This subsection considers noun phrases in which the head noun is modified by more than one attributive adjective. Two cases can be distinguished, which will be referred to as coordination (or symmetric co-occurrence) and stacking (or asymmetric co-occurrence) of adjectives, respectively. In the case of coordination, the adjectives are coordinated by means of the coordinator en'and' or maar'but', as in (154). In the case of stacking, the adjectives are immediately adjacent to each other, as in (155); no conjunctions are involved.

The presence of the coordinators en and maar clearly signals that the examples in (154) involve coordination of the adjectives; the structure of example (154b), for instance, will therefore be approximately as given in (156a). The examples in (155), on the other hand, do not involve coordination, and the adjectives seem to stand in a hierarchical relation to each other; in (155b), for example, the adjective licht modifies the noun tent, and the adjective groot modifies the complex nominal projection lichte tent. The structure of this example (155b) is therefore approximately as given in (156b).

Semantically, the distinction between coordination and stacking is often not very clear. For instance, (154a) and (155a) seem to be more or less equivalent: both refer to a car that is both good and cheap. If we abstract away from the fact that the use of maar in (154b) suggests that being both big and light is unexpected for a tent, more or less the same seems to hold for (154b) and (155b): they both refer to a tent that is big and light.
      There are at least two arguments in favor of the proposed structural difference. The first argument involves the type of adjectives that can be combined. In (154), the coordinated adjectives all belong to the class of set-denoting adjectives. In (155c), on the other hand, the two adjectives belong to two different classes: the adjective klein'small' is a set-denoting adjective, whereas Amerikaans'American' is a relational adjective. If we coordinate these adjectives by means of the coordinator maar or en, as in (157), the result is unacceptable. Apparently, adjectives that belong to different classes cannot be coordinated, so (155c) must involve stacking.

Note, however, that some classes of relational adjectives have a tendency to shift their meaning in the direction of the set-denoting adjectives; cf. Section 1.3.3. It is therefore not really surprising that one occasionally encounters examples such as (158).

      The second argument involves context sensitive N-ellipsis; cf. Section 5.4, sub I. In (159), the noun phrases in the second conjunct are syntactically but not semantically reduced. Example (159a), for instance, expresses that Peter has bought a very bad cheap car, which indicates that [ e ] corresponds to the complex phrase goedkope auto and (159b) expresses that Peter has a white American car, which indicates that [ e ] corresponds to the complex phrase Amerikaanse auto 'American car' .

If the co-occurring adjectives in (159) were coordinated, these interpretations would be unexpected, as this would imply that N-ellipsis could affect subparts of a coordinated structure. And, indeed, this reduction is impossible if the coordinator en'and' is present: example (160) does not imply that Peter also has a cheap car, which shows that e corresponds to the nominal head auto only.

Cases that involve coordination of adjectives, such as (161a), should be distinguished from cases such as (161b) that involve coordination of noun phrases with backward conjunction reduction; cf. Section 5.4, sub I, example (129). Note that the examples in (161) are given as embedded clauses in order to avoid interference of clausal backward conjunction reduction, which would also delete the verb in clause-final position. The apparent similarity between the two constructions is due to the fact that in (161b) the head noun of the first conjunct is deleted under phonological identity with the noun of the second conjunct.

Constructions with adjectival coordination differ syntactically from conjunction reduction constructions, however, in that in the former case there is only one determiner present, whereas in the latter case there are two determiners present. The corresponding semantic difference is that (161a) expresses that Jan has a single car, which is both good and cheap, whereas (161b) expresses that Jan has two cars, one of which is good and one of which is cheap. This semantic difference can be readily demonstrated by means of the examples in (162): (162a) is unacceptable since one car cannot be both completely black and completely white; (162b) is fully acceptably given that there are two cars involved.

That the two constructions differ can also be made clear by replacing the conjunction en'and' by the contrastive coordinator maar'but'. This is possible with the symmetrically coordinated adjectives in (163a), but not with the conjunction-reduction construction in (163b). The reason why maar leads to an unacceptable result in the latter case is that this conjunction can normally not be used for coordinating noun phrases: Ik wil het meisje en/of/*maar de jongen bezoeken'I want to visit the girl and/or/*but the boy'.

The disjunctive coordinator of'or' can also be used to distinguish the two constructions. Example (164b) shows that this coordinator can be used in the conjunction-reduction construction, but not with coordinated adjectives. The reason why disjunction is not possible in (164a) is probably of a semantic or a pragmatic nature, as entities are generally not defined by means of a disjunction of properties.

Note, however, that the coordinator of can be used with coordinated adjectives if the speaker intends to correct himself. This is illustrated in (165), which is only acceptable if the marker beter gezegd, which indicates that we are dealing with a correction, is overtly expressed.

      The only overt syntactic sign of the distinction between the (a)- and (b)-examples in (161) to (164) is the presence or absence of the second article. Since the article is phonetically empty, ambiguity arises in examples such as (166a), in which we are dealing with an indefinite plural noun phrase: the structure in (166b) expresses that we are dealing with cars that are both cheap and economical, whereas the structure in (166b') expresses that we are dealing with cars, some of which are cheap and some of which are economical.

Example (157) in Section 5.5, sub I, has already shown that not all attributively used adjectives can be coordinated. The constraints on coordination seem to be semantic in nature and involve the distinction between the adjective types in (167); see Section 1.3 for a discussion of the semantic and syntactic motivation for making these distinctions.

      The examples above have already shown that set-denoting adjectives can be coordinated without any problem. It is not possible, however, to coordinate a set-denoting adjective and an adjective from one of the other adjective classes. This is illustrated in (168): (168a) involves coordination of a set-denoting and a relational (geographical) adjective, (168b) coordination of a set-denoting and an evaluative adjective, and (168c) coordination of a set-denoting and a modal adjective. The unacceptability of these examples suggests that coordinated adjectives must belong to the same class.

      It is not immediately clear whether it is possible to coordinate relational adjectives. An example such as (169a) seems acceptable but still seems somewhat marked compared to the backward conjunction-reduction construction in (169a'). Insofar as the examples are indeed both acceptable, they should still differ in the number of sets involved (one in (169a), but two in (169a')), but it is hard to test this prediction. The plural counterpart of these examples in (169b) is of course compatible with both analyses, and therefore does not shed new light on the issue.

Given the difficulty in interpreting these examples it might be better to restrict ourselves to cases in which the noun is singular, as in (170a&b). Although examples such as (170a) can readily be found on the internet, we judge them at least marked compared to backward conjunction-reduction constructions such as (170b).

The contrast we feel in (170) may have a morphological basis and be due to the fact that the intended reading of (170a) can be more readily obtained by using the adjectival compound Nederlands-Belgisch: De Nederlands-Belgische afvaardiging. This is even clearer in examples such as (171): coordination, as in (171a), gives rise to a clearly degraded result and the only way to express the intended interpretation “a tour both in America and in Europe" is by using the compound Amerikaans-Europees in (171b). For completeness’ sake, note that the compound status is clear from the fact illustrated in (171b') that the attributive e ending cannot be assigned to the first member of the adjective pair.

In other cases the impossibility of having coordinated relational adjectives may have a semantic basis: the degraded status of the examples in (172) can probably be attributed to the fact that the coordinated adjectives are from different semantic subclasses: (172a) involves coordination of a time and a geographical adjective, (172b) coordination of a “movement/trend" and a geographical adjective, and (172c) coordination of a substance and a geographical adjective.

      The evaluative adjectives in (173a) and the modal adjectives in (173b) are also difficult to coordinate, which may be due to the small number of adjectives that belong to these classes. The unacceptability of (173c) can again be attributed to the fact that it involves coordination of adjectives that belong to different semantic classes: vermeend is a modal and drommels is an evaluative adjective.

Whereas coordination requires that the adjectives belong to the same class, stacking of adjectives from the different semantic classes in (167) is possible. The following subsections discuss the possible combinations.