The Grammar of Standards

Judge-dependence, Purpose-relativity,

and Comparison Classes in Degree Constructions

Published by

LOT phone: +31 30 253 5775Trans 10 e-mail: lot@uu.nl3512 JK Utrecht http://www.lotschool.nlThe Netherlands

Cover illustration: Scene from a short animation Le Retour by Natalia Chernysheva(copyright Lecole de la Poudriere)

ISBN: 978-94-6093-130-7NUR: 616

Copyright 2013 Lisa Bylinina. All rights reserved.

The Grammar of Standards

Judge-dependence, Purpose-relativity,

and Comparison Classes in Degree Constructions

De Grammatica van Standaarden

Afhankelijkheid van de Beoordelaar,

Doel-relativiteit en Vergelijkingsklassen

in Graadconstructies

(met een samenvatting in het Nederlands)

Proefschrift

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctoraan de Universiteit Utrecht

op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof. dr. G.J. van der Zwaan,ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties

in het openbaar te verdedigen opvrijdag 14 februari 2014

om 4.15 uur

door

Lisa Bylininageboren 12 april 1983Vladivostok, Rusland

Promotor: Prof. Dr. H.E. de SwartCo-promotor: Dr. R.W.F. Nouwen

Contents

List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

1 Introduction 11.1 The basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.2 The semantics of gradability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71.3 Plan of the dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.3.1 Chapter 2: Judge-dependence in degree constructions . . . . . 111.3.2 Chapter 3: Purpose-relativity in degree constructions . . . . . 121.3.3 Chapter 4: Remarks on comparison classes . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2 Judge-dependence in degree constructions 152.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152.2 Subjectivity: the background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.2.1 Relative truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192.2.2 Two theories of subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2.3 Judge PPs are thematic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232.4 The members of the PPT class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282.5 The positive form of dimensional adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

2.5.1 The data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312.5.2 Theoretical consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332.5.3 Summary of the section and an outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

2.6 Evaluative adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372.6.1 The data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372.6.2 Theoretical consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

2.7 Extreme adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402.7.1 The data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402.7.2 Theoretical consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

2.8 Judge-dependence in modal degree constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . 432.8.1 Modal degree constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

vi

2.8.2 Normative modality is subjective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442.8.3 Modal degree constructions lack a judge argument . . . . . . 452.8.4 Modal degree constructions without an infinitive . . . . . . . 48

2.9 Intermediate summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492.10 The judge-experiencer relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

2.10.1 The judge=experiencer requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502.10.2 The scope of the judge=experiencer requirement . . . . . . . 55

2.11 Conclusion and further issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572.12 Zooming out: Judge index and indexical shifting . . . . . . . . . . . . 592.13 Appendix 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632.14 Appendix 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

3 Purpose-relativity in degree constructions 793.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793.2 Not a regular relative clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

3.2.1 Introducing the puzzle and an existing analysis . . . . . . . . 813.2.2 Problems with Fleishers analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

3.3 Degree infinitival clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 923.3.1 The parallel: standards in comparative constructions . . . . . 923.3.2 Degree infinitival clauses: The proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

3.4 The status of the infinitival clause in the AIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013.4.1 The analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013.4.2 Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

3.5 Extendability to functional standard construction . . . . . . . . . . . 1133.5.1 The construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1133.5.2 The need for a different analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143.5.3 Low degrees and inappropriateness: a coercion analysis . . . 1153.5.4 Cross-linguistic support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1193.5.5 Summing up the section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

3.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223.6.1 POS as a quantificational element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1223.6.2 The too-construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1233.6.3 Functional standard for-phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1263.6.4 Ellipsis in the AIC revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1283.6.5 Issues and problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

3.7 Appendix 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

4 Remarks on comparison classes 1414.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1414.2 The background on CC for-phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

4.2.1 Delineating the phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1434.2.2 CCs and the contextual standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1454.2.3 The degree complement analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1474.2.4 The domain-restricting analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1494.2.5 The syntax of CC for-phrases (Fults, 2006) . . . . . . . . . . . 152

vii

4.3 The internal structure of CC for-phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1554.3.1 The preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1554.3.2 Comparison classes and distributivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1574.3.3 Comparison classes and definiteness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

4.4 The modal semantics of CC for-phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1704.4.1 Greek bare nouns and derived scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1724.4.2 Back to semantic definites: interaction with modality . . . . . 177

4.5 Filling in the details: a modal clausal analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1794.5.1 The analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

4.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1854.6.1 Loose ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1854.6.2 More serious concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

5 Conclusion 189

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Samenvatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Curriculum Vitae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

List of Tables

2.1 Cross-linguistic properties of subjective predicates . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisors, Henriette de Swart and RickNouwen, for making this work possible. The roles they played in my dissertationproject were different, but both certainly important.

Henriette de Swart was there at strategically crucial stages of my project readyto support me both academically and non-academically. Our meetings shaped my un-derstanding of the bigger picture my research is part of, and her honest (but friendly)comments had a great influence on the fundamental aspects of this work. Advices shegave me on non-academic matters sometimes saved me from serious frustration.

Rick Nouwens impact on this book is very hard to overestimate. Most of thethings a reader might find nice or interesting in this dissertation were formulated as aresult of discussions with Rick. He is a great supervisor: going into every little detail ofcontent and presentation, but keeping in mind whats important and what isnt, takingthe pain to read the same manuscript for the 5th time, patiently leading it towardsimprovement, but at the same time leaving the student enough space for independentwork. If I am now ready to move on in academia as an independent researcher, itsthanks to Rick.

I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee (in alphabeticorder): Sigrid Beck, Norbert Corver, Jenny Doetjes, Martin Everaert, Louise McNally,Barbara Partee. Some of the comments they provided were too serious and fundamen-tal to implement before this book went to the printer, but I will definitely return tothem in my future work.

I first learned about formal semantics during Barbara Partees introductory coursein Moscow around