rett 2008 thesis

240 Pages·2008·0.77 MB·English

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Degree Modification in Natural Language
Jessica Rett
ADissertationsubmittedtotheGraduateSchool-NewBrunswick
Rutgers,TheStateUniversityofNewJerseyinpartialfulfillmentof
therequirementsforthedegreeofDoctorofPhilosophy
GraduatePrograminLinguistics,writtenunderthedirectionof
RogerSchwarzschildandapprovedby:
RogerSchwarzschild
MarkC.Baker
VeneetaDayal
AngelikaKratzer
October2008

.
Languageismymother,myfather,myhusband,mybrother,mysister,mywhore,my
mistress,mycheckoutgirl. Languageisacomplimentarymoistlemon-scentedcleansing
squareorhandyfreshen-upwipette. LanguageisthebreathofGod. Languageisthedew
onafreshapple. [...] Languageisthecreakonastair;it’sasplutteringmatchheldtoa
frostedpane;it’sahalf-rememberedchildhoodbirthdayparty;it’sthewarm,wet,
trustingtouchofaleakingnappy;thehulkofacharredpanzer;theundersideofagranite
boulder;thefirstdownygrowthontheupperlipofaMediterraneangirl;it’scobwebs
longsinceoverrunbyanoldWellingtonboot.
–StephenFry,ABitofFryandLaurie
Abstract
Thisdissertationisastudyoftherolesplayedbydegreemodifiers–functionsfrom
sets of degrees to sets of degrees – across different constructions and languages.
The immediate goal of such a project is a better understanding of the distribution
of these morphemes and how they contribute to the meaning of an expression.
Morebroadly, astudyof the semanticsofdegree modifiersisofinterest becauseit
helpsdemonstrateparallelsbetweenthedegreeandindividualdomains.
Chapter 1 introduces the assumptions made and practices followed in the dis-
sertation. Chapter 2 presents a first study of degree modification: ‘m-words,’ a
term I use to refer to many, much, few, little, and their cross-linguistic counterparts.
Iarguethattheyarefunctionsfromasetofdegreestoitsmeasure. Thischaracteri-
zationisbasedonaccountsofm-wordsasdifferentialsincomparatives;Iextendit
to other occurrences of m-words, e.g. as they occur pre-nominally and in quantity
questionsinBalkanlanguages.
Chapter 3 broadens the study of degree modifiers to the semantic property
‘evaluativity’. A construction is evaluative if it refers to a degree that exceeds a
standard, as in John is tall. I argue that evaluativity is encoded in the null de-
gree modifier ‘EVAL,’ a function from a set of degrees to those which exceed a
contextually-valued standard. Evidence for this approach is the occurrence of
i
evaluativity in expressions with and without degree quantifiers (pace ‘POS’ ap-
proaches). Iextendtheaccounttoawidevarietyofevaluativeandnon-evaluative
constructions.
Chapter 4 begins as an extension of Chapter 3: it is a study of exclamatives
(likeBoy,howverytallJohnis!),whichseemtobeevaluative. Addressingthisissue,
I argue, requires characterizing the content of exclamatives as degree properties.
Intheend,suchanaccountsuggeststhatthescopeofdegreemodificationextends
beyondcanonicaldegreeconstructions.
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Acknowledgements
Roger Schwarzschild’s knowledge and patience has had a significant impact
.on every page of this dissertation, and I am indebted above all to him. He has
encouraged me, educated me, glowered at me and cracked me up. If they made
LinguistActionFigures,hiswouldbeacollector’sitem. ¿QuienVive? ¡KwaRoj!
I am very fortunate to have the committee I do. I have learned from Veneeta
Dayal constantly and reliably. My work as a semanticist wouldn’t have left the
ground if it hadn’t been for the impromptu private Montague Grammar lessons
she was willing to give me. Mark Baker has been on the committee of every pa-
perI’vewritteningraduateschool,andhehasthereforecontributedtoeverything
I’ve worked on in graduate school. He is the sort of scholar who can say some-
thing intelligent and helpful about anything. Finally, Angelika Kratzer has been
immensely supportive since the day I met her. My discussions with her about the
dissertation content have improved it immensely, and I hope to continue learning
fromher.
Ken Safir had the unenviable job of walking me through my first Qualifying
Paper, and I learned a lot from him as a result. I’m particularly indebted to him
for giving me the opportunity to work as his research assistant for the African
Anaphoraproject. JaneGrimshawhasalsobeenasourceofinspiration,charitable
funding opportunities, advice and ideas. Thanks as well to Bruce Tesar for em-
iii
ploying me as a research assistant for his and Alan Prince’s project “Algorithmic
LearningofPhonologies,”whereIlearnedagreatdealaboutOTandlearnability.
Thisdissertationhasbeenwellservedbypresentationsatanddiscussionswith
researchers from other universities. I have presented parts of this work at SALT
16 (University of Tokyo); SALT 17 (University of Connecticut); SALT 18 (Univer-
sity of Massachusetts, Amherst); at Princeton University; at a University of Mas-
sachusetts,Amherstcolloquiumandsemanticsseminar;atRoumyanaPancheva’s
University of Southern California semantics seminar; at a UCLA colloquium and
Syntax/Semantics Reading Group; and at various venues at Rutgers University.
Here and elsewhere, I have benefitted especially from discussions with Ron Art-
stein, Chris Barker, Jonathan Bobaljik, Daniel Bu¨ring, Gennaro Chierchia, Ileana
Comorovski, Viviane De´prez, Danny Fox, Irene Heim, Hans Kamp, David Ka-
plan, Chris Kennedy, Nathan Klinedinst, Roumyana Pancheva, Chris Potts, Mari-
belRomero,KjellJohanSæbø,BarryScheinandBernardSchwartz.
Thanks to Adrian Brasoveanu, Oana Ciucivara and Ileana Comorovski for Ro-
manian judgments; Viviane De´prez for French judgments; Slavica Kochovska and
IgorKochovskiforMacedonianjudgments;RoumyanaPanchevaandLjubaVeseli-
nova for Bulgarian judgments; and Flavia Adani and Ilaria Frana for Italian judg-
ments. Thanks to the Rutgers Graduate School for a final year of dissertation re-
searchthroughtheBevierFellowship,aswellasseveraltravelandresearchgrants.
I can’t imagine a community more supportive than the Interdisciplinary Re-
searchinSemanticsatRutgersgroup,whichhasbeennourishedbothliterallyand
figuratively as a result of Ernie Lepore’s compassionate work with and for grad-
uate students. I’d like to thank related faculty for their roles in this community:
Maria Bittner in Linguistics, Ken Shan and Matthew Stone in Computer Science
and Jeff King and Jason Stanley in Philosophy. I’d also like to thank the graduate
studentsIhadtheprivilegeoflearningaboutlanguagewith: DanielAltshuler,Josh
iv
Armstrong, Adrian Brasoveanu, Sam Cumming, Maia Duguine Haristoy, Carlos
Fasola, Gabe Greenberg, Slavica Kochovska, Michael Johnson, Karen Lewis, Xiao
Li,SarahMurray,AngelPinillos,AdamSennetandWillStarr. Ihaveoftenreadthe
dissertationacknowledgementsofothersandmarveledthatsomanysmartpeople
wereonceallinoneplace. Iknowfuturestudentswillreactthesamewaytothese.
Iwouldn’thavebeenabletowritethisdissertationwithouttheemotionalsup-
portofseveralkeymentors. TeresaDelcorso,AssistantDeanforGraduateStudent
External Support, has been a great friend and mentor and I have learned as much
from her about academic rigor as from my advisors. Ernie Lepore has been ex-
tremely helpful in his own right, bending over backwards to help me in times of
need. PeterLudlow,too,hasbeenagreatfriend,advocateandadvisorthroughout
my career. The field of philosophy would be a more dismal place without the two
of them. Adrian Brasoveanu has set a great example for me as a semanticist and
has saved me and some analyses of mine from great peril on several occasions.
The time I spent with Alex Hughes has shaped me immensely as a person and
a scholar, and I am very happy to have known him. And Amy Burke has been
showingmeforalmost10yearsnowwhoIcouldbeifIwerealittlebitbetter.
Myparentshavebeenmybiggestfansmywholelife,whichhasgivenmepos-
sibly too much confidence and audacity, but which has also proven to be the most
valuableresourceIhave. Iwouldespeciallyliketothankmymotherfornotshow-
ing up at my dissertation defense with pom-poms and noise makers, but for quite
sincerely offering to do so. Thanks also to my brothers Doug and Adam, who are
taller and more supportive than called for. And my extended family the Jacksons
andtheCummingsfortheircaringandcarepackages.
Finally, I am indebted to Sam Cumming for making even the most obfuscated
clear and even the worst place to live quite livable. The dissertation and I would
bothbeamesswithouthim.
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CONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Theoreticalbackground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Degreesanddegreesemantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Technicalmatter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.3 Cross-domainparallels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2 Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2.1 Chapter2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2.2 Chapter3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.3 Chapter4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 M-wordsandDegreeModification 12
2.1 Previousaccountsofm-words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.1 M-wordsasquantificationaldeterminers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.1.2 M-wordsasgradablepredicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1.3 M-wordsinmore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.4 M-wordsasdifferentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.5 Asummaryofaccountsofm-words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2 M-wordsandquantumphrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2.1 Ambiguityinquantityquestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.2 EvidenceagainsttheDegreeDeterminerApproach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.2.3 Anullquantityoperator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.3 M-wordsasdegreemodifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
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2.3.1 Themeaningofm-words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.3.2 Prenominalm-words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.3.3 Otheraspectsofm-words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4 Romanianquantityquestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.4.1 MonomorphemicquantumphrasesinRomanian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.4.2 MultimorphemicquantumphrasesinRomanian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.5 Otherinstancesofm-words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.5.1 QuantityquestionsinEnglish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
2.5.2 Prenominalm-wordsandvanBenthem’sProblem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.5.3 M-wordsanddeterminers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.5.4 Wherem-wordscan’toccur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3 EvaluativityandDegreeModification 74
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.2 Evaluativityandthepositiveconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.3 Recastingthedistributionofevaluativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.4 ThedegreemodifierEVAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.4.1 EVALanditsdistribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.4.2 Polarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.4.3 Polar(in)-variance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.4.4 ThepositiveandMPconstructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.5 EVALandothercomparisonstrategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.5.1 Synthetic/analyticalternations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.5.2 Phrasal/clausalalternations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.5.3 M-wordalternations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
3.5.4 Indirectcomparatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
3.5.5 EVALandlesscomparatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
3.5.6 Localizingthecompetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
3.6 Themeaningoftheequative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.6.1 EVALandthe‘atleast’reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.6.2 Againstan‘atleast’meaningfortheequative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
3.6.3 Thesemanticcontributionofevaluativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
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