Parameters of Comparison

根据物体所具有的某些属性(如高度、亮度、美感等)的数量或程度进行比较的能力。是人类认知的基本组成部分。自然语言反映了这一事实：所有语言都有其含义编码为可分级概念的单词(如英语形容词，如“高”和“亮”，以及“多”和“少”等数量术语)，并且所有语言都有专门的比较结构，用于表达两个对象之间关于它们拥有某种性质的程度或数量的顺序。然而，比较句在世界各地的语言中并没有统一的结构，事实上，它似乎显示出异常广泛的跨语言差异。这种差异是否反映了语言对比较的编码方式(以及语言使用者将其概念化)的更深层次的差异，还是在更抽象的语义表征水平上掩盖了潜在的一致性尚不得而知，因为比较式尚未成为全面和详细的跨语言调查的重点，而不仅仅是对模式的表面描述。这个项目将通过开发一个全面的研究项目来回应我们知识上的这一差距，该项目旨在提供对比较结构的详细和深入的跨语言分析。它将特别关注以下一组问题：是什么导致了不同语言之间比较结构的差异？这种可变性是否表明比较结构的潜在语义也存在相应的可变性，或者我们会发现比较的潜在语义具有普遍性的证据吗？如果是前者，语义变异的范围是什么？如果是后者，比较结构和分级概念术语的普遍语义特征是什么？句法、形态或语用/功能因素是什么引起了观察到的差异？最后，具体的比较案例告诉我们更一般的句法和语义变异的本质是什么？在扩大我们对句法和语义变异本质的理解时，这个项目将有助于我们理解关于语言和认知之间关系的一个更根本的问题：意义/认知的普遍范畴是否与语言的普遍结构相关，或者不同的语言是否使用不同的语法策略来表达相同的范畴/意义？鉴于按标量维度对物体进行排序的能力是人类认知的一个基本特征，深入理解比较表达的变异本质将为语言和认知这一核心问题提供重要的见解。

The ability to make comparisons between objects according to the amount or degree to which they possess some property (such as height, brightness, beauty, etc.) is a basic component of human cognition. Natural languages reflect this fact: all languages have words whose meanings encode gradable concepts (such as English adjectives like 'tall' and 'bright' as well as amount terms like 'many' and 'few'), and all languages have specialized comparative constructions that are used to express orderings between two objects with respect to the degree or amount to which they possess some property. Comparatives do not have a uniform structure across the world's languages, however, and in fact appear to show an unusually wide range of cross-linguistic variation. Whether this variation reflects deeper differences in the way languages encode comparison (and speakers of languages conceptualize it), or obscures an underlying uniformity at a more abstract level of semantic representation is unknown, because comparatives have not yet been the focus of a comprehensive and detailed cross-linguistic investigation that goes beyond superficial descriptions of patterns. This project will respond to this gap in our knowledge by developing a comprehensive research program designed to provide detailed and in-depth cross-linguistic analysis of comparative constructions. In particular, it will focus on the following set of questions: What is responsible for variation in the structure of comparative constructions across different languages? Does this variability indicate a corresponding variability in the underlying semantics of comparative constructions, or will we find evidence that the underlying semantics of comparison is universal? If the former, what is the range of semantic variation? If the latter, what are the universal semantic features of comparative constructions and gradable concept terms more generally, and what syntactic, morphological or pragmatic/functional factors give rise to the observed variation? Finally, what does the specific case of comparison tell us about the nature syntactic and semantic variation more generally? In extending our understanding of the nature of syntactic and semantic variation, this project will contribute to our understanding of an even more fundamental question about the relation between language and cognition: Are universal categories of meaning/cognition correlated with universal structures of language, or do different languages make use of different grammatical strategies to express the same category/meaning? Given that the ability to order objects along scalar dimensions is a basic feature of human cognition, a deeper understanding of the nature of variation in the expression of comparison will provide important insights on this central question about language and cognition.