Speaker: Johanna Alstott (MIT)
Title: On “very”-intensified superlatives
Time: Wednesday, September 11th, 1pm – 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: Existing literature treats “very” as a prototypical modifier of gradable adjectives (Wheeler 1972; Klein 1980; von Stechow 1984; Kennedy & McNally 2005, a.o.). Focusing on cases like “Sarah is very tall,” these accounts propose that “very” is a standard-booster: while “Al is tall” is true iff Als height meets the contextual standard, “Al is very tall” is true iff he meets a higher standard. This talk concerns a previously unanalyzed use of “very”: namely, the productive occurrence of “very” with superlatives (“the very best applicant,” “the very most important day of my life”). On the basis of data with plural superlatives, I propose that “very” in superlative DPs is the same as the “very” we see with positive forms. After arguing for this unified analysis, I show that past theories of “very” and “-est” cannot generate “very X-est.” To fix things, I give a new theory of “very” built on (a) a new theory of comparison classes; (b) Fitzgibbons et al.s (2008) claim that “-est,” like the positive morpheme “pos,” invokes a standard-degree. The upshot is that “pos” and “-est” not only similarly invoke a standard but have a modifier in common.