Abstract

We present a compositionally transparent, unified semantic analysis of two kinds of so…wie-equative constructions in German, namely degree equatives and property equatives in the domain of individuals or events. Unlike in English and many other European languages (Haspelmath & Buchholz 1998, Rett 2013), both equative types in German feature the parameter marker so, suggesting a unified analysis. We show that the parallel formal expression of German degree and property equatives is accompanied by a parallel syntactic distribution (in predicative, attributive, and adverbial position), and by identical semantic properties: Both equative types allow for scope ambiguities, show negative island effects out of context, and license the negative polarity item überhaupt ‘at all’ in the complement clause. As the same properties are also shared by German comparatives, we adopt the influential quantificational analysis of comparatives in von Stechow (1984ab), Heim (1985, 2001, 2007), and Beck (2011), and treat both German equative types in a uniform manner as expressing universal quantification over sets of degrees or over sets of properties (of individuals or events). Conceptually, the uniform marking of degree-related and property-related meanings is expected given that the abstract semantic category degree (type $d$) can be reconstructed in terms of equivalence classes, i.e., ontologically simpler sets of individuals (type $\langle e,t\rangle $) or events (type $\langle v,t\rangle $). These are found in any language, showing that whether or not a language makes explicit reference to degrees (by means of gradable adjectives, degree question words, degree-only equatives) does not follow on general conceptual or semantic grounds, but is determined by the grammar of that language.

中文翻译：

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与德国妇女平等的比较，以及学位与财产之间的关系

摘要

我们提出2种的组成透明，统一的语义分析等等......魏某在德国-equative结构，即程度equatives和财产equatives个人或事件的域。与英语和许多其他欧洲语言（Haspelmath＆Buchholz 1998，Rett 2013）不同，德语中的两种等价类型均带有参数标记so，这表明需要进行统一的分析。我们表明，德语程度和属性等式的并行形式表达伴随着并行的句法分布（在谓语，定语和副词位置），并且具有相同的语义特性：两种等式都允许范围模糊，表现出负面的岛效应上下文，并授权负极项目überhaupt补充条款中的“全部”。由于德国比较对象也具有相同的属性，因此我们在von Stechow（1984ab），Heim（1985、2001、2007）和Beck（2011）中对比较对象进行了有影响的量化分析，并以统一的方式对待这两个德国等式类型表示在程度集或属性集（个体或事件）上进行通用量化的一种方式。从概念上讲，如果可以根据等价类（即，在本体上更简单的个体集合（类型\\ langle）来重构抽象语义类别程度（类型$ d $），则可以期望对与程度相关和与属性相关的含义进行统一标记） e，t \ rangle $）或事件（键入$ \ langle v，t \ rangle $）。这些可以用任何语言找到，