Hypothetical Comparison in Turkish
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3765/ptu.v6i1.5054Keywords:
hypothetical comparison, equatives, degree semantics, TurkishAbstract
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
Issue
Section
License
Published by the LSA with permission of the author(s) under a CC BY 4.0 license.