Comparatives in English & Japanese
Emi Mukai (USC; )[*]
Draft of 2nd screening paper, version.9, 10/26/05
1. Introduction
I may probably delete the divisions by subsections.
1.1. Comparative constructions in English and Japanese
The sentences in (1a) and (1b) are instances of comparative constructions in English, with their. The Japanese translations of them are given in (2a) and (2b), respectively. In the cases of (1a) and (2a), the predicates are adjectives; in the case of (1b) and (2b), o. On the other hand, the adjectives modify the nouns. in the case of (1b) and (2b). I call the former simply comparatives, while and the latter NP comparatives.
(1) Comparative constructions in English
a. This book is longer [than XP] comparatives
b. Bill bought a longer book [than XP] NP comparatives
(2) Comparative constructions in Japanese
a. kono hon-wa [YORI XP-yori] nagai comparatives
this book-top XP-yori long
b. Bill-wa [YORI XP-yori] nagai hon-o katta NP comparatives
Bill-top XP-yori long book-acc bought
Examples which compare the cardinality of nouns such as in (3) are also an instance of NP comparatives in this paper.
(3) John bought more books than Bill did/bought.
I call the bracketed part in (1) and (2) the than constituent and the yori constituent, respectively, and the XP part is called the yori/than phrase/clause.
This paper concerns whether the functional parallelism (i.e., the availability of translations) between English comparative constructions and Japanese ones lead us to assume that they are formally parallel. [Some researchers have indeed assumed/proposed that Japanese comparative constructions are the counterpart of English ones, while others claim that they are not exactly parallel though they contain some element(s) which share(s) some formal properties with each other. In this paper, however, I argue against those analyses and claim that the comparative meaning in Japanese comparative constructions comes in a way different from English comparative constructions. çMaybe redo.]
Before going into the discussion, I introduce some terms which I use in this paper for the sake of exposition. I call the bracketed part in (1) and (2) the than constituent and the yori constituent, respectively, and the XP part is called the yori/than phrase/clause.
1.2. The difference between English and Japanese
Though (1) and (2) seem parallel to each other, there are some differences between English and Japanese comparative constructions.
1.2.1. The lack of direct measure phrases
English overtly differentiates an absolute adjective (e.g., tall) from a comparative one (e.g., taller), and a measure phrase (henceforth MP) can co-occur with either of the forms . However,although the interpretation of an MPs depends on where they occurwhich form of an adjective it occurs with.
(4) a. John is 1m tall. 1m: direct MP
b. John is 1m taller. 1m: differential MP
On the other hand, Japanese, on the other hand, lacks an overt morpheme which distinguishes an absolute adjective and a comparative one, and an adjective in Japanese can be translated into either of the forms in English. However, onceWhen an MP occurs right before an adjective, however, it should always must be interpreted as a differential MP.
(5) John-wa 1m se-ga-takai
John-top 1m tall
= 'John is 1m taller (than someone else)'
=/= 'John is 1m tall'
1.2.2. The presupposition requirement
The second difference is related to a certain interpretation. It seems to be the case for both English and Japanese that neither the subject of a matrix clause (e.g., John in (6)) nor the noun in the yori/than clause/phrase (e.g., Bill in (6)) need to satisfy the property indicated by the predicate (e.g., tall), as shown in (6).
(6) a. John is taller than Bill (is). Neither John nor Bill has to be tall.
b. John-wa Bill-yori segatakai Neither John nor Bill has to be tall.
John-top Bill-yori tall
However, when the than/yori clause contains another adjective, English and Japanese come to differ from each other.
(7) a. #John is taller than Bill is tall. Neither John nor Bill has to be tall.
(at least for some speakers)[1]
b. John-wa [Bill-ga segatakai] yori segatakai. John and Bill should be tall.
John-top Bill-nom tall yori tall
For the ease of exposition I introduce (8).
(8) Presupposition Requirement (PR)
The argument of a predicate should satisfy the property expressed by the predicate.
The observations in (6) and (7) can now be stated as follows: here can be recaptured in a way that PR [can be => is? Or you really mean 'can be'?] irrelevant in English comparative constructions, while in the case of Japanese, PR [becomes => you mean 'is'?] relevant if the yori constituent contains an adjectival predicate.[2]
1.2.3. Subcomparatives (initial observation)
Sentences in which the than clause contains a different adjective from the matrix clause are called subcomparatives.
(9) a. The table is longer than the door is wide. (Bresnan 1973: (262))
b. #The table is longer than the door is old.
It seems the case that subcomparatives should satisfy the requirement in (10), which I call SDR.
(10) Same Dimension Requirement (SDR)[3]
A comparative construction is semantically well-formed only if the compared objects are compared along the same dimension.
Kennedy points out that even if the (deleted) predicate in the than clause is the same with that in the matrix clause as in (11), the sentence is still not good if it violates SDR.
(11) #The class was longer than this table is. (Kennedy 1997: chap 1, (15))
It has been observed (if most people have accepted this, you can say "it has been widely agreed upon" or something like that, making your point stronger) that subcomparatives corresponding to (11) are not possible in Japanese (Snyder et al. 1995, Beck et al. 2004, Nakanishi 2004 among others).[4], [5], [6]
(12) *Kono tana-wa [ano doa-ga haba-ga-hiroi (no) yori] takai.
This shelf-top that door-nom wide one. yori tall
'This shelf is taller than that door is wide.'
[To sum up so far;A an adequate analysis for of the comparative constructions in Japanese should be the one which can be able to capture those differences between English and Japanese noted above. <= Redo.]
1.3. The summary of the mMain claims
---To be completed.
I claim in this paper that Japanese lacks a degree morpheme corresponding to English more/er, and that yori does is not the counterpart of than. Furthermore, though it has been widely assumed that gradable adjectives establish a relation between an object in their domain and a degree (i.e., a point on a scale) (cf. Cresswell 1976, von Stechow 1984 among many others[7]), I entertain the idea that every adjective, regardless of whether it is gradable or not, is universally of type <e,t>, [based on the difference between English and Japanese as has been summarized in section 1.2. above <= What does this modify?]. The summary of mMy main claims is are summarized in (13).
(13) Main claims
a. Every adjective, regardless of whether it is gradable or not, is universally of type <e,t>. The difference between gradable adjectives and non-gradable adjectives is whether a standard (which varies depending on a context) is supplied (in the case of the former) or not ; it is in the case of the former, but not (in the case of the latter).
b. The functional category #, which is of type <et, <d,<e,t>>>, introduces a scale (i.e., a point in a totally ordered set).
c. A gradable adjective (<e,t>) in English has some feature, which should be checked off by # (<et,<d,et>>). The mother node of a gradable adjective and # is therefore of type <d,et>.
d. Japanese does not have #. As a consequence, Japanese lacks a constituent of type <d,et>.
e. The yori constituent is an adjunct modifying an AP.
In short, while English comparatives have a structure in (14), the structure of a Japanese comparative is as in (15).
(14) IP
3
Subj 6
... ... #P
3 <d,et>
DegP #'
3 3
er 5 # AP <e,t>
than XP <et, <d,et>>
(15) IP t
3
kono hon-wa e I' <e,t>
this book-top 3
AP <e,t> I
3
<et,et> PP nagai <e,t>
3 long
XP e yori <e,etet>
1.4. The organization of the paper
---To be added.
2. Previous analyses ---'yori' as being analyzed as parallel to than <--Redo the heading (E.g., Previous analyses I: treating 'yori' on a par with 'than'
2.1. The standard analysis of English comparatives (Bresnan 1973; von Stechow 1984; Heim 2000 among others)
Let us first briefly review the standard analysis of English comparatives. First of all, it has been widely agreed that an adjective is a two-place predicate and it is a function from a degree to a set of individuals (<d,et>).
(16) [[Adjective]] = ld. lx. x is Adjective to d
(e.g., [[tall]] = ld. lx. x is tall to d)
Adjectives then take DegPs as their first argument; i.e., the semantic composition of them is done by Functional Application.
(17) Functional Application (FA) (Heim & Kratzer 1998: 44: (3))
If a is a branching node, {b, g} is the set of a's daughters, and [[b]] is a function whose domain contains [[g]], then [[a]] = [[b]]([[g]]).
Under the analysis, whether an adjectives are is realized as comparative (taller) or as absolute (tall) depends on what the first argument of the adjectives, DegP, is like.
(18) 3
John e 3
is AP <e,t>
3
DegP tall <d,et>
[In the case of comparative, the DegP is headed by the degree morpheme (er/more/less etc.) as in (19c). In the case of absolute, on the other hand, the DegP is occupied by a null operator, the positive operator (henceforth the POS operator) (see (20)). è Change this as in "If the DepP is headed by …"
(19) a. POS <dt,t>
b. 6 feet d
c. <dt,t>
3
DegP = (1 inch) 3
er 3
than 6
Bill is
(20) [[POS]] = lP<d,t>.id[P(d)=1 and d>ds] (Cf. von Stechow 1984: 60, R6)
(where ds is the standard degree which is contextually identified.)
The semantics of degree morpheme er is either (21a) or (21b) (the latter is used when comparatives contain a differential MP), which contains the maximality operator (see (22)).
(21) a. [[er]] = lD'<d,t>. lD<d,t>. max(D) > max(D') <dt,dtt>
b. [[er2]] = lD'<d,t>. lD"d. lD<d,t>. max(D) - max(D') = D" <dt,<d,dtt>>
(22) von Stechow 1984: (117)
Max(P) is true of d iff P(d) and ~$d'[P(d') & d' > d]
Since er is assumed to take the than complement as its first argument, the than clause must undergo extraction at PF.[8]
It has been widely assumed since Chomsky (1977) that the than clause involves a movement, because, as shown in (24) and (25), it exhibits the properties listed in (23), which "serve[s] as a kind of "diagnostic" for wh-movement" (Chomsky 1977: 86).
(23) (Chomsky 1977: 86, (49))[9]
a. It leaves a gap.
b. Where there is a bridge [verb], there is an apparent violation of subjacency, PIC and SSC.
c. It observes CNPC.
d. It observes wh-island constraints.
(24) Comparatives 1 (=(C52))
a. Mary isn't the same as [she was five years ago]
b. Mary isn't the same as [John believes [that Bill claimed [that she was five years ago] ] ]
c. *Mary isn't the same as [John believes [the claim [that she was five years ago] ] ]
d. * Mary isn't the same as [I wonder [whether she was five years ago] ]
(25) Comparatives 2
a. Mary isn't taller than [she was five years ago]
b. Mary isn't taller than [John believes [that Bill claimed [that she was five years ago] ] ]
c. *Mary isn't taller than [John believes [the claim [that she was five years ago] ] ]
d. * Mary isn't taller than [I wonder [whether she was five years ago] ]
[Though Chomsky (1977) regards what gets moved in the case of (25a), for example, as a whole AP as in (26a), it is DegP that undergoes movement at LF under the standard analysis as in (26b).[10] The AP must be deleted at PF under the latter analysis. <= Redo.]
(26) a. ... than [Opi [she was [AP ti ] five years ago] ]
b. ... than [Opi [she was [AP [DegP ti] tall] five years ago] ]
The argument for (26b) is that comparatives can be captured by the same manner with so called subcomparatives as in (27a).
(27) a. The table is longer than the door is wide. (Bresnan 1973: (262))
b. (LF of the than clause under the standard analysis) ... than [Opi the door is [AP [DegP ti ] wide] ]
Under the move, the difference between comparatives and subcomparatives can be reduced to whether the deletion of xx is involved or not.
In sum, the sentences in (28) are analyzed as in (29), (30), (31) and (32), under the standard analysis.
(28) a. John is tall.
b. John is 6 feet tall.
c. John is taller than Bill is.
d. John is 1 inch taller than Bill is.
(29) John is tall (=(28a))
a. Before Spell-Out & PF b. LF
c. [[John is POS tall]] = [[POS]] ([[1]] ([[John is t1 tall]]) )
= lP. id[P(d)=1 and d>ds] (ld1. John is d1-tall)
= id[ld. John is d-tall (d)=1 and d>ds]
= id[John is d-tall and d>ds]
(where ds is the standard degree which is contextually identified.)
d. John is tall is true iff there exists the unique d such that John is d-tall and d exceeds the standard degree ds.
(30) John is 6 feet tall (=(28b))
a. Before Spell-Out & PF & LF
b. [[John is 6 feet tall]] = [[tall]] ([[6 feet]]) ([[John]])
= ld. lx. x is d-tall (6 feet) (John)
= John is 6 feet tall
c. John is 6 feet tall is true iff John is tall to 6 feet.
(31) John is taller than Bill is (=(28c))
a. Before Spell-Out b. PF
c. LF
d. [[John is taller than Bill is]]= [[er]] ([[than Op1 Bill is t1 tall]]) ([[2]([[John is t2 tall]]))
= [[er]] (ld1. Bill is d1-tall) (ld2. John is d2-tall)
= max(ld2. John is d2-tall) > max(ld1. Bill is d1-tall)
e. John is taller than Bill is is true iff the degree d2 such that John is d2-tall exceeds the degree d1 such that Bill is tall.
(32) John is 1 inch taller than Bill is (=(28d))
a. Before Spell-Out b. PF
c. LF
d. [[John is 1 inch taller than Bill is]]
= [[er]] ([[than Op1 Bill is t1 tall]]) ([[1 inch]]) ([[2]([[John is d2-tall]]) )
= [[er]] (ld1. Bill is d1-tall) (1 inch) (ld2. John is d2-tall)