Parameters of Comparison

根据物体具有某些属性（如高度、亮度、美感等）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可分级概念的单词（如英语形容词“tall”和“bright”以及数量术语“many”和“few”），所有语言都有专门的比较结构，用于表达两个对象之间的顺序，即它们拥有某些属性的程度或数量。然而，在世界各地的语言中，比较级并没有统一的结构，事实上，在不同的语言中，比较级似乎表现出异常广泛的差异。这种变化是否反映了语言编码比较的方式（以及语言的使用者将其概念化）的更深层次的差异，或者在更抽象的语义表示层面上模糊了潜在的一致性，这是未知的，因为比较级尚未成为全面和详细的跨语言研究的焦点，超出了对模式的肤浅描述。这个项目将通过开发一个全面的研究项目来弥补我们知识上的这一空白，该研究项目旨在为比较结构提供详细和深入的跨语言分析。特别地，它将集中在以下一系列问题上：是什么导致了不同语言之间比较结构的变化？这种可变性是否表明比较结构的潜在语义也有相应的可变性，或者我们是否会找到证据证明比较的潜在语义是普遍的？如果是前者，语义变化的范围是多少？如果是后者，比较结构和可分级概念术语的普遍语义特征是什么？哪些句法、形态或语用/功能因素导致了观察到的变化？最后，比较的具体情况告诉我们，在更普遍的情况下，句法和语义变化的本质是什么？在扩展我们对句法和语义变化本质的理解的过程中，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/认知的普遍类别与语言的普遍结构相关吗？还是不同的语言使用不同的语法策略来表达相同的类别/意义？考虑到沿着标量维度排列物体的能力是人类认知的一个基本特征，对比较表达变化的本质的更深入理解将为这个关于语言和认知的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.