Measurement and degrees
Measurement and degrees
This chapter reviews the motivations (both conceptual and formal) for the degree-based analyses of comparatives generally, and in this way presents the basic details of the semantic framework that the book presupposes. In particular, this chapter establishes the vocabulary of measure functions, degrees, and scales, and sets up the book’s answer to the central question of which expressions introduce measure functions into the compositional semantics. By establishing the central distinction between “measurable” and “non-measurable” domains for predication, this chapter initiates the comparison between standard, lexically-based theories of degree introduction, from the book’s theory in which degrees are uniformly introduced by the comparative morphology itself.
Keywords: degree semantics, scales, morphology, adjective, adverb, gradability, event semantics, measurement theory, degree constructions
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .