Adjectives and Adverbs: Syntax, Semantics, and Discourse

by Louise McNally, Christopher Kennedy

Overview

In this volume leading researchers present new work on the semantics and pragmatics of adjectives and adverbs, and their interfaces with syntax. Its concerns include the semantics of gradability; the relationship between adjectival scales and verbal aspect; the relationship between meaning and the positions of adjectives and adverbs in nominal and verbal projections; and the fine-grained semantics of different subclasses of adverbs and adverbs. Its goals are to provide a comprehensive vision of the linguistically significant structural and interpretive properties of adjectives and adverbs, to highlight the similarities between these two categories, and to signal the importance of a careful and detailed integration of lexical and compositional semantics.

The editors open the book with an overview of current research before introducing and contextualizing the remaining chapters. The work is aimed at scholars and advanced students of syntax, semantics, formal pragmatics, and discourse. It will also appeal to researchers in philosophy, psycholinguistics, and language acquisition interested in the syntax and semantics of adjectives and adverbs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199211616
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2008
Series:	Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics , #19
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Louise McNally is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. She is the author of The Semantics of the English Existential Construction (Garland, 1997) and co-editor, with Peter Culicover, of Syntax and Semantics 29: The Limits of Syntax (Academic Press, 1998). Her publications include articles on various aspects of adjectival semantics, the compositional semantics of modifiers, and the interface of semantics with syntax and pragmatics.
Christopher Kennedy is Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Chicago. He is the author of Projecting the Adjective: The Syntax and Semantics of Gradability and Comparison (Garland, 1999) and is a General Editor with Chris Barker of the Oxford series Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics. His publications and research investigate various aspects of scalar meaning and syntax, along with other topics pertaining to the syntax-semantics interface.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Louise McNally and Chris Kennedy2. The Position of Adjectives and Other Phrasal Modifiers in the Decomposition of DP, Peter Svenonius3. Ezafe and the Deep Position of Nominal Modifiers, Richard Larson and Hiroko Yamakido4. Meaning-Form Correlations and Adjective Position in Spanish, Violeta Demonte5. Nonrestrictive Modifiers in Nonparenthetical Positions, marcin Morzycki6. Adjectives and Degree Modification, Jenny Doetjes7. Measure of Change: The Adjectival Core of Degree Achievements, Chris Kennedy and Beth Levin8. Aspectual Composition With Degrees, Christopher Piñón9. Manner Modification of State Verbs, Graham Katz10. Towards Flexible Types With Constraints for Manner and Factive Adverbs, Adam Zachary Wyner11. Lexical Semantics and Pragmatics of Evaluative Adverbs, Olivier Bonami and Daniele Godard12. Discourse Adjectives, Gina Taranto

Editorial Reviews

"The articles in this book offer an excellent reflection of the current state of the field, even without aiming at comprehensive coverage. All of the authors take great care in laying out their data and applying to them a standard series of tests for grammaticality, distinctness of readings, coherency in discourse, and entailment, reflecting excellent standards of empirical argumentation. Another pleasant feature of the overall collection is that all of the authors develop their analyses against a range of background theories in (minimalist) syntax, (truth-conditional) semantics, and compatible pragmatic frameworks that, though all different in focus, could optimistically be viewed as belonging to one homogeneous paradigm. This allows the reader to contrast hypotheses of different chapters with each other. The differences that at times arise from such comparisons will arouse the reader's interest in the topic."—Regine Eckardt, Language

From the Publisher