Degree Variables by Choose Degree in Izyooni ‘than’-Clauses

Degree Variables by Choose Degree in Izyooni ‘Than’-Clauses Toshiko Oda Tokyo Keizai University University of International Business and Economics 1-7-34 Minami-Cho, Kokubuji, Huixin East Street No.10, Chaoyang District, Tokyo, Japan Beijing, China toda@tku.ac.jp Abstract Clausal izyooni ‘than’-comparatives in Japanese allow izyooni ‘than’-clauses with their degree positons filled. I consider them a degree version of Internally Headed Relative Clauses (IHRCs). In this preliminary study, I adopt Gross and Landman’s (2012) Choose Role analysis of IHRCs in Japanese and propose a similar functional category Choose Degree, which “re-opens” a degree variable position for “closed” izyooni-clauses. This makes it possible for once closed izyooni-clauses to denote a set of degrees. 1 Introduction Japanese comparatives have recently attracted wide attention in syntax and semantics. Most of the previous works are concerned with yorimo ‘than’- comparatives. However, there is another ‘than’- comparative in Japanese, as illustrated in (1). Comparatives of this type are called izyooni ‘than’- comparatives. Interestingly, izyooni-comparatives have the implication that the given degrees in the embedded clauses are “large” (Hayashishita 2007). For instance, (1) implies that Mary is smart. Consequently, Susan in the matrix clause is considered to be smart as well. (1) Suusan wa [Mary ga kasikoi] Susan Top Mary Nom smart -izyooni kasikoi. than smart ‘Susan is smarter than Mary is.’ (Implication: Mary is smart.) Such implication is not observed in the yorimo counterpart nor in the English equivalent. (2) with yorimo is even ungrammatical.1 (2) *Suusan wa [Mary ga kasikoi] Susan Top Mary Nom smart -yorimo kasikoi. than smart ‘Susan is smarter than Mary is.’ (3) Susan is smarter than Mary is. (Not implied: Mary is smart.) For the purpose of our discussion, I will call the degree implication of izyooni-comparatives a “positive implication.” This is because the implication in (1) is intuitively the same as the interpretation of its corresponding positive sentence given in (4), where the null POS operator induces the interpretation that Mary’s degree of smartness is large. The truth conditions of (4) are given in (6). 1 As for why (2) is ungrammatical, the arguments are not settled yet. See Snyder et al. (1995), Beck et al. (2004), Kennedy (2009), and Sudo (2014), among others. PACLIC 29 404 29th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation pages 404 - 412 Shanghai, China, October 30 - November 1, 2015 Copyright 2015 by Toshiko Oda (4) Mary ga POS kasikoi. Mary Nom smart ‘Mary is smart.’ (5)〚POS〛g = PD<d,t>d[P(d)  d>dstandard in c] (6) d[Mary is d-smart  d>dstandard in c] I assume that the positive implication in (1) comes from the POS operator that occupies the degree variable position of kasikoi ‘smart’ in the izyooni-clause. This may sound odd. Normally, such degree positions are abstracted over and occupied by a degree variable d. Therefore, the position cannot be filled by POS. (7) is the LF structure of the English example in (3). The degree variable position of the than-clause is occupied by d2, which is bound by an operator. Note that I assume than in …

Content truncated to 500 words