The Big Mess Construction
Link to pdf of paper
Proceedings of LFG14; CSLI Publications On-line
Abstract
An LFG treatment is proposed for the 'Big Mess' construction in English, in which under certain circumstances adjectival expressions appear before the determiner (as in 'that big a mess'), rather than in the normal position between the determiner and noun ('a very big mess', compare '*a that big mess'). Empirically, the analysis is superior in coverage to existing treatments.