This paper investigates core semantic properties that distinguish between different types of gradable adjectives and the effect of context on their interpretation. We contend that all gradable adjectives are interpreted relative to a comparison class (van Rooij 2011), and that it is the nature of the comparison class that constitutes the main semantic difference between their subclasses: some adjectives select a class comprised of counterparts of the individual of which the adjective is predicated, while others select an extensional category of this individual. We propose, following Kennedy (2007), that the standard of membership is selected according to a principle of economy whereby an interpretation relative to a maximum or a minimum degree within a comparison class takes precedence over one relative to an arbitrary point. This proposal captures so-called "standard shift" effects, that is, the influence of context on the interpretation of gradable adjectives from all subclasses, whether in their positive form or when modified by degree adverbials. Additionally, this proposal captures cases of apparent lack of context sensitivity (e.g. intuitive inference patterns, unacceptability of for-phrases, etc.). Finally, we hypothesize that the type of comparison class is aligned with the well known distinction between stage-level and individual-level predicates.

This paper presents corpus-based evidence for a typology of multidimensional adjectives, like for example, healthy and sick. The interpretation of the latter is sensitive to multiple dimensions, such as blood pressure, pulse, sugar, cancer, etc. The study investigated the frequency of exception phrases, which operate on an implicit universal quantifier over adjectival dimensions, as in healthy, except for a slight cold, and not sick, except for high cholesterol. On the emerging typology, adjectives classify by the way their dimensions are glued together to create a single, uniform interpretation. The default interpretation of adjectives such as healthy involves implicit universal quantification over dimensions (dimension conjunction), while that of adjectives such as sick involves existential quantification (dimension disjunction). In adjectives like intelligent, the force of quantification over dimensions is context relative. Moreover, the paper presents support to the hypotheses that antonym polarity and modifier distribution guide our choice of quantifiers over dimensions in different adjectives. Thus, this research sheds new light on the nature of negative antonymy in multidimensional adjectives, and on the distribution of degree modifiers and exception phrases among multidimensional antonyms. Finally, it raises new questions pertaining to multidimensional comparisons.  The research for this paper began thanks to the Orgler scholarship for PhD students, Tel Aviv University (2006-7), continued thanks to the Pratt scholarship, Ben Gurion University of the Negev and was completed thanks to funding of the project `On vagueness-and how to be precise enough' by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific . I warmly thank Nirit Kadmon, Fred Landman, Robert van Rooij, Frank Veltman, and the audiences of ESPP 16 (2008), IATL 25 (2009) and the linguistic colloquiums of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Bee'r-Sheva for their most helpful comments. Special thanks to

This paper presents a novel semantic analysis of unit names (like pound and meter) and gradable adjectives (like tall, short and happy), inspired by measurement theory (Krantz et al. In Foundations of measurement: Additive and Polynomial Representations, 1971). Based on measurement theory's four-way typology of measures, I claim that different adjectives are associated with different types of measures whose special characteristics, together with features of the relations denoted by unit names, explain the puzzling limited distribution of measure phrases, as well as unitbased comparisons between predicates (as in the table is longer than it is wide). All considered, my analyses support the view that the grammar of natural languages is sensitive to features of measurement theory.

This paper provides a new account of positive versus negative antonyms. The data includes well-known linguistic generalizations regarding negative adjectives, such as their incompatibility with measure phrases (cf. two meters tall/ *short) and ratio phrases (twice as tall/ #short) as well as the impossibility of truly crosspolar comparisons (*Dan is taller than Sam is short). These generalizations admit a variety of exceptions, e.g., positive adjectives that do not license measure phrases (cf. #two degrees warm/cold) and rarely also negative adjectives that do (cf. two hours late/early). Furthermore, new corpus data is presented regarding the use of twice with positive and negative adjectives. The analysis the paper presents supposes that grammar associates gradable adjectives with measure functions-mapping of entities to a set of degrees isomorphic to the real numbers (Kennedy, Projecting the 123Nat Lang Semantics (2010) 18:141-181 DOI 10.1007 The degree functions of negative adjectives Galit Weidman Sassoon