Addressing the "two interface" problem: Comparatives and superlatives
Addressing the "two interface" problem: Comparatives and superlatives
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DOI：
10.5334/gjgl.9
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发表时间：
2016-04-01
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
Wellwood, Alexis
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dunbar, Ewan;Wellwood, Alexis
一个语素能有多少意义？句法和形态分析通常不确定两种形式之间的意义差异是否是因为（i）额外的句法中心语的存在或（ii）一个单一的中心语可以有不同的语义解释。Bobaljik（2012）调查了数百种语言的模式，假设最高级形式普遍由一个比较级词素和一个额外的最高级词素组成：最高的是潜在的[[CMPR [TALL]]]。Bobaljik的假设包括，在某种程度上，一个投机性的建议，对语素的语义复杂性的普遍限制。我们为这一建议提供了一个具体的基础，即“不遏制条件”。NCC是对语法的约束，使得它们不能包含单一中心语的语义表示，如果该表示可以从两个中心语的语义表示中构造出来。为了说明这个提议，我们把Bobaljik对taller等形式的分析进一步带到[CMPR] MUCH] TALL]。我们建议在语义分析的基础上，将Bresnan（1973）对比较级的经典分析引入到最高级的分解中。
How much meaning can a morpheme have? Syntactic and morphological analyses are generally underdetermined with regard to whether meaning differences between two forms are because of (i) the presence of an additional syntactic head or (ii) one single head that can have different semantic interpretations. Surveying patterns across hundreds of languages, Bobaljik (2012) hypothesizes that superlative forms universally consist of a comparative morpheme plus an additional superlative morpheme: tallest is underlyingly [SUP [CMPR [TALL]]]. Bobaljik's hypothesis includes, in part, a speculative proposal for a universal limit on the semantic complexity of morphemes. We offer a concrete basis for this proposal, the "No Containment Condition" (NCC). The NCC is a constraint on grammars such that they cannot contain a semantic representation for a unitary head, if that representation can be constructed out of the semantic representations of two heads. Illustrating the proposal, we take Bobaljik's analysis of forms like tallest further, into [[[CMPR SUP] MUCH] TALL]. Based in semantic analysis, our suggestion introduces Bresnan's (1973) classical analysis of comparatives into the decomposition of superlatives.*