Seuren/Rullmann ambiguities as plural comparisons  

Oleh:

Beck, Sigrid

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: Proceedings of the 20th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, held at Vancouver, British Colombia, April 29 - May 1, 2010, page 428–450.
Topik: English language; comparatives; plurals; questionnaire study
Fulltext: 428-450.pdf (203.06KB)

Isi artikel

This paper reexamines ambiguous comparatives of a kind made famous in Rullmann’s (1995) dissertation, e.g. The helicopter was flying less high than a plane can fly. There is some disagreement in the semantic literature regarding whether the ambiguity is limited to less or also shows up in more-comparatives. Accordingly, the analyses suggested differ substantially, ranging from structural to pragmatic. My primary goal is to provide a more solid empirical basis for building semantic theories of the phenomenon. I report the results from a series of questionnaire studies that show (i) that the difference between more- and less-comparatives is not clear cut, and (ii) that we need to make more fine-grained distinctions among less-comparatives. I propose an analysis in terms of plural predication that captures the major effects found in the studies, and I begin to approach the more subtle data points.

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