Langages - Année 1997 - Volume 31 - Numéro 126 - Pages 39-59We investigate certain syntactic properties of French non-predicative denominal adjectives. These properties are correlated either to the argumentai fonction of the adjective — the adjective is an equivalent for an essential prepositional complement of the noun — or to its classifying interpretation inside the noun phrase. For some adjectives, we follow the hypothesis of an elementary structure that would comprise a nominal support such as ~~nature, order, type~~, etc. These analyses are used for a classification of the compound entries ~~noun adjective~~ of an electronic dictionary. But the pattern ~~noun adjective~~ is so productive that general interpretation rules will be necessary for the phrases not included in the dictionary. 21 pages Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.