Degrees and segments

I make two related proposals, one about directed scale segments and the other about the nature of degrees. Bale (2007, 2011) argued that degrees should be analyzed as sets of individuals and that degree arguments are created in the syntax from relational predicates. Schwarz (2010) showed that Bale&#...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Schwarzschild, Roger S. (Contributor)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Linguistic Society of America, 2017-07-11T17:35:15Z.
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Online Access:Get fulltext
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100 1 0 |a Schwarzschild, Roger S.  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Schwarzschild, Roger S.  |e contributor 
245 0 0 |a Degrees and segments 
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856 |z Get fulltext  |u http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110637 
520 |a I make two related proposals, one about directed scale segments and the other about the nature of degrees. Bale (2007, 2011) argued that degrees should be analyzed as sets of individuals and that degree arguments are created in the syntax from relational predicates. Schwarz (2010) showed that Bale's construction runs into problems when the required degree relation is complex, denoted by an LF constituent that contains more than just a gradable adjective. I modify Bale's proposal so that it overcomes Schwarz's objection. But first I propose a semantics for comparatives based on quantification over directed scale segments, triples consisting of two degrees and a measure function. The modification of Bale's proposal depends upon this. Segments are of independent interest as they permit a conjunctive semantics for extended adjectival phrases, the way events do for verb phrases. Potential benefits of 'degree-conjunctivism' are explored. 
546 |a en_US 
655 7 |a Article 
773 |t Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory