A Degree-Based Analysis of ‘V+A+le2’ Construction

This paper examines both the result-realization and the result-deviation interpretations of ‘V+A+le2’ construction under the framework of degree semantics. It is argued that the ‘V+A+le2’ construction is a comparative construction and that different interpretations arise because different standards of comparation are adopted. Result-realization interpretations are seen in all instances of the construction while result-deviation interpretations can be found only in instances with open-scale adjectives. The syntactic structure determines whether the ‘A’ encodes a measure function or the ‘V+A’ encodes a measure of change function in the ‘V+A+le2’ comparative construction.

1. 1.

   Measure of change function are derived from the difference function that is always associated with the minimum standard, i.e., zero value. See the discussion in Kennedy and McNally [4].

Authors and Affiliations

1. School of Foreign Languages, Beihang University, Beijing, China

   Mengjie Zhang

2. School of Humanities, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

   Wenhua Duan

3. English Department, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing, China

   Yunqing Lin

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mengjie Zhang .

Editors and Affiliations

1. National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

   Jia-Fei Hong

2. Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China

   Yangsen Zhang

3. Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China

   Pengyuan Liu

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