Degree modification in natural language

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of the roles played by degree modifiers -- functions from 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. 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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