LINGUIST List 22.5053 Wed Dec 14 2011 Books: Semantics/Syntax: Constantinescu Editor for this issue: Danniella Hornby <daniellalinguistlist.org> Links to the websites of all LINGUIST's supporting publishers are available at the end of this issue. Directory         1.     Mariëtte Bonenkamp , Gradability in the Nominal Domain: Constantinescu Message 1: Gradability in the Nominal Domain: Constantinescu Date: 12-Dec-2011 From: Mariëtte Bonenkamp <lotuu.nl> Subject: Gradability in the Nominal Domain: Constantinescu E-mail this message to a friend Title: Gradability in the Nominal Domain Series Title: LOT dissertation series Published: 2011 Publisher: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke - LOT                 http://www.lotpublications.nl/ Author: Camelia Constantinescu Paperback: ISBN: 9789460930720 Pages: Price: Europe EURO Abstract: This dissertation investigates whether and how gradability is manifested in the nominal domain, as well as the implications this has for theories of the representation of gradability.It is shown that the various gradability diagnostics proposed in the literature not only yield different results, but that they do not actually work as could be expected. In case after case, other factors turn out to underlie the noted effects: epistemicity and evidentiality (cf. the epistemic verb seem and real-type adjectives), the expression of a value judgment (e.g. N of an N constructions), the delineation of salient sub- kinds identifiable by natural consequences (cf. internal such) and abstract size modification (e.g. when a size adjective like big modifies a noun denoting an instance of a property or a set of individuals defined in terms of such an abstract object). Our investigation leads to the unexpected conclusion that there are no grammatical contexts in the nominal domain that are exclusively reserved for a particular class of nouns that could properly be called gradable. As a result, there is no motivation for postulating a degree structure in the syntactic representation of nouns. In addition, there are no expressions performing the type of semantic operations familiar from degree modification in the adjectival domain that would indicate the existence of a grammatically accessible gradable structure in the semantics of nouns at the lexical level. The tale of this dissertation is therefore a cautionary one: arguments to reduce gradability in the nominal and in the adjectival domain to the same phenomenon are misguided. This study shows the importance of a cross-categorial perspective for a better understanding of gradability. It is of interest to a general syntactic and semantic readership. Linguistic Field(s): Semantics                             Syntax Written In: English (eng ) See this book announcement on our website: http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=58602 Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue -------------------------- Major Supporters -------------------------- Brill http://www.brill.nl Cambridge Scholars Publishing http://www.c-s-p.org Cambridge University Press http://us.cambridge.org Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/ Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd http://www.continuumbooks.com De Gruyter Mouton http://www.degruyter.com/mouton Edinburgh University Press http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/ Elsevier Ltd http://www.elsevier.com/linguistics Emerald Group Publishing Limited http://www.emeraldinsight.com/ Equinox Publishing Ltd http://www.equinoxpub.com/ European Language Resources Association - ELRA http://www.elra.info. Georgetown University Press http://www.press.georgetown.edu Hodder Education http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/ Lincom GmbH http://www.lincom.eu MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/ Morgan & Claypool Publishers Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/ Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/ Oxford University Press http://www.oup.com/us Palgrave Macmillan http://www.palgrave.com Pearson Linguistics http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/linguistics Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com Rodopi http://www.rodopi.nl/ Routledge (Taylor and Francis) http://www.routledge.com/ Springer http://www.springer.com University of Toronto Press http://www.utpjournals.com/ Wiley-Blackwell http://www.wiley.com ---------------------- Other Supporting Publishers ---------------------- Association of Editors of the Journal of Portuguese Linguistics http://www.fl.ul.pt/revistas/JPL/JPLweb.htm Graduate Linguistic Students' Association, Umass http://glsa.hypermart.net/ International Pragmatics Assoc. http://www.ipra.be Linguistic Association of Finland http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/ Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke - LOT http://www.lotpublications.nl/ Pacific Linguistics http://pacling.anu.edu.au/ SIL International http://www.ethnologue.com/bookstore.asp University of Nebraska Press Utrecht institute of Linguistics http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/ Page Updated: 14-Dec-2011       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.