Incremental more

Authors

  • Guillaume Thomas MIT

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v20i0.2558

Keywords:

more, degree semantics, additivity

Abstract

The morpheme more has been mostly studied as a comparative operator. However, it appears that more can be used non comparatively, as in the following sentence: "It rained for three hours this morning, and it rained a little more in the afternoon." There is an interpretation of this sentence in which the second conjunct is an assertion that it rained in the afternoon, possibly less than three hours. We call this use of more incremental. We argue that incremental more is a pluractional additive operator. Evidence for such a pluractional semantics comes from the analysis of some restrictions on the use of incremental more with stative predicates.

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Published

2010-08-14

Issue

Section

Articles