Hypothetical Comparison in Turkish

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/ptu.v6i1.5054

Keywords:

hypothetical comparison, equatives, degree semantics, Turkish

Abstract

In this paper, we present a preliminary investigation of the complex formative -mışcasına in Turkish, used for hypothetical comparison. We observe that -mışcasına differs from its counterparts in previously studied hypothetical comparison constructions in one key aspect: It can naturally target non-eventive nominal predicates. Furthermore, we find that -mışcasına is primarily licensed in linguistic contexts that make a gradable property available. Building on these initial empirical observations, we flesh out a novel account of hypothetical comparison that makes use of a well-established formalism of degree semantics and semantics of equatives, eschewing the intricate notion of event similarity which is central to previous accounts. In particular, we argue that -mışcasına compares an actual degree against hypothetical degrees, asserting that the actual degree is greater than or equal to any of the hypothetical degrees.

Downloads

Published

2022-01-19

Issue

Section

Articles