LINGUIST List 10.572

Tue Apr 20 1999

Sum: Semantics of Adjectives

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

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  • Sanford Goldberg, Results on adj. such as 'big'

    Message 1: Results on adj. such as 'big'

     Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 09:24:59 -0500 (CDT)
    From: Sanford Goldberg <goldbergAC.GRIN.EDU>
    Subject: Results on adj. such as 'big'


    I posted a query on the LINGUIST web page concerning the semantics and mental representation of adjectives, such as 'big', whose semantic contribution depends on the noun it is modifying. (As illustration, a big mouse is smaller than a small car.) I want to report briefly on the results of my query.

    To begin, various linguists responded by producing no less than four distinct descriptions of such adjectives: the adjectives were described as "syncategorematic" (itself as sub-category of "non-intersective"), "gradable," "scalar," or "relative-to-noun."

    I found, too, that the literature on this topic is vast. There was some agreement that the locus classsicus on the topic is J.A.W. Kamp, "Two Theories of Adjectives," in Formal Semantics in Natural Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 123-55. More recent work included Bierwisch, Manfred, "The Semantics of Gradation," in Bierwisch, Manfred and Lang, Ewald (eds.), Dimensional Adjectives: Grammatical Structure and Conceptual Interpretation (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1989), pp. 71-261; Kaplan, Jeffrey, English Grammar: Principles and Facts (Prentice-Hall); Kamp, Hans and Partee, Barbara, "Prototype Theory and Compositionality," in Cognition 57; and Tobin, Yishai, "One Size does not Fit All: A Semantic Analysis of Small/Large vs. Little/Big," originally presented as a plenary lecture at the European Linguistic Society's annual meeting of 1998 (and presently forthcoming).

    Finally, I was pointed in the direction of two people who do research on this topic. Professor Julie Sedivy of Brown University is interested in questions of representation as they pertain to language processing, and she has written some papers on the mental representation of such adjectives. And Professor Chris Kennedy of Northwestern University recently published his dissertation on the semantics of adjectives (Garland Press); the dissertation is also available by contacting the Linguistics Research Center at UCSC, at lrcling.ucsc.edu.

    I want to thank the many people who responded to my query so quickly and informatively.

    Sanford Goldberg

    ****************************************************** Sanford (Sandy) Goldberg Department of Philosophy goldbergac.grin.edu Box 805 (515) 269-3158 Grinnell College fax: (515) 269-4414 Grinnell, IA 50112 ******************************************************