Open AccessQuantity and gradability across categories
Author(s) -
M. Ryan Bochnak
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
proceedings from semantics and linguistic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2163-5951
pISSN - 2163-5943
DOI - 10.3765/salt.v0i20.2570
Subject(s) - noun , argument (complex analysis) , linguistics , focus (optics) , mathematics , theme (computing) , scalar (mathematics) , meaning (existential) , event (particle physics) , scale (ratio) , computer science , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , philosophy , epistemology , physics , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry , quantum mechanics , optics , operating system
This paper proposes a unified analysis of scalar modifiers across the adjec- tival, nominal and verbal domains, with a special focus on the proportional modifier half in English. I claim that half has a scalar meaning in all the environments in which it appears. Specifically, I show that in partitive and event-modifying uses, half targets a quantity-based scale whose scale structure crucially depends on the part structure of a nominal argument, just like many adjectival cases. To formalize the analysis, I extend the degree-based analysis of Kennedy & McNally (2005) for gradable adjectives to partitives and VPs headed by incremental theme verbs, with some discussion of compounding uses of half with both nouns and verbs.