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Degrees and Grammar: An East Asian Perspective
Edited by Qiongpeng Luo, Zhiguo Xie and Xiao Li
[Language and Linguistics 24:1] 2023
► pp. 5–35

Degrees and grammar

An East Asian perspective

| Nanjing University
| The Ohio State University
| City University of New York
In this article, we discuss some fundamental issues as well as several unresolved questions of degree-based theories in contemporary linguistics from the perspective of East Asian languages, with a view to pointing out some directions for future research. We first focus on several controversies surrounding the studies of comparative constructions in the literature, i.e., phrasal comparison vs. clausal comparison, individual comparison vs. degree comparison, big DegP vs. small DegP, the points of cross-linguistic variation, etc. We then expand the discussion to comparative constructions and other degree-related constructions in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and demonstrate how an East Asian perspective offers a novel insight into those controversies and uncovers considerable in-depth commonality underlying a variety of degree-related constructions cross-linguistically. We conclude by suggesting some directions for future within- and cross-linguistic research.
Keywords: gradability, degree semantics, comparative construction, cross-linguistic variation, Mandarin Chinese, East Asian languages
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Foundations of degree semantics
    • 2.1The semantics of gradable predicates
    • 2.2The semantics of comparative constructions
  • 3.Unresolved issues
    • 3.1Clausal vs. phrasal comparatives
    • 3.2Explicit vs. implicit comparatives
    • 3.3The big vs. small DegP controversy
  • 4.Degree constructions in Mandarin Chinese
    • 4.1The clausal vs. phrasal controversy
    • 4.2Differential verbal comparatives in Mandarin Chinese and the ontology of degree
  • 5.Degree constructions in Japanese
    • 5.1The controversy of clausal vs. phrasal comparison in Japanese
    • 5.2Explicit vs. implicit comparison in Japanese
  • 6.Degree constructions in Korean
  • 7.Looking ahead
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 12 December 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00124.luo
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