How "many" Maximizes in the Balkan Sprachbund

Abstract

No abstract.

Comparison Across Domains in Delineation Semantics

“…2 [and recent work in the semantics of nonadjectival degree expressions such as (Rett 2007(Rett , 2008Solt 2014;Wellwood 2014;Rett 2014, among others)], I propose that the explicit quantity comparative relations are built off the scales associated with the context-sensitive expressions many, few (for count comparatives), and much, little (for mass comparatives).…”

Degrees and segments

“…13 It seems then that our particular choice for how to derive degrees from primitive grading relations has the benefit that it somehow encodes 'maximality' and 'monotonicity'. Although our measure functions are defined on possible individuals, the logic is the same as in a degree semantics with monotonicity (Rett 2006(Rett , 2008Heim 2006). What should we make of this?…”

The semantics ofmany, much, few, andlittle

“…This measure is defined over closed, open, and partially closed intervals alike (Gordon, 1994). When intervals are downward monotonic (i.e., when the inclusion of d in the set entails the inclusion of d − 1), the measure of an interval is equivalent to its maximal degree, which yields some interesting results for natural language semantics (Rett, 2007(Rett, , 2008b. 10 This is a version of the "A-not-A" analysis, which has its origins in Ross (1969); Seuren (1973); McConnell-Ginet (1973); Kamp (1975); Hoeksema (1983); Seuren (1984) and is reviewed in Schwarzschild (2008).…”

“…See Schwarzschild (2006b) and Rett (2014) for arguments that, while mass quantity words like much can be associated with a variety of different dimensions of measurement, they can only be associated with dimensions that are monotonic on the relevant part-whole structure of an entity. 14 Rett (2007Rett ( , 2008bRett ( , 2014 assumes that, in sentences like (30) and (31), the noun phrase subject and VP combine first via predicate modification before both combine with M-Op. This assumption ensures that the degree measured by many is the number of guests who arrived, not the number of guests.…”