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Title:
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Degree Modification in Natural Language
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Author:
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Jessica Rett
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Homepage:
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http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~hughesj
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Degree Awarded:
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Rutgers University
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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2008
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Semantics
Syntax
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Director(s):
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Roger Schwarzschild
Mark Baker
Veneeta Dayal
Angelika Kratzer
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Abstract:
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This dissertation is a study of the roles played by degree modifiers - functions from sets of degree 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. More broadly, a study of the semantics of degree modifiers is of interest because it helps demonstrate parallels between the degree and individual domains.
Chapter 1 introduces the assumptions made and practices followed in the dissertation. 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. I argue that they are functions from a set of degrees to its measure. This characterization is based on accounts of m-words as differentials in comparatives; I extend it to other occurrences of m-words, e.g. as they occur pre-nominally and in quantity questions in Balkan languages.
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 degree 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 evaluativity in expressions with and without degree quantifiers (pace 'POS' approaches). I extend the account to a wide variety of evaluative and non-evaluative constructions.
Chapter 4 begins as an extension of Chapter 3: it is a study of exclamatives (like 'Boy, how very tall John is!'), which seem to be evaluative. Addressing this issue, I argue, requires characterizing the content of exclamatives as degree properties. In the end, such an account suggests that the scope of degree modification extends beyond canonical degree constructions.
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Page Updated: 26-Nov-2009
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