The Syntax and Semantics of Evaluative Degree Modification

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most common cause of death in adults with end-stage renal disease and after renal transplantation, and the relative excess of mortality is greatest in the young. The most likely explanation is the dramatic accumulation of both classical and uremic risk factors leading to atherosclerosis, uremic vasculopathy, and uremic cardiomyopathy. Prospective studies have established the significance of classical and uremic risk factors for the occurrence of CVD in the normal population and in the population with chronic renal disease alike. However, whether and to what degree modification of risk factors by therapeutic intervention can lower morbidity and mortality rates is as yet unknown.

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From Event Structure to Scale Structure: Degree Modification in Deverbal Adjectives

Semantics and Linguistic Theory ◽

10.3765/salt.v0i0.2820 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 163

Author(s):

Christopher Kennedy ◽

Louise McNally

Keyword(s):

Event Structure ◽

Scale Structure ◽

Degree Modification

No abstract.

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Universal quantification as degree modification in Arabic

Glossa a journal of general linguistics ◽

10.5334/gjgl.131 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 26 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Peter Hallman

Keyword(s):

Degree Modification ◽

Universal Quantification

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Degree Resultatives as Second-Order Constructions

Journal of Germanic Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s1470542719000084 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 31 (3) ◽

pp. 225-297 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jack Hoeksema ◽

Donna Jo Napoli

Keyword(s):

Expressive Language ◽

Structural Diversity ◽

Corpus Study ◽

Resultative Constructions ◽

Semantic Classes ◽

Steady Growth ◽

Special Degree ◽

Degree Modification ◽

Diachronic Development ◽

High Degree

Resultatives in English and Dutch have developed special degree readings. These readings stem from a reinterpretation of the resultative predicate as indicating a high degree rather than an actual result. For example, when a parent saysI love youtodeath, one need not call the cops, since the sentence is not about love turning lethal, but merely indicative of a high degree of affection. Such cases have often been noted in the literature as idiomatic, but this view ignores the fact that these are not isolated cases but productive constructions that can be used with a variety of verbs. We explore various resultative constructions in English and Dutch, and give a classification of the subtypes involved as well as their diachronic development from ordinary to degree interpretation. We link these subtypes to lexical semantic classes of verbs. Both English and Dutch show a steady growth in the lexical and structural diversity of degree resultatives throughout the early modern and contemporary periods (1600-2000). We focus in our paper on the period 1800-2000, for which we did an extensive corpus study using the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA) and Delpher (a collection of digitized Dutch newspapers, journals, magazines, and other resources). One of our findings is that, similar to other types of expressive language, such as degree modification and emphatic negation, taboo expressions play a role in degree resultatives; in fact, their role is excessive. We outline a number of the commonalities among the semantic domains of expressive language used in resultatives.

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Degree modification across categories in Afrikaans

Linguistic Variation ◽

10.1075/lv.17004.ber ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 102-135 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Robyn Berghoff ◽

Rick Nouwen ◽

Lisa Bylinina ◽

Yaron McNabb

Keyword(s):

Wide Distribution ◽

Lexical Item ◽

The Other ◽

Gradable Adjectives ◽

Grammatical Categories ◽

Degree Modification

Abstract The paper presents an analysis of the Afrikaans degree modifier baie ‘very/much/many’. Baie appears to be a single lexical item with a wide distribution in terms of the categories of gradable predicate with which it can combine. However, the paper shows that two syntactically distinct instances of baie should be distinguished. These instances of baie portion out the modification of different grammatical categories between them: one, a head, exclusively modifies gradable adjectives, and the other, an adjunct, modifies the remaining categories of gradable predicate.

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Cross-categorial modification of properties in Hebrew and English

Semantics and Linguistic Theory ◽

10.3765/salt.v22i0.2632 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 22 ◽

pp. 365

Author(s):

Yaron McNabb

Keyword(s):

Wide Distribution ◽

The Past ◽

Degree Modification ◽

Gradable Predicates ◽

Abstract Work ◽

English Equivalent ◽

The Way

Abstract Work in the past decade has greatly improved our understanding of the meaning of gradable predicates and degree modification. The discussion of these expressions has charted the way to an examination of additional types of modifiers that do not operate on degrees but rather on context candidates. In this study, I analyze the Hebrew modifier _mamaš_ and its English equivalent _really_ as modifiers of properties of individuals, situations, or propositions. The flexible semantics accounts for these modifiers’ wide distribution and types of semantic contribution.

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Piecemeal acquisition of boundedness

Belgian Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1075/bjl.25.05tri ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 25 ◽

pp. 80-103

Author(s):

Elena Tribushinina

Keyword(s):

Language Learners ◽

Time Course ◽

Critical Mass ◽

Spontaneous Speech ◽

Corpus Study ◽

Degree Modification ◽

Scalar Structure ◽

Generalization Errors ◽

Degree Adverbs

Recent semantic studies show that adjectives differ in terms of the scalar structures associated with them, which has implications for patterns of degree modification. For example, relative adjectives in Dutch are associated with unbounded (open) scales and are, therefore, incompatible with maximizing adverbs (e.g. #helemaal groot ‘completely big’, #helemaal klein ‘completely small’). This paper tests the hypothesis that children acquire the relevant distinctions in the domain of boundedness in a piecemeal fashion by storing ready-made modifier-adjective pairings from the input and later generalizing over them. The results of the longitudinal corpus study of four degree adverbs in the spontaneous speech of nine children acquiring Netherlandic Dutch are consistent with the idea that language learners start by reproducing target-like modifier-adjective combinations stored as prefabs from the input. Once a critical mass of such adverb-adjective pairings has been stored, children make generalizations over the stored instances and proceed to productive use. This phase is marked by over-generalization errors that are attested, on average, six months after the emergence of a degree adverb. Most of the over-generalization errors involved combining a degree adverb with an adjective of an incompatible scalar structure. It is concluded that the acquisition of boundedness has a more protracted time course than has been hitherto assumed on the basis of comprehension experiments.

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