Section 24.2, sub I, discussed adjectives taking a nominal complement and noted that the adjective with its nominal complement as a whole does not easily undergo topicalization. The examples in (89) and (90) illustrate this again for genitive and dative complements, respectively.

The degraded status of these examples is not due to a general prohibition of topicalization, since the primeless examples in (91) and (92), in which the noun phrase is stranded, are perfectly acceptable. The same is true of the primed examples in which the noun phrase is topicalized.

In the cases above, the noun phrases precede the clausal modifiers nietnot and zekercertainly, which shows that they have been moved leftward to an AP-external position. The instances in (93) and (94) show that the same is true in constructions without topicalization; since the noun phrases preferably precede the clausal modifier, the leftward movement is also strongly preferred in this case (although the effect seems less strong with zekercertainly in (93), especially when it is emphatically accented).

The data above suggests that the noun phrase cannot remain in its base position immediately to the left of the adjective. This conclusion is also supported by the position of the nominal complement relative to the adverbial modifier of the adjective. Since modifiers are more peripheral in the projection of the head than complements, we would expect that the nominal complement could be placed between the adverbial modifier and the adjective; cf. the discussion of (82). However, this leads to unacceptability, as can be seen in (95); the nominal complements must precede the modifier vreselijk/ergextremely/very.

We must conclude that nominal complements of adjectives cannot remain in their base position immediately to the left of the adjectival head, but must be moved leftward into some AP-external position. Why the noun phrase cannot remain in its base position is not clear at the moment.