictions[END_REF]

and Cinque (2010), who rely on similar examples to distinguish direct from indirect adjectival modification.

According to these authors, adjectives pertaining to direct modification occur closer to the noun than those expressing indirect modification. They also exhibit various properties that are reminiscent of those displayed by the taxonomic adjectives described above. In particular, they may lack predicative use, which is also a property of taxonomic adjectives (11). The following examples illustrate this fact with activity nominals:

  The above observations enable us to draw the conclusion that the taxonomic vs. qualifying contrast does not parallel the direct vs. indirect opposition put forward by[START_REF] Sproat | The cross-linguistic distribution of adjective ordering restrictions[END_REF] and Cinque

	35) {une / *de la}	danse {gracieuse / remarquable / inattendue}
	{a / *PART.ART.FEM} dance	{graceful /	remarkable /	unexpected}
	'a dance {graceful / remarkable / unexpected}'

(2010); rather, if taxonomic adjectives qualify as direct modifiers, qualifying adjectives may be either direct or indirect modifiers. Consequently, the presence vs. absence of NumP is not the appropriate criterion for opposing direct vs. indirect modification. Rather, as shown by (

  [START_REF] Flaux | Les noms en français: esquisse de classement[END_REF], we also include nouns from which adjectives can be morphologically built (38d) in this class, since both types refer to properties: the same contexts as their mass equivalents. Moreover, they do not pluralize (50). The presence of un(e) is actually a syntactic reflex of the presence of a modifier, as shown by the fact that this article cannot be used to introduce an unmodified quality nominal (51):

	activities, it can only receive a temporal (longtemps 'for a long time') or habitual (souvent 'often') b. Max a commis deux impudences. (46) ??Du courage a été montré par Marie.
	interpretation (41) 8 : Max has committed two PART.ART.MASC courage has	imprudences. been shown	by	Mary
	(38) a. agressivité N / (40) a. beaucoup de {courage / patience / éloquence / imprudence} agressif Adj b. clarté N / clair Adj Lit.: 'Max committed two imprudences.' (i.e. two imprudent acts) Lit.: '(Some) courage has been shown by Mary.'
	'aggressiveness' / 'brutal'; 'aggressive' a lot of {courage / patience / (43) a. Zoé a manifesté de la méchanceté. 'brightness' / 'bright' eloquence / imprudence} 3.2. Modification of quality nominals (50) *Zoé a montré {des / deux / plusieurs} très grandes gentillesses.
	c. imprudence N / imprudent Adj 'a lot of {courage / patience / eloquence / imprudence}' d. courage N / courageux Adj Zoé has exhibited PART.ART.FEM wickedness In the literature, it is reported (Van de Velde 1995; Flaux & Van de Velde 2000; Beauseroy & has shown {INDEF.PL / two / several} very great kindnesses.'
	'imprudence'/ 'imprudent' = b. être très {courageux / patient / éloquent / imprudent} courage / 'Zoé has exhibited (some) wickedness.' Knittel 2007) that quality nominals do not accept modification when introduced by partitive 'courageous', 'brave' Lit.: 'Zoé has shown {some / two / several} very great kindnesses.'
	Like activity nominals, quality nominals frequently occur as objects of light verbs: to be very {brave / patient / eloquent / imprudent} b. Zoé a proféré plusieurs méchancetés. articles, that is, in their mass use. Instead, when such nominals appear with adjectival modification, (51) *Elle a montré un courage.
	(39) a. Paul {a / possède} 'to be very {brave / patient / eloquent / imprudent}' une grande sensibilité. Zoe has uttered several wickednesses the indefinite article un(e) 'a', must be used (47). The same holds true when a relative clause or a she has shown a courage
	Paul {has / possesses} ≠ c. être {souvent / longtemps} {courageux / patient / éloquent / imprudent} a great sensitivity Lit.: 'Zoe uttered several wickednesses.' (i.e. several wicked, nasty things) bare complement appears with the quality nominal (48-49).
	Lit.: 'Paul {has / possesses} a great sensitivity.' to be {often / for a long time} {brave / patient / eloquent / (44) a. Paul a montré de la négligence. (47) a. Ce professeur a {*de la / une} patience extraordinaire. imprudent}
	b. Elle {montre / fait preuve de / Paul has shown PART.ART.FEM 'to be {brave / patient / eloquent /imprudent} {often / for a long time}' témoigne de} beaucoup de prudence. carelessness this teacher has {PART.ART.FEM / a} patience extraordinary
	she (41) a. beaucoup de {danse / patinage / ski / {exhibits / shows (evidence of ) / demonstrates of} a lot marche} 'Paul has shown (some) carelessness.' Lit.: 'This teacher has an extraordinary patience.'	of prudence.
	a lot b. Les négligences de Paul of {dancing / skating / ont été critiquées. skiing / walking} b. Zoé a manifesté {*de la / une} très grande gentillesse.
	the 'a lot of {dancing / skating / skiing / walking}' carelessnesses of Paul have been criticized has shown {PART.ART.FEM / a} very great kindness.
	= b. {danser / patiner / skier / marcher} {souvent / longtemps} Lit.: 'Zoe has shown a very great kindness.'
	{to dance / to skate / Max a montré	to ski / {*de la /	to walk} une}	{often / méchanceté diabolique for a long time}	envers Marie.
	'{to dance / to skate / to ski / to walk}{often / for a long time}' Max has shown {PART.ART.FEM / a} wickedness devil-like	towards Mary
	Zoe has ≠ c. {danser / patiner / skier / marcher} intensément {recovered / lost} patience Lit.: 'Max has shown a devil-like wickedness towards Mary.'
	'Zoe has {recovered / lost} (her) patience.' {to dance / to skate / to ski / to walk} intensely (48) Zoé a montré {*de la / une} subtilité	[qui nous a	impressionnés] Rel .
	The nominals under investigation here are those that display aspectual properties; i.e., they share the '{to dance / to skate / to ski / to walk} intensely' and cannot be separated from the light verb on which they depend by passivation: Zoe has shown {PART.ART.FEM / a} shrewdness [that us has impressed]
	aspectual properties of the predicate to which they are related. Since they are paired with adjectival Finally, like activity nominals, quality nominals are mass nouns; however, some also have a count (45) a. Il n' a pas montré de courage. Zoe has shown a shrewdness [that impressed us].
	predicates, which are stative, they also refer to states (Beauseroy 2009). Consequently, they lack use in which they refer to concrete or abstract manifestations of quality (Van de Velde 1995, Flaux he Neg-has not shown PART.ART.MASC courage (49) Il a {*de la / une} patience d' ange.
	temporal span, and can only vary in intensity (Van de Velde 1995; Flaux & Van de Velde 2000). & Van de Velde 2000, Beauseroy 2009), as shown by the (b) examples (42-44): 'He did not show courage.' he has {PART.ART.FEM / a} patience of angel
	This is shown by the fact that, when modifying a quality nominal, beaucoup 'much' can only have (42) a. Max a montré de l' imprudence. ≠ b. Il y a du courage qu' il n' a pas montré. Lit.: 'He's got a patience of angel.'
	Max has	shown	PART.ART.FEM	imprudence
	'Max has shown (some) imprudence.'

'She {exhibits / shows (evidence of) / demonstrates} a lot of prudence.' c. Cela lui a (re)donné de la combativité.

this him has (again)given PART.ART.FEM pugnacity 'This has {given him / restored his} fighting spirit.' d. Zoé a {repris / perdu} patience.

an intensive meaning

[START_REF] Obenauer | Une quantification non canonique : la "quantification à distance[END_REF]

, like très 'very' with the corresponding adjective (see (

40

)).

Conversely, when beaucoup modifies dynamic verbal or nominal predicates, such as those denoting Lit.: 'Paul's carelessnesses have been criticized.' (i.e. his careless acts)

Consequently, like in the case of activity nominals, we assume that quality nominals display NumP only in count use.

When in mass use, quality nominal can be considered as incorporated elements, in the same way as an activity nominal. The following examples show that they also take a narrow scope with negation, there is PART.ART.MASC courage that he Neg-has not shown

Lit.: 'There is some courage that he did not show.'

It should be noted that modified quality nominals introduced by un(e) still keep their abstract, property denotation, and do not refer to acts or words (see Section 4.1.). As a consequence, they appear in

Modified nominals introduced by the indefinite article

  The following examples show that quality nominals pass all these tests successfully:As we saw in the above sections, the partitive article is possible only with a reduced class of adjectives. Compare the following examples, in which the partitive article is unacceptable, to those The adjectives grand 'great', exceptionnelle 'exceptional' and incroyable 'incredible' have the same properties as those of examples(34)(35), where they modify count activity nominals. Apart from grand which is strictly prenominal, they may occur either pre-or postnominally, and have an intensive value. Thus, the primary reading of e.g. une incroyable stupidité 'an incredible stupidity' is not 'a stupidity that cannot be believed' but 'a great stupidity'. Consequently, they qualify as evaluative adjectives in[START_REF] Cinque | The syntax of adjectives: a comparative study[END_REF] terms, and deserve to be analyzed as direct modifiers. ) that méchanceté gratuite wickedness' can also be introduced by the partitive article, in this case referring to a previously established form of wickedness. When the indefinite is used instead of the partitive, the semantic difference lies in the fact that the adjective is used to qualify the wickedness exhibited in a particular situation, in other words, a particular

	(60)	DP -It is {navy blue / ultramarine blue / sky blue / ...}' 'Yannick practices a tasty cuisine'
	D' vs.:b.?? -De quelle {méchanceté / douceur / bonté / violence / ...} a-t-elle fait preuve? b. ...où l'on pratique une savoureuse cuisine de terroir
	D -of which In contrast, inespéré 'unexpected' and injustifié 'unjustified', which occur only postnominally and FP {wickedness / gentleness / goodness / violence / ...} has she shown ...where one practices a tasty cooking of country
	F' '-Which {wickedness / gentleness / goodness / violence / ...} did she show?' have no evaluative reading, qualify as indirect modifiers: '...where one practices a tasty traditional local cuisine'
	F Since quality nominals do not display natural / objective subclassification, in this case, only FP (64) a. Ils ont montré {un courage inespéré / une méchanceté gratuite} c. il a pratiqué {un sérieux décapage / un décapage sérieux}
	AdjP adjectives expressing an already recognized form of the property can allow a taxonomic, i.e. F' they have shown {a courage unexpected / a wickedness gratuitous} he has practised {a serious scouring / a scouring serious}
	(D.M.) subsective reading, and, consequently, accept the partitive article 10 . The reduced frequency of such F ClassP 'They have shown {an unexpected courage / a gratuitous wickedness}' Lit.: 'He undertook a serious scouring.' (i.e. a strong scouring)
	strings is thus explained, and accounts for the common judgement that these structures are ill-b. *Ils ont montré {un inespéré courage / une gratuite méchanceté} (66) a. Ce jeune homme [...] pratique une danse plutôt méconnue du grand
	formed.	de la violence i gratuite they have shown {an unexpected courage / this young man [...] practices a dance	t i a rather	gratuitous unknown	wickedness} of.the large
	(59) a. sa his/her 'his/her constant / deliberate wickedness' méchanceté {constante / délibérée} wickedness {constant / deliberate} de la gratitude i vraie However, another possible question is why such structures are frequently considered unacceptable. t i In our opinion, this may be due to the fact that, in contrast to activity nominals or simple nouns, quality nominals do not present natural (i.e. objective) subclasses. According to Flaux & Van de 4.3. in (53): (63) a. Il a montré {un / *du} public audience Lit.: 'This young man practices a dance (that is) rather unknown by a large audience.' b. Il y pratique un jardinage respectueux de la nature he there practice a gardening respectful of the Nature Recall from (53cinstance of wickedness. grand courage Lit.:'He practices there gardening respectful of Nature.'
	b. son Velde (2000, 77), qualities correspond to the final (i.e. lowest) elements of their taxonomy, and, as agressivité fréquente he has shown {a / *PART.ART.MASC} great Consequently, we can conclude that modification of quality nominals parallels modification of courage cf. c. *Il pratique {une méconnue danse / un respectueux jardinage}
	his/her ?? Quel courage as-tu? aggressivity frequent b. Elle a manifesté {une / *de la} accept the partitive article, and others that allow an evaluative reading and are only compatible with (61) patience exceptionnelle 'his/her frequent aggressivity' such, cannot be questioned by quel 'which': activity nominals; in both cases, we find direct modifiers with a taxonomic / subsective value that 'He has shown a great courage.' he practices {an unknown dance / a respectful gardening}
	c. la gentillesse de Paul dans le but d' amadouer Marie what courage have-you she has exhibited {a / *PART.ART.FEM} patience the indefinite un. However, only examples of evaluative adjectives modifying activity nominals exceptional
	the kindness Lit.: 'What (kind of) courage do you have?' of Paul in order to coax 'She has shown an exceptional patience.' have been provided until now. Since evaluative (63), as well as indirect modifiers (64), are able to Mary
		Lit.: 'Paul's kindness in order to coax Mary'
	In our view, this property is inherited from the corresponding adjectives, which do not allow c. Tu as fait preuve {d'une / *d'} incroyable stupidité modify quality nominals in mass use, the same should be true for nouns denoting activities. The
	d. sa	patience pendant tout le	voyage
	subclassification, in contrast to colour adjectives, for example (62a): you have exhibited {of a / *of} incredible stupidity following examples (from a daily local newspaper and the Internet 'France' pages) show that this is
	his/her patience 'his/her patience for the whole trip' for all (62) a. -De quel bleu est ta nouvelle voiture ? the trip 'You have shown incredible stupidity.' indeed the case. Note that savoureuse 'tasty' (65), as a direct modifier, occurs either pre-or
	Consequently, we suggest that quality nominals, like activity nominals, merge under a ClassP -of which blue is your new car postnominally, and generally means 'very good' rather than 'that has a lot of (good or bad) taste'.
	dominating a vP projection: -Elle est {bleu marine / bleu outremer / bleu azur / ...} Examples (66) are cases of indirect modification.
		-it	is	{blue navy /	blue ultramarine / blue sky / ...}
		'-Which blue is your new car? Yannick practices a cooking tasty

(65) a. Yannick pratique une cuisine savoureuse.

  ) (see also Van de Velde 1995, Flaux & Van de Velde 2000, Beauseroy & Knittel 2007, Beauseroy 2009):

	(68) Notre concierge manifestait une grande éloquence
	our	concierge	exhibited	a	great	eloquence

ENDNOTES

1 Some nouns can be preceded by a definite article in such contexts; in these cases, the sentences can exhibit telic aspect, depending on the noun: (i) J'ai fait {le ménage / la lessive / la vaisselle} en dix minutes.

I have done {the housework / the laundry / the dishes} in ten minutes 'I did {the housework / the laundry / the dishes} in ten minutes.'

(ii) J'ai fait {le ménage / la cuisine} pendant une heure.

I have done {the housework / the cooking} for one hour 'I did {the housework / the cooking} for one hour.'

2 'Taxonomic' is synonymous with [START_REF] Knittel | Some remarks on adjective placement in the French NP[END_REF] 'typifying', and corresponds roughly to the label 'classifying' used in [START_REF] Kupferman | Le mot de: domaines propositionnels et domaines quantificationnels[END_REF].

3 From a semantic point of view, danse in (17a) and marche in (17b) allow a resultative rather than an eventive reading. Yet, since they accept aspectual modification (cf. les marches régulières 'the regular walks'), they cannot be classified in [START_REF] Grimshaw | Argument structure[END_REF] 'result nominals' class. In (17c), the nouns are understood as the instruments required to practise the sport (moto, cheval) or artistic activity (piano). (2003). Consequently, we can hypothesize that the presence of the partitive article does not prevent incorporation in French, a situation reminiscent of Maori, where a particular determiner is used with incorporated nominals [START_REF] Polinsky | Maori he revisited[END_REF][START_REF] Chung | Restriction and saturation[END_REF]. 6 The possibility of taxonomic modification, as well as the presence of the partitive determiner discussed in section 2.2.2., shows that we are dealing with pseudo-incorporation (i.e. incorporation of maximal projections). See [START_REF] Massam | Pseudo-incorporation in Niuean[END_REF] for a discussion.

7 N to Num movement was originally proposed to account for the postnominal placement of adjectives [START_REF] Cinque | On the evidence for partial N movement in the Romance DP. Paths towards Universal Grammar: Studies in Honor of Richard[END_REF]) and noun complements [START_REF] Valois | The internal syntax of DP and adjective placement in French and English[END_REF] in Romance; when raising to Num, the noun would move over adjectives and complements, causing them to surface postnominally.

However, as observed by [START_REF] Lamarche | Problems for N°-movement to NumP[END_REF] and [START_REF] Laenzlinger | French adjective ordering: perspectives on DP-internal movement types[END_REF], this analysis is unable to account for the adjectives that surface both pre-and postnominally, since it would imply optional N movement. Moreover, as noted by Laenzlinger, an XP-movement accounts more accurately for cases such as (ii), where the adjective necessarily occurs after the noun's complement: 'He is often ill these days.' 48 9 As shown in (52b), the partitive article is not realized phonologically when it follows the preposition de 'of', due to the so-called 'cacophony rule' already observed by the Port-Royal grammarians in the 17th century (see [START_REF] Gross | Sur une règle de cacophonie[END_REF]. This prepositional de should not be confused with the reduced form of the partitive article, which also surfaces as de in (52d) due to negation (see note 3).

10 Modification of generics by such adjectives is possible, providing a further argument in favour of our analysis. However, since the partitive is generally impossible in subject position, such strings are introduced by the definite article:

(i) La vraie gratitude est rare.

the true gratitude is rare 'True gratitude is rare.'

11 Our translation of lecture individualisante.

12 We thank the anonymous reviewer of Studia Linguistica for having pointed this out. 13 Borer labels this projection CLP.

14 de also enters in the plural indefinite article form, which is realized as des in the unmarked cases.

This form can be accounted for by considering that de is combined with the plural marker -s merged under NumP and moved to dP, the gender marker generally being neutralized in the plural forms of French determiners.

15 For the string de+la in a sentence such as (i), there are two different underlying structures, distinguished by their interpretations:

(i) J'ai mangé de la glace (a) I ate some ice cream.

(b) I ate some (part of) the ice cream.

The partitive article proper only occurs in the structure corresponding to the (a) reading. When (i) receives the (b) reading, la is a definite determiner, and alternates with other determiners: 'j'ai