Izyoo(ni)- and Gurai-comparatives: Comparisons of Deviation in Japanese

要旨

Th is paper investigates the syntax and semantics of Japanese com- parative constructions that make use of words like izyoo(ni) 'more than' and gurai 'roughly equal to', which are functionally analogous to the English more- and as-comparatives. I argue that they are necessarily interpreted as comparisons of deviation in the sense of Bierwisch (1989) and Kennedy (2001). In explaining why these constructions cannot express comparisons of the absolute projections of two objects on a scale, as the English comparatives do, this paper advocates the line of thinking pursued by Fukui (1986) and Snyder et al. (1994) that AdjP in Japanese is impoverished in such a way that it lacks the position to host a degree variable or constant.*

主題