Speaker: Lisa Bylinina
\nTitle: Low degrees, comparatives, and how they are related
\nLocation: 32D-831
\nTime: Friday, Nov 4, 1:00PM-2:30PM<\/p>\n
Abstract:<\/p>\n
\nVery little is known about the diachronic sources of comparative morphemes. Even in cases when the origin of a comparative morpheme is clear, the development is quite often hard to make sense of.<\/p>\n
The case I will discuss is hypothesized in (Dixon 2008): “It is
\npossible that a diminutive affix could develop into an Index of
\ncomparison. No examples of such a path of development are currently
\nknown.”<\/p>\nTatar and Bashkir are examples of precisely this pattern, modulo
\nterminology: morpheme “-rak” performing low degree modification in
\nboth of them also marks gradable predicates in comparative
\nconstructions. However, while in Bashkir “-rak”-comparative has
\nreplaced the common Turkic unmarked comparative, in Tatar the two
\nstrategies co-exist in free variation.<\/p>\nAnother pair of languages to consider is Russian and Bulgarian.
\nBulgarian comparative morpheme “po” is a relative of Russian low
\ndegree modifier “po-” that appears on comparative forms of adjectives.<\/p>\nInterestingly, there are certain comparative contexts in which Tatar
\n“-rak” and Russian “po-” are obligatory — all of these are contexts
\nwithout (overt) standard of comparison. Exploring the landscape of
\nthese “incomplete comparatives”, I suggest that the relevant ones are
\nso-called “superlative comparatives”, as in “the taller building in
\nthe picture” (Gawron 1995). I will try to push the idea that the
\nmeaning of superlative comparatives makes them particularly useful for
\nreasoning about small differences within a domain in a way that
\nneither positives nor superlatives are; this is where low degrees and
\ncomparatives meet.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaker: Lisa Bylinina Title: Low degrees, comparatives, and how they are related Location: 32D-831 Time: Friday, Nov 4, 1:00PM-2:30PM Abstract: Very little is known about the diachronic sources of comparative morphemes. Even in cases when the origin of a comparative morpheme is clear, the development is quite often hard to make sense of. The case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-talks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3206"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3213,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3206\/revisions\/3213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ling-phil.mit.edu\/whamit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}