Parameters of Comparison

参数对比

• 批准号: 0620247
• 负责人: Christopher Kennedy
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-01-01 至 2010-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0620247&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Parameters; Comparison

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.

根据物体拥有某种属性（如高度、亮度、美丽等）的数量或程度对物体进行比较的能力。是人类认知的基本组成部分。 自然语言反映了这一事实：所有语言都有其意义编码分级概念的单词（例如英语形容词“tall”和“bright”以及数量术语“many”和“few”），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属性的程度或数量的排序。 然而，比较级在世界各语言中并没有统一的结构，事实上似乎显示出异常广泛的跨语言变异。 这种变化是否反映了语言编码比较方式的更深层次差异（以及语言使用者对比较的概念化），或者掩盖了语义表征更抽象层面上的潜在一致性，这是未知的，因为比较级尚未成为全面而详细的跨语言研究的焦点，超越了对模式的肤浅描述。该项目将通过开发一个全面的研究计划来应对我们知识中的这一差距，该计划旨在提供对比较结构的详细和深入的跨语言分析。 特别是，它将集中在以下一组问题：什么是负责在不同语言的比较结构的结构变化？ 这种变异性是否表明比较结构的潜在语义也存在相应的变异性，或者我们是否会找到证据证明比较结构的潜在语义是普遍的？ 如果是前者，语义变异的范围有多大？ 如果是后者，比较结构和等级概念术语的普遍语义特征是什么？是什么句法、形态或语用/功能因素导致了所观察到的变异？ 最后，具体的比较案例告诉我们什么是更普遍的句法和语义变异的性质？ 在扩展我们对句法和语义变异的本质的理解时，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基本的问题：意义/认知的普遍范畴是否与语言的普遍结构相关，或者不同的语言使用不同的语法策略来表达相同的范畴/意义？ 鉴于人类认知的一个基本特征是能够沿着沿着标量维度对物体进行排序，因此，深入理解比较表达中的变异本质将为语言和认知的这一中心问题提供重要见解。