Abstract
Adjectives of comparison (AOCs) like same, different and similar can compare two elements sentence-internally, i.e., without referring to any previously introduced element. This reading is licensed only if a semantically plural NP is present. We argue in this paper that it is incorrect to describe a particular NP as either licensing or not licensing the sentence-internal reading of a specific AOC: licensing is more fine-grained. We use experimental methods to establish which NPs license which AOCs and to what extent and we show how the results can be interpreted against the background of a formal semantic analysis of AOCs. Finally, we argue that using Bayesian methods to analyze this kind of data has an advantage over the more traditional, frequentist approach.
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Brasoveanu, A., Dotlačil, J. (2012). Licensing Sentence-Internal Readings in English. In: Aloni, M., Kimmelman, V., Roelofsen, F., Sassoon, G.W., Schulz, K., Westera, M. (eds) Logic, Language and Meaning. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7218. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31482-7_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31482-7_13
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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