Project B17:
Comparative Constructions
Comparative Constructions
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Head of the Project
Universität Tübingen
Wilhelmstr. 50
72074 Tübingen
Project Members
Phone +49/7071/29-77156
Email: svetlana.krasikova@uni-tuebingen.de
Phone +49/7071/29-78463
Email: stefan.hofstetter@uni-tuebingen.de
Phone +49/7071/29-74970
Phone +49/7071/29-77156
Phone +49/7071/29-78464
Tel. +49/7071/29-78464
Former Members
Advisors
Project Outline
The aim of the project is to provide new evidence for the semantic theory of comparatives by collecting and analysing data from different languages. The form of the comparative construction as well as the availability of different types of comparison are subject to cross-linguistic variation.
We assume that the contrasts are due to non-trivial variation, both in the semantics of comparatives and at the syntax-semantics interface. This hypothesis follows from the contrast between Japanese/Korean and English/German. We want to investigate further languages in order to gain insight into the parameters of variation. In this context, potential semantic parameters of variation have to be distinguished from syntactically-based variation.
As a first step, we shall look at languages that behave differently from English as well as from English or Japanese with respect to empirical facts, which will make the entire spectrum of the various possibilities prominent. As a second step, we shall look into some of these languages in more detail and suggest ideas about parametric variation in grammar, taking semantic as well as syntactic variation into account.
Our intention is to supply useful data for theory development in this area on the basis of a contrastive and theory-driven collection of data.
Project proposal (in German) (pdf)
Bibliography
Bibliography on Comparatives (pdf)
Last modified 2.02.2009 by Sveta Krasikova