Yurika Aonuki, a UBC distinguished alumnus and currently a doctoral student in linguistics at MIT, will give a Linguistics Outside the Classroom colloquium via Zoom. The title of the talk is Degree semantics in Gitksan and Japanese. The abstract and Zoom link can be found below.
Zoom link: https://ubc.zoom.us/j/63823197398?pwd=WE5WbE83disreHBOeGdDSEZzdHZUdz09
Title: Degree semantics in Gitksan and Japanese.
Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss some aspects of degree semantics in Japanese and Gitksan from my ongoing projects, with focus on how the two languages make use of contextual information and have the same division of labour between gradable adjectives and nominals.
In Japanese, I will focus on two existing puzzles. First, unlike in English, equatives and degree questions formed with relative adjectives have evaluative, or norm-related (Bier- wisch, 1989), inference (Hayashishita, 2007), which is an inference that the relevant degree exceeds the contextual standard. While previous analyses encode this inference in functional morphemes involved in these constructions, izyoo and kurai (Kubota, 2011; Hayashishita, 2017), they would not explain the lack of eveluativity in the same constructions formed with morphologically related nominals. Second, and again unlike in English, measure phrases (MPs) occurring with relative adjectives receive an obligatory differential reading (Oda, 2008; Kubota, 2008; Sawada and Grano, 2011). I argue that both phenomena are due to the evaluativity hard-wired in the adjectival suffix.
Degree constructions in Gitksan have not been studied in depth (though see Rigsby 1986; Tarpent 1987 on Nisg̱a’a; and Bicevskis et al. 2017). There are at least 4 possible forms that express comparative meanings, due to the optionality of the morphemes involved, namely g̱ay ‘instead’ and k’aa ‘exceedingly’, and these forms are shared with superlatives. Detailed investigation into the distribution of these forms reveals sensitivity to the nature of the standard and the comparison class in the context. I conclude with theoretical implications of the data discussed and directions for future research.
References:
Bicevskis, K., Davis, H., and Matthewson, L. (2017). Quantification in Gitksan. In Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language: Volume II, pages 281–382. Springer.
Bierwisch, M. (1989). The semantics of gradation. In Bierwisch, M. and Lang, E., editors, Dimensional Adjectives, pages 71–261. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Hayashishita, J.-R. (2007). Izyoo (ni)- and gurai- comparatives: Comparisons of deviation in Japanese. GENGO KENKYU (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan), 132:77–109.
Hayashishita, J.-R. (2017). Reconfirming izyoo (ni)- and gurai- comparatives as comparisons of deviation. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 26(2):163–187.
Kubota, Y. (2008). Phrasal comparatives in Japanese: A measure function-based analysis. Empirical issues in syntax and semantics, 7:1–20.
Kubota, Y. (2011). Revisiting the progressive/perfect ambiguity of -te iru in Japanese: A scale-based analysis. Paper presented at Grammar and Meaning, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.
Oda, T. (2008). Degree constructions in Japanese. University of Connecticut.
Rigsby, B. (1986). Gitksan grammar. University of Queensland.
Sawada, O. and Grano, T. (2011). Scale structure, coercion, and the interpretation of measure phrases in Japanese. Natural Language Semantics, 19(2):191–226.
Tarpent, M.-L. (1987). A grammar of the Nisgha language. University of Victoria.
