This paper argues that a variety of constructions in a variety of languages suggest a deep connection between kinds, manners, and degrees. We articulate a way of thinking about degrees on which this connection is less surprising, rooted in the idea that degrees are kinds of Davidsonian states. This enables us to provide a cross-categorial compositional semantics for a class of expressions that can serve as anaphors to kinds, manners, and degrees, or introduce clauses that further characterize them. A consequence of this is that equatives emerge as a special case of a more general cross-categorial phenomenon. The analysis is undergirded by independently motivated assumptions about free relatives and type shifting. It provides evidence for a view of degrees on which they are significantly more ontologically complex than is typically thought.
The semantics of adjectives related to nominals denoting societal roles, such aspresidential (from president), have remained understudied. We examine the semantics of whatwe call role-denoting relational adjectives, providing a formal analysis using the notion of aframe, a unified representation for lexical knowledge, world knowledge, and context. The frameswe propose are based on a constructivist philosophical understanding of social roles, leading usto posit a multi-tiered ontology of events and individuals. Using frames and our ontology, weprovide a general semantics for role-denoting relational adjectives and roles.Keywords: modification, adjectives, relational adjectives, events, non-intersective adjectives,roles, natural language metaphysics, frame semantics.
In this paper I provide an analysis of the English hedges sorta and kinda, which show a cross-categorial distribution and can induce gradability with nongradable predicates. I analyze sorta and kinda as degree words and provide a formal analysis of their behavior. With gradable predicates, these exhibit behavior similar to other degree words such as very, but with non-gradable predicates, a mismatch of logical type forces the predicate to typeshift to a gradable type, making available a degree argument that represents imprecision. The analysis is developed using Morzycki's (2011) implementation of Lasersohnian pragmatic halos (Lasersohn 1999), and presents a case study in how gradability may be coerced from nongradable expressions.
In this paper I provide an analysis of the English hedges sorta and kinda, which show a cross-categorial distribution and can induce gradability with non- gradable predicates. I analyze sorta and kinda as degree words and provide a formal analysis of their behavior. With gradable predicates, these behavior similar to other degree words such as very, but with non-gradable predicates, a mismatch of logical type forces the predicate to typeshift to a gradable type, making available a degree argument that represents imprecision. The analysis is developed using Morzycki’s (2011) implementation of Lasersohnian pragmatic halos (Lasersohn 1999), and presents a case study in how gradability may be coerced from non- gradable expressions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.