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ADVERBIAL ADJECTIVES and NOMINAL SCALARITY Melania

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ADVERBIAL ADJECTIVES and NOMINAL SCALARITY Melania ADVERTIMENT. Lʼaccés als continguts dʼaquesta tesi queda condicionat a lʼacceptació de les condicions dʼús establertes per la següent llicència Creative Commons: http://cat.creativecommons.org/?page_id=184 ADVERTENCIA. El acceso a los contenidos de esta tesis queda condicionado a la aceptación de las condiciones de uso establecidas por la siguiente licencia Creative Commons: http://es.creativecommons.org/blog/licencias/ WARNING. The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en ADVERBIAL ADJECTIVES AND NOMINAL SCALARITY Melania Sánchez Masià Supervised by Dr. Violeta Demonte Barreto Dr. M. Carme Picallo Soler A doctoral dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Cognitive Science and Language Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres Departament de Filologia Catalana February 2017 This work by Melania Sánchez Masià is licensed under a Cre- ative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. A mi abuela mero1 (¿del cat. «nero»? Epinephelus guaza) m. Pez perciforme de carne muy estimada, como lo demuestra el proverbio «de la mar el mero y de la tierra el carnero». María Moliner, Diccionario de uso del español Abstract This dissertation investigates scalarity in the nominal domain through the study of a subset of prenominal adverbial adjectives in Spanish, adjectives of veracity (AVs; verdadero ‘true’, auténtico ‘authentic’) and adjectives of completeness (ACs; completo ‘complete’, total ‘total’, absoluto ‘absolute’). Its aim is to contribute to the understanding of the values associated with prenominal position in Romance, the parallelism between adverbial and adjectival modification, and the manifestations of scalarity in nouns. The analysis of AVs is used to explore conceptual gradability. It is shown that the relevant factor for AVs to combine with a noun is vagueness. I propose that AVs operate over the contextual parameters involved in the determination of the interpretation of the predicate. In particular, AVs state that the individual belongs in the denotation of the noun in all the relevant contexts. This has the effect of picking up a representative individual of the category, and accounts for the intensifier and metalinguistic readings of AVs. The factors that affect the ordering in the extension of the noun, especially typicality and subjectivity, and the grammatical consequences this has for the distribution of AVs are also addressed. Although the ordering is shown to have linguistic effects, it is argued not to be grammatically represented. That is, this kind of scalarity is conceptual, not lexical. Finally, the analysis is extended to the adverbs of veracity in their modification of adjectives and verbs. The study of ACs serves to discuss grammatical gradability. Starting from the observation that adverbs of completeness are degree modifiers sensitive to scale vii viii maximums, it is argued that the correlate adjectives have the same properties and should be analyzed as degree modifiers. The chapter consists of three case studies of nouns that can be modified by ACs. First, property concept nouns (libertad ‘freedom’) are shown to share the scale structure with their cognate adjectives. ACs only occur with those related to total adjectives. These facts are accounted for by adopting a view of property concept nouns as predicates of portions of substances and having the degree argument introduced externally. Second, aspectual inheritance in the nominalizations of incremental theme verbs (destrucción ‘destruction’) and degree achievements (oscurecimiento ‘darkening’) is tackled. I demonstrate that ACs are restricted to telic eventive nominalizations and behave as maximality modifiers. The analysis accounts for these degree uses by combining a constructionist approach to the syntax of nominalizations and a degree approach to aspect for their semantics. Third, ACs display a mixed behavior with respect to their maximality when combined with evaluative nouns (idiota ‘idiot’). This is a consequence of the semantics of evaluative nouns, which are argued to denote extreme gradable properties and include an expressive component. The results provide support for a richer representation of nouns in combination with a two-domain approach to adnominal adjectives. AVs and ACs and their correspondent adverbs are shown to be two morphological variants of the same intensifier and to be restrictive, as opposed to the non-restrictive readings prenom- inal qualitative adjectives receive in Romance. Regarding scalarity in the nominal domain, it can be concluded that many factors interact to produce scalar effects, but only a few of them constitute real manifestations of lexical gradability. On the one hand, typicality interacts with vagueness and subjectivity, but the ordering is not grammatically represented. On the other, only evaluative nouns are argued to be lexically gradable. In the other cases, degree arguments are introduced by specialized heads, either related to measurement or to aspect. This creates a continuum of nominals, from the most adjective-like to non-gradable, with property concept nouns and eventive nominalizations placed halfway between them. Resum Aquesta tesi investiga fenòmens d’escalaritat en l’àmbit nominal a través d’un subgrup d’adjectius adverbials prenominals en espanyol, els adjectius de veracitat (AV; verdadero ‘vertader’, auténtico ‘autèntic’) i els adjectius de completesa (AC; completo ‘complet’, total ‘total’, absoluto ‘absolut’). Té com a propòsit contribuir a la caracterització de la posició prenominal en llengües romàniques, al paral·lelisme entre la modificació adverbial i adjectival, i a les manifestacions d’escalaritat en substantius. Els AV s’utilitzen com a cas pràctic per tal d’abordar la gradabilitat conceptual. Es mostra que el criteri pel qual un AV es combina amb un substantiu és que aquest siga vague. Proposem que els AV operen sobre els paràmetres contextuals encarregats de la determinació de la interpretació dels predicats. En concret, la contribució dels AV és que l’individu és part de la denotació del nom en tots els contextos rellevants. Açò té l’efecte de seleccionar una entitat representativa de la categoria i explica les lectures d’intensificació i metalingüístiques d’aquests adjectius. Es discuteixen també els factors que afecten l’ordre en l’extensió del nom, especialment la tipicitat i la subjectivitat, i les conseqüències gramaticals que açò té per a la distribució dels AV.Encara que es mostra que l’ordre té efectes lingüístics, defensem que no té representació gramatical. És a dir, aquest tipus d’escalaritat és conceptual, però no lèxica. Per a acabar, l’anàlisi s’estén als adverbis de veracitat quan modifiquen adjectius i verbs. A través de l’estudi dels AC explorem la gradabilitat gramatical. Partim de l’observació que els adverbis de completesa són sensibles als màxims en les escales ix x i argumentem que els adjectius corresponents tenen les mateixes propietats i han de ser analitzats com a modificadors de grau. El capítol està dividit en tres casos pràctics. En primer lloc, es mostra que els noms de qualitat (libertad ‘llibertat’) comparteixen l’estructura escalar amb els seus correlats adjectivals. Aquests fets s’expliquen mitjançant l’anàlisi d’aquests noms com a predicats de porcions de substàncies, els arguments de grau dels quals són introduïts de manera externa. En segon lloc, analitzem l’herència aspectual en les nominalitzacions de verbs de tema incremental (destrucción ‘destrucció’) i verbs deadjectivals (oscurecimiento ‘enfosquiment’). Els AC estan limitats a les nominalitzacions eventives tèliques i es comporten com a modificadors de maximalitat. L’anàlisi proposada combina un acostament construccionista per a la sintaxi amb una perspectiva de grau de l’aspecte per a la semàntica. En tercer lloc, els AC mostren un comportament de maximalitat parcial amb noms avaluatius (idiota ‘idiota’). Açò és una conseqüèn- cia de la semàntica d’aquests noms, per als quals proposem que denoten graus extrems de propietats i incorporen un component expressiu. Els resultats recolzen una representació més rica de l’estructura interna dels substantius, en combinació amb una anàlisi de dos dominis dels adjectius atribu- tius. Es demostra que els AV i els AC, juntament amb els seus corresponents adverbis, són dues variants morfològiques del mateix intensificador i que són restrictius. Això contrasta amb les interpretacions no restrictives dels altres adjec- tius prenominals romànics. Quant a l’escalaritat en l’àmbit nominal, concloem que diversos factors interactuen per a produir efectes escalars, però solament uns pocs constitueixen vertaderes manifestacions de gradabilitat lèxica. D’una banda, la tipicitat interactua amb la vaguetat i la subjectivitat, però aqueix ordre no està representat gramaticalment. Per una altra, solament els substantius aval- uatius són lèxicament graduables. En la resta de casos, els arguments de grau s’introdueixen mitjançant nuclis funcionals relacionats amb mesura o aspecte. Açò crea un continu d’elements nominals, des dels més semblants als adjectius, passant pels noms de qualitat i les nominalitzacions eventives, fins als substantius no graduables. Resumen Esta tesis investiga fenómenos de escalaridad en el ámbito nominal a través de un subgrupo de adjetivos adverbiales prenominales en español, los adjetivos de veracidad (AV; verdadero, auténtico)
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