Quantity and gradability across categories  

Oleh:

Bochnak, M. Ryan

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 251-268.
Topik: ENGLISH LANGUAGE STRUCTURE; gradability; scale structure; part structure; event structure
Fulltext: 251-168.pdf (150.54KB)

Isi artikel

This paper proposes a unified analysis of scalar modifiers across the adjectival, nominal and verbal domains, with a special focus on the proportional modifier half in English. I claim that half has a scalar meaning in all the environments in which it appears. Specifically, I show that in partitive and event-modifying uses, half targets a QUANTITY-based scale whose scale structure crucially depends on the part structure of a nominal argument, just like many adjectival cases. To formalize the analysis, I extend the degree-based analysis of Kennedy & McNally (2005) for gradable adjectives to partitives and VPs headed by incremental theme verbs, with some discussion of compounding uses of half with both nouns and verbs.

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