{"id":18018,"date":"2026-05-04T06:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T10:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whamit.mit.edu\/?p=18018"},"modified":"2026-05-03T23:28:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:28:26","slug":"lf-reading-group-5-6-thomas-truong-and-karolin-kaiser-mit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/2026\/05\/04\/lf-reading-group-5-6-thomas-truong-and-karolin-kaiser-mit\/","title":{"rendered":"LF Reading Group 5\/6 - Thomas Truong and Karolin Kaiser (MIT)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><strong>Speaker:<\/strong> Thomas Truong and Karolin Kaiser (MIT)<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Title: <\/strong>Age is not just a number<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Time: <\/strong>Wednesday, May 6th, 1pm - 2pm<br class=\"\" \/><br clear='none'\/>\n<strong>Location: <\/strong>32-D461<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Abstract: <\/strong><span data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">We start from constructions where a proper name modifies a gradable adjective, as in (1).<\/span><\/p>\n<ol start=\"1\">\n<li dir=\"ltr\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Eyal is Joe Biden old.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">While these examples initially may suggest a simple degree interpretation, i.e. mapping the individual to their degree on the relevant scale. We show that this cannot be the full story. We examine the conditions of use for these sentences and show that these constructions systematically differ from measure phrases and equatives. They crucially permit felicitous uses in contexts where the target individual does not match the named individual\u0092s absolute degree.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">We propose that this construction supports an analysis where comparison classes are structured objects with a contextually provided ordering on a partition of individuals in the comparison class. Following mechanisms from Bale (2006, 2008) we propose that a \u0093scale\u0094 is built from the modifying proper name. Informally,\u00a0<i>A is B-adj\u00a0<\/i>means that\u00a0<i>A<\/i>\u00a0occupies a position in\u00a0<i>A<\/i>\u0092s comparison class that corresponds to B\u0092s position on the constructed \u0093scale\u0094.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaker: Thomas Truong and Karolin Kaiser (MIT) Title: Age is not just a number Time: Wednesday, May 6th, 1pm - 2pm Location: 32-D461 \u00a0 Abstract: We start from constructions where a proper name modifies a gradable adjective, as in (1). Eyal is Joe Biden old. While these examples initially may suggest a simple degree interpretation, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18020,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18018\/revisions\/18020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}