Pub Date : 2019-09-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0003
Alexis Wellwood
This chapter begins the book’s survey of non-canonical comparatives, and suggests a degree-based interpretation of the expression “much” which occurs implicitly as a morphosyntactic part of “more”, and explicitly in phrases like “as much” and “too much”. Focusing on comparatives targeting mass nouns like “mud” and atelic verb phrases like “run (in the park)”, a primary goal of this analysis is to capture both the variability and constraints (especially a hypothesized “monotonicity constraint”) on measure function selection in such cases. In line with the central thesis of the book, this chapter emphasizes the role that the order-theoretic properties (when present) of a predicate plays in fixing the available dimension(s) for comparison in a given nominal or verbal comparative. The success of this analysis suggests considering whether it can apply to the canonical comparatives, which is explored in the subsequent chapter.
这一章开始了本书对非规范比较级的调查，并提出了一种基于程度的表达“much”的解释，它隐含地作为“more”的形态句法部分，并明确地出现在“as much”和“too much”这样的短语中。本分析的主要目标是针对质量名词(如“mud”)和动态动词短语(如“run (in the park)”)的比较级，在这种情况下，捕获测量函数选择的可变性和约束(特别是假设的“单调性约束”)。与本书的中心论点一致，本章强调了谓语的顺序理论属性(当存在时)在固定可用维度(s)中起作用，以便在给定的名义或言语比较中进行比较。这一分析的成功意味着考虑它是否可以适用于规范比较，这将在后面的章节中探讨。
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Pub Date : 2019-09-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0007
Alexis Wellwood
For the most part, the book up until this point has focused on comparative constructions which, together, may be understood as the core, “regular” comparatives. Yet a variety of other types have been purported to exist. The goal of this chapter is to re-examine whether that purported variety should bear on the analysis of comparative morphology proposed in the book. Ultimately, the chapter concludes that there is at least a bifurcation in the data, but shows how the relevant distinctions can be accounted for based on an interaction between abstract syntax and “what is measured” in the two cases. In particular, the chapter suggests that while “regular” comparatives involve the measure and comparison of entities that are, for the most part, idiosyncratic to the lexical category targeted, “categorizing” comparatives involve comparing the extent to which a given predication is accurate.
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Pub Date : 2019-09-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0002
Alexis Wellwood
This chapter reviews the motivations (both conceptual and formal) for the degree-based analyses of comparatives generally, and in this way presents the basic details of the semantic framework that the book presupposes. In particular, this chapter establishes the vocabulary of measure functions, degrees, and scales, and sets up the book’s answer to the central question of which expressions introduce measure functions into the compositional semantics. By establishing the central distinction between “measurable” and “non-measurable” domains for predication, this chapter initiates the comparison between standard, lexically-based theories of degree introduction, from the book’s theory in which degrees are uniformly introduced by the comparative morphology itself.
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Pub Date : 2019-09-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0004
Alexis Wellwood
This chapter extends the theory developed in the previous chapter in which an expression like “much” (implicitly as part of “more”, explicitly as part of phrases like “too much” when combined with nouns and verbs) uniformly introduces measure functions into the compositional semantics of comparatives. The present focus is on adjectival comparatives, which are typically analyzed as involving lexical specification of measures by the adjectival target. Exploring both novel and familiar data, drawn from the morphosyntactic and semantic literatures, this chapter suggests that the balance of evidence diagnoses the relevance of order-theoretic properties at the lexical level rather than the presence of lexically-specified measures. The positive proposal offered is that adjectives express properties of states, and the distinction between gradable and non-gradable is on a par with that between mass and count nouns: the former introduce non-trivial ordering relations while the latter do not.
{"title":"Measuring states","authors":"Alexis Wellwood","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter extends the theory developed in the previous chapter in which an expression like “much” (implicitly as part of “more”, explicitly as part of phrases like “too much” when combined with nouns and verbs) uniformly introduces measure functions into the compositional semantics of comparatives. The present focus is on adjectival comparatives, which are typically analyzed as involving lexical specification of measures by the adjectival target. Exploring both novel and familiar data, drawn from the morphosyntactic and semantic literatures, this chapter suggests that the balance of evidence diagnoses the relevance of order-theoretic properties at the lexical level rather than the presence of lexically-specified measures. The positive proposal offered is that adjectives express properties of states, and the distinction between gradable and non-gradable is on a par with that between mass and count nouns: the former introduce non-trivial ordering relations while the latter do not.","PeriodicalId":348426,"journal":{"name":"The Meaning of More","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122054747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0006
Alexis Wellwood
While much of the tradition in degree semantics has focused on the distribution and interpretation of comparatives targeting adjectives, this chapter discusses a class of adjectival comparatives that appears to have gone unnoticed. That is, traditional accounts focus on the interpretation of phrases like “more patient”, while the present chapter considers how such phrases differ from minimally different targets like “patient more”. Probing the meaning of the latter sort of case, this chapter suggests an analysis in which they are interpreted rather like plural verbal comparatives—i.e., as comparisons between numbers of events. This proposal includes a novel approach to the distinction between stage-level and individual-level adjectival predications, such that the former allows for its (base) stative property to be mapped to a plurality of discrete (i.e., maximal and non-overlapping) occasions during which the relevant state(s) hold.
{"title":"Measuring occasions","authors":"Alexis Wellwood","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"While much of the tradition in degree semantics has focused on the distribution and interpretation of comparatives targeting adjectives, this chapter discusses a class of adjectival comparatives that appears to have gone unnoticed. That is, traditional accounts focus on the interpretation of phrases like “more patient”, while the present chapter considers how such phrases differ from minimally different targets like “patient more”. Probing the meaning of the latter sort of case, this chapter suggests an analysis in which they are interpreted rather like plural verbal comparatives—i.e., as comparisons between numbers of events. This proposal includes a novel approach to the distinction between stage-level and individual-level adjectival predications, such that the former allows for its (base) stative property to be mapped to a plurality of discrete (i.e., maximal and non-overlapping) occasions during which the relevant state(s) hold.","PeriodicalId":348426,"journal":{"name":"The Meaning of More","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128886680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0009
Alexis Wellwood
The preceding chapters of the book focused on the traditional sorts of data motivating formal semantic treatments of comparatives: productive patterns of inference, judgments of truth/falsity in context, etc. In this concluding chapter, the book connects the formal analysis with recent work in language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science more broadly. Considering a number of observations in linguistics, cognitive psychology, and cognitive development, the chapter considers how the formal theory can (or cannot) be leveraged in order to predict or explain such observations. The chapter argues that, even given the same foundational assumptions about how the formal theory relates to conceptualization, the uniform compositional theory of comparatives offered in the book provides the tools for better explanations of such data than its competitors. In the end, the chapter considers the prospects for resolving the indeterminacy of MUCH in terms of a domain-general concept of measurement.
{"title":"Beyond semantics","authors":"Alexis Wellwood","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"The preceding chapters of the book focused on the traditional sorts of data motivating formal semantic treatments of comparatives: productive patterns of inference, judgments of truth/falsity in context, etc. In this concluding chapter, the book connects the formal analysis with recent work in language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science more broadly. Considering a number of observations in linguistics, cognitive psychology, and cognitive development, the chapter considers how the formal theory can (or cannot) be leveraged in order to predict or explain such observations. The chapter argues that, even given the same foundational assumptions about how the formal theory relates to conceptualization, the uniform compositional theory of comparatives offered in the book provides the tools for better explanations of such data than its competitors. In the end, the chapter considers the prospects for resolving the indeterminacy of MUCH in terms of a domain-general concept of measurement.","PeriodicalId":348426,"journal":{"name":"The Meaning of More","volume":"26 11","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114017487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0008
Alexis Wellwood
This chapter considers how the compositional theory argued for in the preceding chapters might apply to a variety of additional cases where a lexical, degree-theoretic semantics has been proposed. For example, the analysis of attitude verbs like “to want”, nouns like “idiot”, and verbs like “to cool”. The chapter suggests that, rather than diagnosing scalar structure, the kinds of data motivating lexical degree-theoretic interpretation here should be understood as diagnostic of order-theoretic properties on the relevant expression’s domain of predication. Supporting the idea of a general recipe for how such cases should be addressed, the chapter raises theoretical questions like the following: do any lexical categories natively have a degree semantics? When is a degree-theoretic treatment appropriate? Should there be morphosyntactic requirements (e.g., overt or covert “much”) for an interpretation based on degrees, or not? What alternative analyses of extant cases are available?
{"title":"The limiting theory","authors":"Alexis Wellwood","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter considers how the compositional theory argued for in the preceding chapters might apply to a variety of additional cases where a lexical, degree-theoretic semantics has been proposed. For example, the analysis of attitude verbs like “to want”, nouns like “idiot”, and verbs like “to cool”. The chapter suggests that, rather than diagnosing scalar structure, the kinds of data motivating lexical degree-theoretic interpretation here should be understood as diagnostic of order-theoretic properties on the relevant expression’s domain of predication. Supporting the idea of a general recipe for how such cases should be addressed, the chapter raises theoretical questions like the following: do any lexical categories natively have a degree semantics? When is a degree-theoretic treatment appropriate? Should there be morphosyntactic requirements (e.g., overt or covert “much”) for an interpretation based on degrees, or not? What alternative analyses of extant cases are available?","PeriodicalId":348426,"journal":{"name":"The Meaning of More","volume":"347 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116316904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-26DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198804659.003.0005
Alexis Wellwood
The previous chapters have focused on the compositional semantics of comparatives targeting phrases relatively uninfluenced by the interpretive effects of functional morphology. This chapter focuses on comparatives that obligatorily interpreted as comparisons between numbers of things, and ties such an interpretation to the presence of plural-marking (explicitly in “chairs”, implicitly in “jump (up and down)”). Assuming that plural-marking broadly signals non-trivial ordering relations between pluralities, the chapter proposes that the restriction to number-based comparison in such cases is due to a stronger constraint on the selection of measure functions (i.e., invariance under automorphism) than has previously been supposed. This analysis involves rejecting the assumption that “many” in English pronounces a distinct lexical primitive from MUCH, and adduces independent evidence in support of this rejection.
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