Abstract
This chapter discusses the interaction between partitive constructions and the grammar of measurement. It begins by reviewing Solt 2018, in particular Solt’s account of why partitive constructions force proportional interpretations when combining with many but yet permit both proportional and direct comparisons when combining with more (Solt’s Generalization). To capture this pattern, Solt hypothesizes that partitive phrases are interpreted as partial measure functions, restricted by their nominal complement. However, Solt’s account critically relies on limiting grammatically accessible proportional scales to those that can be derived from a restricted, partial measure function. Unfortunately for Solt (2018), there are grammatically accessible proportional scales that go far beyond this limit (see Bale and Schwarz 2020). In fact, the accessibility of such scales in non-partitive constructions demonstrates that the limitation imposed on scales in partitives is much stronger than originally thought. This chapter proposes that Solt’s theory can be salvaged by hypothesizing that partitive phrases always relativize their degree interpretations to an underspecified scalar “limit,” i.e. the highest or lowest degree within the range of a restricted measure function. Such a theory, if on the right track, might lend support to the idea that all mass noun denotations have a lower bound (as suggested in Chierchia 1998, 2010).
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Notes
- 1.
Solt (2015) argues that there is an additional operator in these types of constructions that captures the differences between many and few on the one hand and much and little on the other. The details are relevant for the overall semantic theory but pull us slightly off topic in terms of the focus of this chapter. For the sake of simplicity, I will not include such operators in the syntactic or semantic representations here, nor will I review the arguments for this additional operator.
- 2.
- 3.
Given time and space limitations, in this chapter I will only discuss examples with many and more. However, parallel observations hold for few and fewer.
- 4.
There is more that can be said about the existence and uniqueness of such a partial order. Within a system like the ones proposed by Link (1983), Chierchia (1998), Barker (1998), an entity can participate in only one such “part-whole” relation that orders the domain of discourse. In other types of ontologies, an entity could be allowed to participate in more than one “part-whole” relations (e.g., Gillon 1992; Rothstein 2010).
- 5.
The literature on how comparison classes influence a standard is vast, but see in particular the different implementations of this idea for adjectives in Bartsch and Vennemann (1972), Klein (1991), Kennedy and McNally (2005), Kennedy (2007), Bale (2011) and references therein. See the implementation of this idea with respect to many and few in Penka (2018), Romero (2015, 2016) and references therein.
- 6.
Penka (2018) offers an almost identical account of this restriction, however she implements the restriction using focus structures rather than partial measure functions.
- 7.
For any partial order \(\le \), if \(\mu _{\text {dim}}\) is monotonic with respect to \(\le \), then so is \(\mu _{\text {dim};z}\) and \(\mu _{\text {dim}_\%;z}\).
- 8.
- 9.
The motivation for this assumption has two sources. First, in adjectival comparisons, sometimes two different measure functions are overtly expressed as in [This table is longer than it is wide]. Second, sometimes there are overt instances of a second many/much morpheme in the than-clause, as in [I have more stuffed animals than how many you think I have].
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Bale, A. (2022). Partitives, Comparatives and Proportional Measurement. In: Gotzner, N., Sauerland, U. (eds) Measurements, Numerals and Scales. Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73323-0_2
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