On valency inheritance in syntactic derivation

In cases where adjectives are syntactically derived from nouns, the semantic valencies of the latter are inherited rarely and in a very limited way. Of special interest are cases where valency properties of the derived adjective cannot be considered as simply a subset of the respective properties of the base noun. This paper presents one of these cases: the Russian adjective protsentnyj which is a derivate of the noun protsent ‘per cent.’ We show that all three valencies of the original noun (Quantity, Part, Whole) are expressible with the adjective, but they are all expressed in a way different from the valency pattern of the noun. The valency of Quantity is instantiated by a composite construction (e.g. dvuxprotsentnyj ‘two per cent’). The valencies of Part and Whole may be instantiated by the noun for which the adjective is an attribute. In dvuxprotsentnyj jod ‘two per cent iodine’ jod ‘iodine’ is the Part, meaning that iodine makes up two per cent of the whole substance. In contrast, the noun moloko ‘milk’ in shestiprotsentnoe moloko ‘six percent milk’ is the Whole, meaning that the relevant component (fat) makes up six percent of milk. A more sophisticated way of instantiating the valencies of Part and Whole of the adjective is used in cases where the adjective acts as an attribute of a noun that has a semantic component ‘more’ or ‘less.’ A noun phrase like desjatiprotsentnyj rost investitsij ‘ten percent investment growth’ denotes such an investment growth in which the difference between the resulting and the initial value of investment is equal to ten percent of the initial value. All three valencies are optional and may remain unexpressed: pjatiprotsetnyj elektoral’nyj bar’er ‘a five percent electoral barrier’; protsentnaja stavka ‘interest rate.’