Gradable Adjectives Research Articles

Quasi Indexicals

I argue that not all context dependent expressions are alike. Pure (or ordinary) indexicals behave more or less as Kaplan thought. But quasi indexicals behave in some ways like indexicals and in other ways not like indexicals. A quasi indexical sentence ϕ allows for cases in which one party utters ϕ and the other its negation, and neither party's claim has to be false. In this sense, quasi indexicals are like pure indexicals (think: “I am a doctor”/“I am not a doctor” as uttered by different individuals). In such cases involving a pure indexical sentence, it is not appropriate for the two parties to reject each other's claims by saying, “No.” However, in such cases involving a quasi indexical sentence, it is appropriate for the parties to reject each other's claims. In this sense, quasi indexicals are not like pure indexicals. Drawing on experimental evidence, I argue that gradable adjectives like “rich” are quasi indexicals in this sense. The existence of quasi indexicals raises trouble for many existing theories of context dependence, including standard contextualist and relativist theories. I propose an alternative semantic and pragmatic theory of quasi indexicals, negotiated contextualism, that combines insights from Kaplan 1989 and Lewis 1979. On my theory, rejection is licensed with quasi indexicals (even when neither of the claims involved has to be false) because the two utterances involve conflicting proposals about how to update the conversational score. I also adduce evidence that conflicting truth value assessments of a single quasi indexical utterance exhibit the same behavior. I argue that negotiated contextualism can account for this puzzling property of quasi indexicals as well.

Meaning change in Chinese: A numeral phrase construction from adjectives to superlatives to definite descriptions

AbstractThis paper analyzes a hitherto unnoticed semantic change process in Chinese, in which lexical (adjectival) materials develop into superlative operators, and subsequently turn into definiteness markers. Our analysis focuses on the semantic factors that underlie this meaning change trajectory. Specifically, we argue that frequent association of gradable adjectives with superlative implication leads to pragmatic strengthening in which the superlative implication conventionally enters the literal meaning. Furthermore, we show that a further change in the extension of the nominal part of superlative phrases leads to a maximality reanalysis that is compatible with the semantics of definite NPs. This paper contributes to the burgeoning field of applying truth-conditional semantics to theories of grammaticalization.

Subjectivity in gradable adjectives: The case oftallandheavy

We present an investigation of the ways in which speakers' subjective perspectives are likely to affect the meaning of gradable adjectives liketallorheavy. We present the results of a study showing that people tend to use themselves as a yardstick when ascribing these adjectives to human figures of varied measurements: subjects' height and weight requirements for applyingtallandheavyare found to be positively correlated with their personal measurements. We draw more general lessons regarding the definition of subjectivity and the ways in which a standard of comparison and a significant deviation from that standard are specified.

Projecting adjectives in Chinese

Chinese has the comparative morpheme and the positive morpheme, both of which project in syntax. The covert comparative morpheme is the covert allomorph of the comparative morpheme bǐjiao ‘more’. The covert bǐjiao ‘more’ can only occur in a comparative construction where an overt standard of comparison is syntactically available, but the overt one occurs in a comparative construction where an overt standard of comparison is syntactically unavailable. The positive morpheme also has two allomorphs. One is the unstressed hěn ‘HEN’ and the other is its covert counterpart. The covert one can only occur in a focus sensitive domain where the bare gradable adjective is focus-anchored, but the overt one occurs elsewhere. The covert allomorph, regardless of whether it is the comparative or the positive morpheme, is used to avoid violating the Constraint on Multiple Foci. Accordingly, the proposal of the comparative morpheme and the proposal of the positive morpheme can reinforce each other by establishing a theoretical relationship through the Nonhead Stress rule and the Constraint on Multiple Foci.

Antonymous Adjectives Markedly Used


 The concept of “markedness in the work of Prague school linguists refers to relationships between two complementary or antonymous terms which can be distinguished by the presence of a feature (+a versus -a). Such a position can occur at various linguistic levels. Markedness contrasts for example, can arise at the morphological level, when one of the two words is derived from the other and therefore contains an explicit formal marker such as a prefix (profitable - unprofitable). Markedness contrasts also appear at the semantic level in many pairs of gradable antonymous adjectives, especially scalar ones.

"good" as a predicate of worlds

The paper proposes a new semantics for good-predications involving finite if -andthat-clauses. The proposal combines a standard semantics for conditionals with a standardsemantics for the positive form of gradable adjectives and a minimal semantics for modal good.The predicted truth-conditions and conditions of use solve the mood puzzle presented in thefirst part of the paper. The remainder of the paper defends the classical notion of comparativegoodness in terms of a comparison between possible worlds against Lassiter (2017)’s challenge.Keywords: gradable adjectives, subjunctive conditionals, preference predicates, factivity.

Cognitive processing of scalar implicatures with Chinese gradable adjectives

Abstract In previous research comparing the Context-driven Model with the Default Model of meaning processing, the former was preferred. It predicts that contexts play an exclusively decisive role in meaning processing, whereas the latter holds that the inference of literal meaning generally goes through, unless it is subsequently defaulted or cancelled by the context it is associated with. The Standardization Model, which we added to our experiments, highlights that implicatures are figured out from standardized forms typically based on the mutual background belief and speaker’s intention. We tested whether Chinese people’s processing of the gradable adjective scale <hot, burning> conformed more to the Context-driven Model, the Default Model, or the Standardization Model. The results demonstrated that the Standardization Model is the most acceptable among the three. The findings of this study, which is the first study using the experimental paradigm on Chinese gradable adjectives, highlighted a need for further studies to investigate the same questions with different languages and cultures.

On the indeterminacy of the meter

In the International System of Units (SI), ‘meter’ is defined in terms of seconds and the speed of light, and ‘second’ is defined in terms of properties of cesium 133 atoms. I show that one consequence of these definitions is that: if there is a minimal length (e.g., Planck length), then the chances that ‘meter’ is completely determinate are only 1 in 21,413,747. Moreover, we have good reason to believe that there is a minimal length. Thus, it is highly probable that ‘meter’ is indeterminate. If the meter is indeterminate, then any unit in the SI system that is defined in terms of the meter is indeterminate as well. This problem affects most of the familiar derived units in SI. As such, it is highly likely that indeterminacy pervades the SI system. The indeterminacy of the meter is compared and contrasted with emerging literature on indeterminacy in measurement locutions (as in Eran Tal’s recent argument that measurement units are vague in certain ways). Moreover, the indeterminacy of the meter has ramifications for the metaphysics of measurement (e.g., problems for widespread assumptions about the nature of conventionality, as in Theodore Sider’s Writing the Book of the World) and the semantics of measurement locutions (e.g., undermining the received view that measurement phrases are absolutely precise as in Christopher Kennedy’s and Louise McNally’s semantics for gradable adjectives). Finally, it is shown how to redefine ‘meter’ and ‘second’ to completely avoid the indeterminacy.

Visible degrees in Italian Sign Language

Data from Italian Sign Language provide evidence in favor of a degree-based analysis over a non-degree based analysis for gradable adjectives and comparative constructions. Morphological and phonological constraints identify a class of gradable adjectives in which degree variables can be overtly represented as ordered points established in the signing space by an iconic mapping. When this happens the visible degree becomes available as an antecedent for a later pronoun, as in the nominal, temporal and modal domain, showing that the same anaphoric system is at work.

The symmetry problem: current theories and prospects

The structural approach to alternatives (Katzir in Linguist Philos 30(6):669–690, 2007; Fox and Katzir in Nat Lang Semant 19(1):87–107, 2011; Katzir in Semantics, pragmatics and the case of scalar implicatures, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 40–71, 2014) is the most developed attempt in the literature at solving the symmetry problem of scalar implicatures. Problematic data with indirect and particularised scalar implicatures have however been raised (Romoli in Snippets 27:14–15, 2013; Trinh and Haida in Nat Lang Semant 25(4):249–270, 2015). To address these problems, Trinh and Haida (2015) proposed to augment the theory with the Atomicity Constraint. Here we show that this constraint falls short of explaining minimal variants of the original problems, and moreover that it runs into trouble with the inferences of sentences involving gradable adjectives like full and empty. We furthermore discuss how the structural approach suffers at times from the problem of ‘too many lexical alternatives’ pointed out by Swanson (Linguist Philos 33(1):31–36, 2010), and at other times from the opposite problem of ‘too few lexical alternatives’. These three problems epitomise the challenge of constructing just enough alternatives under the structural approach to solve the symmetry problem in full generality. Finally, we also sketch another recent attempt at solving the symmetry problem, Bergen et al. (Semant Pragmat 9(20), 2016), which is based on relative informativity and complexity. We argue that Bergen et al. do not provide a general solution to the symmetry problem either, by pointing to some of the open problematic cases that remain for this approach as well. We conclude that while important progress has been made in the theory of alternatives for scalar implicatures in the last few years, a full solution to the symmetry problem has not yet been attained.

Making Sense of Big Textual Data for Health Care: Findings from the Section on Clinical Natural Language Processing

Summary Objectives: To summarize recent research and present a selection of the best papers published in 2016 in the field of clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP). Method: A survey of the literature was performed by the two section editors of the IMIA Yearbook NLP section. Bibliographic databases were searched for papers with a focus on NLP efforts applied to clinical texts or aimed at a clinical outcome. Papers were automatically ranked and then manually reviewed based on titles and abstracts. A shortlist of candidate best papers was first selected by the section editors before being peer-reviewed by independent external reviewers. Results: The five clinical NLP best papers provide a contribution that ranges from emerging original foundational methods to transitioning solid established research results to a practical clinical setting. They offer a framework for abbreviation disambiguation and coreference resolution, a classification method to identify clinically useful sentences, an analysis of counseling conversations to improve support to patients with mental disorder and grounding of gradable adjectives. Conclusions: Clinical NLP continued to thrive in 2016, with an increasing number of contributions towards applications compared to fundamental methods. Fundamental work addresses increasingly complex problems such as lexical semantics, coreference resolution, and discourse analysis. Research results translate into freely available tools, mainly for English.

Universal markedness in gradable adjectives revisited

Cross-linguistically, comparative-form adjectives (like English taller) are consistently derived from (or in many languages identical to) their positive-form counterparts (like English tall). This fact stands in tension with prevailing formal semantic treatments of gradable adjectives as degree relations that require extra semantic machinery not only for comparative predication but also for positive predication; for the latter, scholars typically posit a null morpheme or type-shift pos. In this short article, we review morphophonological evidence showing that in Arabic, comparative-form adjectives (like aTwal ‘taller’) are of equal complexity with their positive-form counterparts (like Tawiil ‘tall’), both derived from a common tri-consonantal root (in this case $\sqrt{Twl}$ ), rather than one word being derived from the other. This raises the tantalizing possibility of Arabic becoming the first documented case of a language overtly realizing pos, with adjectives like Tawiil consisting of a degree-relation-denoting root and a pos-denoting template. We nonetheless conclude (albeit tentatively) that such an analysis is probably wrong, given (a) the idiosyncrasy in the phonological shape that the putative pos-denoting template takes across different adjectives, (b) the appearance of the same templatic shapes in non-adjectives, and (c) the appearance of adjectives like Tawiil in non-pos environments. We thereby uphold the generalization that no language realizes pos overtly. We close with a brief look at nominalized forms of gradable adjectives in Arabic and offer some preliminary remarks on the broader prospects of semantic de-composition for gradable adjectives, engaging with recent work on cross-linguistic variation in the grammar of property concepts.

Two Dutch <i>many</i> ’s and the structure of pseudo-partitives

This article discusses the syntax and semantics of Dutch pseudo-partitive constructions with measure nouns, such as drie liter water ‘three liters of water’. The major empirical puzzle is the distribution of two Dutch instances of many/much: veel and vele. Unlike earlier proposals, I analyze veel as a gradable adjective, and vele as a numeral. It turns out that in pseudo-partitives with pure measure readings, only vele can freely occur (veel liters water only allows a marked “liter-bottle” reading). This is puzzling, because veel is otherwise allowed both with mass and count terms, and both in the singular and in the plural. I adopt the more-or-less standard right-branching syntax for Dutch pseudo-partitives (providing some new arguments for its correctness), and propose a semantics for measure nouns which, in combination with Ionin & Matushansky’s semantics for cardinals, correctly characterizes these constructions and explains where pure measure readings occur. I then show that my analysis correctly derives the behavior of veel and vele in these constructions, given their characterization as a gradable adjective and a numeral.This article is part of the Special Collection: Partitives

Making Sense of Big Textual Data for Health Care: Findings from the Section on Clinical Natural Language Processing.

Objectives: To summarize recent research and present a selection of the best papers published in 2016 in the field of clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP). Method: A survey of the literature was performed by the two section editors of the IMIA Yearbook NLP section. Bibliographic databases were searched for papers with a focus on NLP efforts applied to clinical texts or aimed at a clinical outcome. Papers were automatically ranked and then manually reviewed based on titles and abstracts. A shortlist of candidate best papers was first selected by the section editors before being peer-reviewed by independent external reviewers. Results: The five clinical NLP best papers provide a contribution that ranges from emerging original foundational methods to transitioning solid established research results to a practical clinical setting. They offer a framework for abbreviation disambiguation and coreference resolution, a classification method to identify clinically useful sentences, an analysis of counseling conversations to improve support to patients with mental disorder and grounding of gradable adjectives. Conclusions: Clinical NLP continued to thrive in 2016, with an increasing number of contributions towards applications compared to fundamental methods. Fundamental work addresses increasingly complex problems such as lexical semantics, coreference resolution, and discourse analysis. Research results translate into freely available tools, mainly for English.

The categorical role of structurally iconic signs

Goldin-Meadow & Brentari (G-M&B) argue that, for sign language users, gesture-in contrast to linguistic sign-is iconic, highly variable, and similar to spoken language co-speech gesture. We discuss two examples (telicity and absolute gradable adjectives) that challenge the use of these criteria for distinguishing sign from gesture.

Color Comparisons and Interpersonal Variation

An important challenge to color objectivists, who hold that statements concerning color are made true or false by objective (non-subject-involving) facts, is the argument from interpersonal variation in where normal observers locate the unique hues. Recently, an attractive objectivist response to the argument has been proposed that draws on the semantics of gradable adjectives and which does not require defending the idea that there is a single correct location for each of the unique hues (Gómez-Torrente (2016) Noûs 50(1): 3–40),. In (Hansen (2015)), I argued that the recent objectivist response doesn’t apply to comparative occurrences of color adjectives, so a revised, comparative, version of the argument from interpersonal variation remains a powerful objection to certain types of objectivism. In this paper, I address several unsatisfactory objectivist replies to the comparative version of the argument from interpersonal variation, and offer what I think is a more plausible objectivist reply to the comparative argument from interpersonal variation.

Imprecision is pragmatic: Evidence from referential processing

Gradable adjectives (GAs) provide an ideal domain for evaluating theories of the interface betwen semantic interpretation and context: relative and absolute GAs are both context dependent, but absolute adjectives can have precise meanings in a way that relative adjectives cannot. We provide processing evidence for the hypothesis that imprecision in absolute adjectives is a pragmatic phenomenon: absolute thresholds are semantically scalar endpoints, and imprecise uses are derived by a global pragmatic threshold, which specifies how much deviation from literal meaning is pragmatically ignorable in a context (see e.g. Lasersohn 1999). The evidence comes from a set of visual world eye-tracking experiments adapted from the design of Sedivy, Tanenhaus, Chambers & Carlson (1999) and Aparicio, Xiang & Kennedy (2015). We measured the time-course of reference resolution in phrases of the form the Adj Noun while varying whether Adj is relative or absolute, as well as the degree to which the intended referent (target) and a competing object exemplified Adj. We found a contrast-based processing advantage for absolute GAs when the target exemplified Adj imprecisely but the competitor exemplified Adj precisely. However, this advantage was found to be sensitive to the relative/absolute distinction, as well as to the degree to which objects in the display exemplified the relevant scalar property. Collectively, our results provide evidence for a difference in the mental processes underlying relative versus absolute threshold fixing, which we argue is best modeled by a pragmatic theory of imprecision.

Normality: Part descriptive, part prescriptive

People’s beliefs about normality play an important role in many aspects of cognition and life (e.g., causal cognition, linguistic semantics, cooperative behavior). But how do people determine what sorts of things are normal in the first place? Past research has studied both people’s representations of statistical norms (e.g., the average) and their representations of prescriptive norms (e.g., the ideal). Four studies suggest that people’s notion of normality incorporates both of these types of norms. In particular, people’s representations of what is normal were found to be influenced both by what they believed to be descriptively average and by what they believed to be prescriptively ideal. This is shown across three domains: people’s use of the word “normal” (Study 1), their use of gradable adjectives (Study 2), and their judgments of concept prototypicality (Study 3). A final study investigated the learning of normality for a novel category, showing that people actively combine statistical and prescriptive information they have learned into an undifferentiated notion of what is normal (Study 4). Taken together, these findings may help to explain how moral norms impact the acquisition of normality and, conversely, how normality impacts the acquisition of moral norms.

States and events for S-level gradable adjectives

The event analysis is only rarely incorporated into degree-theoretic treatments of adjectival comparatives. I propose a neodavidsonian account of predications like "Ann was happy" that involves quantification over both states and events. This ‘double-eventuality’ analysis is motivated primarily by how stage-level gradable adjectives interact with temporal "for"-phrases in two classes of comparatives, which I differentiate as ‘low’ versus ‘high’ attachment of the comparative morpheme. Low attachment comparatives express canonical degree readings ("more available"), while high attachment involve comparing numbers of occasions ("available more"). I resolve these patterns by positing a stative core for adjectives, and the possibility of mapping properties of states to properties of events. Low attachment interpretations, then, involve comparison of states, and high involve comparison of (pluralities of) events. I show that the analysis extends to other cases where states and events can do work for adjectives outside of comparatives.

Up to n: Pragmatic inference about an optimal lower bound

This paper focuses on English directional modified numerals up to n, which triggers opposite inference patterns in speaker-uncertainty and authoritative-permission contexts. I propose that these opposite inference patterns are due to pragmatic inference about an unspecified semantic lower bound of up to n, based on its similarities to gradable adjectives and vague characteristics. The value of the semantic lower bound in different contexts is predicted by a general pragmatic principle of interaction between informativity and applicability independently motivated in previous probabilistic models on gradable adjectives.