Lexeme equivalence or rivalry of lexemes?

This paper deals with the purported interchangeability between nouns and adjectives derived from nouns in French. The question of equivalence or rivalry between a morphologically complex adjective and a syntactic construction containing a morphologically-related noun links a field of studies on rivalry between inflected word forms, derivational suffixes or different syntactic constructions to express the same meaning. This paper then presents a corpus-based study of the relative distribution of nominal or adjectival realizations of a modifier of the same head noun and discusses some motivations that play a role in the choice of one or the other strategy.