22.5053, Books: Semantics/Syntax: Constantinescu

Wed Dec 14 22:25:12 UTC 2011

LINGUIST List: Vol-22-5053. Wed Dec 14 2011. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 22.5053, Books: Semantics/Syntax: Constantinescu

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1)
Date: 12-Dec-2011
From: Mariëtte Bonenkamp [lot at uu.nl]
Subject: Gradability in the Nominal Domain: Constantinescu

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:24:55
From: Mariëtte Bonenkamp [lot at uu.nl]
Subject: Gradability in the Nominal Domain: Constantinescu

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Title: Gradability in the Nominal Domain 
Series Title: LOT dissertation series  

Publication Year: 2011 
Publisher: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke - LOT
	   http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Author: Camelia Constantinescu

Paperback: ISBN:  9789460930720 Pages:  Price: Europe EURO 

Abstract:

This dissertation investigates whether and how gradability is manifested in
the nominal domain, as well as the implications this has for theories of the
representation of gradability.It is shown that the various gradability 
diagnostics proposed in the literature not only yield different results, but that 
they do not actually work as could be expected. In case after case, other 
factors turn out to underlie the noted effects: epistemicity and evidentiality 
(cf. the epistemic verb seem and real-type adjectives), the expression of a 
value judgment (e.g. N of an N constructions), the delineation of salient sub-
kinds identifiable by natural consequences (cf. internal such) and abstract 
size modification (e.g. when a size adjective like big modifies a noun 
denoting an instance of a property or a set of individuals defined in terms of 
such an abstract object). Our investigation leads to the unexpected 
conclusion that there are no grammatical contexts in the nominal domain that 
are exclusively reserved for a particular class of nouns that could properly be 
called gradable. As a result, there is no motivation for postulating a degree 
structure in the syntactic representation of nouns. In addition, there are no 
expressions performing the type of semantic operations familiar from degree 
modification in the adjectival domain that would indicate the existence of a 
grammatically accessible gradable structure in the semantics of nouns at the 
lexical level. The tale of this dissertation is therefore a cautionary one: 
arguments to reduce gradability in the nominal and in the adjectival domain to 
the same phenomenon are misguided. This study shows the importance of a 
cross-categorial perspective for a better understanding of gradability. It is of 
interest to a general syntactic and semantic readership. 

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics
                     Syntax

Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=58602

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