Phrasal subcomparatives: a comparative coordination analysis based on evidence from Basque, Spanish, and English

Abstract

By analyzing an understudied type of comparative, namely, subcomparatives with surface-phrasal standards of comparison, this article offers an answer to three long-debated questions regarding the internal structure and semantic composition of comparative constructions in opposition to traditional assumptions and reductionist analyses. First I offer syntactic tests evidencing the non-clausal status of the standard in these subcomparatives in Basque, Spanish and English. Second, regarding the question of the linkage type between the compared elements (either a dependence relation or a coordination relation), I present previous and novel syntactic evidence showing that phrasal subcomparatives invariably behave like common phrasal coordinates. Therefore, I defend an architecture of these comparatives involving a phrasal coordinate structure and offer a transparent mapping between the surface syntax and semantic interpretation of these constructions. Third, subcomparatives involve the obligatory omission of a measure modifier from the standard. This process known as comparative subdeletion cannot be explained as the result of wh-movement within a clause, given the non-clausal status of the standard. Alternatively, comparative subdeletion is defined not as an ad hoc deletion rule but rather as the result of an obligatory deletion operation independently attested in common coordinate structures.

Keywords

• basque
• comparative subdeletion
• coordination
• english
• phrasal standard
• spanish
• subcomparatives