Antonymy and Evaluativity

The goal of this paper is to characterize and account for the systematic distribution of a semantic property, “evaluativity”. A construction is evaluative if it makes reference to a degree that exceeds a contextually specified standard. The term comes from Neeleman et al. (2004); Seuren (1978) alternatively refers to this property as ‘orientedness’ and Bierwisch (1989) as ‘norm-relatedness’. The distribution of evaluativity seems to vary with the predicate and quantifier of a degree construction. I attempt to explain this distribution in terms of semantic properties of predicates and degree quantifiers. Evaluativity is typically associated with positive constructions as in (1):

[1]  E. H. Hutten,et al.  SEMANTICS , 1953, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

[2]  Roumyana Pancheva,et al.  Degree quantifiers, position of merger effects with their restrictors, and conservativity , 2007 .

[3]  N. Corver,et al.  Much-support as a last resort , 1997 .

[4]  Renate Bartsch,et al.  The Grammar of relative Adjectives and Comparison , 1972, Formal Aspects of Cognitive Processes.

[5]  H. Kamp.  Two theories about adjectives , 2013 .

[6]  Ewan Klein,et al.  The interpretation of adjectival comparatives , 1982, Journal of Linguistics.

[7]  Irene Heim,et al.  The Semantics of Degree , 2002 .

[8]  Petra Hendriks,et al.  Review of C. Kennedy, Projecting the adjective. The syntax and semantics of gradability and comparison , 1999 .

[9]  Julia Horvath,et al.  Reply to Bhatt and Pancheva's Late Merger of Degree Clauses: The Irrelevance of (Non)conservativity , 2006, Linguistic Inquiry.

[10]  A. Stechow.  COMPARING SEMANTIC THEORIES OF COMPARISON , 1984 .

[11]  Hotze Rullmann,et al.  Maximality in the semantics of wh -constructions , 1995 .

[12]  Manfred Bierwisch,et al.  The Semantics of Gradation , 1989 .

[13]  E. Higgins.  The varying presuppositional nature of comparatives , 1977 .

[14]  K. Stern.  Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture, and Personality , 1951 .

[15]  Ewan Klein,et al.  A semantics for positive and comparative adjectives , 1980 .

[16]  Leon Stassen,et al.  Comparison and universal grammar , 1987 .

[17]  Pieter A. M. Seuren.  THE COMPARATIVE REVISITED , 1984 .

[18]  I. Heim.  Degree Operators and Scope , 2000 .