Measurement and Interadjective Comparisons英文电子图书.pdf

Journal of Semantics Advance Access published November 22, 2010 Journal of Semantics : 1–24 doi:10.1093/jos/ffq018 Measurement and Interadjective Comparisons ROBERT VAN ROOIJ Universiteit van Amsterdam Abstract This article demonstrates the relevance of measurement theory for the linguistic analysis of comparative statements. In particular, the article focuses on interadjective comparatives like ‘x is P-er than y is Q’ and comparatives involving multidimensional adjectives. It is argued that Bale’s (2008) recent proposal to account for such comparatives is rather limited and just one way to account for interadjective comparison. In fact, it is shown that we can account for interadjective comparatives by using recently developed measurement-theoretic techniques in political economy. This article also discusses how to construct the desired scales, if one starts with a delineation approach of comparatives. 1 INTRODUCTION It is sometimes believed that we have two competing analyses of comparatives: one that crucially uses degrees and another that denies their existence. But it is, of course, absolutely non-sensical to adopt the latter position. Nobody can deny that we sometimes use measure phrases in natural language and that they are used in comparatives as well. The issue is rather whether we always use degrees when we evaluate comparatives or whether this is not the case. Moreover, if degrees are essential for the interpretation of a particular kind of comparative, we would like to know how fine-grained we should assume these degree structures to be. Measurement theory provides standard answers to those questions, and it is