Attributive adjectives, infinitival relatives, and the semantics of inappropriateness

Abstract

I investigate the syntax and semantics of a previously unexamined English adjective construction, exemplified by sentences like Middlemarch is a long book to assign. The construction, which I call the nominal attributive-with-infinitive construction (nominal AIC), is of interest for the semantics of gradability and modality. I argue that the major interpretive characteristic of the nominal AIC -the interpretation of inappropriateness associated with it -arises from the interaction between the positive degree operator associated with the gradable adjective and the modality of the infinitival relative clause, which contributes to the computation of the standard of comparison. Nominal AICs are compared and contrasted with a surfaceidentical construction I call the clausal AIC, with attributive too, and with attributive comparatives ; they are shown to exhibit major syntactic and semantic differences from all of these. The paper serves both as a contribution to the semantic literature on gradability and as a contribution to the descriptive grammar of English, as it is, to the best of my knowledge, the first systematic description and analysis of the nominal AIC.

Degree Infinitival Clauses

“…In this section I argue for an analysis of the AIC that deepens the analogy between the two constructions. Contra Fleisher 2008Fleisher , 2011 suggest that the analysis of (23a) as parallel to (23b) is a viable, intuitive and empirically justified option. I propose that the AIC is just like the comparative, with two differences: 1) the degree head is the positive morpheme rather than the comparative morpheme; 2) the complement of the degree head is the infinitival clause rather than a than-clause.…”

“…Then I sum up Fleisher's 'pragmatic' analysis of the AIC (Fleisher 2008(Fleisher , 2011 and argue against it. Finally, I present my own analysis and discuss its consequences.…”

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Abstract I discuss the structure and semantic composition of the so-called 'Attributivewith-Infinitive' construction (Fleisher 2008(Fleisher , 2011) -a construction that contains a positive gradable adjective in the attributive position and a gapped infinitival clause. Studying the way the adjective combines with the infinitival clause will suggest a new type of an infinitival clause -a degree interval-denoting one.

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Degree Infinitival Clauses

“…Examples of the 'Attributive-with-Infinitive' construction (AIC) I will be concerned with are below (the term coined in Fleisher 2008Fleisher , 2011 The defining formal properties of this construction are: 1) a positive form of a gradable adjective in an attributive position, and 2) an infinitival clause with a gap in the position of one of its DPs. I will only be concerned with those adjectives that don't take infinitival arguments lexically, like difficult or easy do.…”

“…The existing analysis of the AIC (Fleisher 2008(Fleisher , 2011 suggests that the infinitival clause does not have any direct syntactic or semantic relation to the DegP or AP, and opts for a pragmatic relation between the purpose and the standard that the positive gradable adjective makes use of.…”