Degree and its many forms : definition(s), parameters, and a few questions. Catherine CHAUVIN (U. de...

Degree and its many forms : definition(s), parameters, and a few

questions.

Catherine CHAUVIN (U. de Lorraine, Nancy)

Journées d ’agrégation sur « L’expression du degré », programme 2014

Université de Bordeaux 3, 24/01/14

Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14

I. WHY IS IT A PROBLEM?I. WHY IS IT A PROBLEM?


• Degree => many forms

• Many aspects/ ‘chapters’ of language: quantification, exclamation, modality, comparison/ superlatives, aspect, adverbs, adjectives…

• + various forms, adjectives, adverbs, but also e.g., certain idioms: (as) fit as a fiddle…

• More or less lexicalized/ grammaticalized (e.g. very vs many other « intensive » adverbs); « no » (open) mark (?) (It’s expensive, e.g. Kennedy 2006)

• Semantic(s) and pragmatic(s) (?)


• + Links and opposition with other notions (sub-classes? Qualitatively different? (all/ partly) Just different labels?)

• Degree• Scale/ scalar/ scalarity• Intensity/ [intensification]• Gradation/ grading (Sapir)/ gradabilility/

grading/ graded/ gradience (Aarts)…


• Definition• -> all that is not binary…?• -> A ‘positive’ definition of degree?


+ The expression of degree (« L’expression du degré »)

• => does this include/ exclude something?• What does one mean by ‘expression’? (not.

semantics/ pragmatics)


• + It can/ may open other types of questions:

-> Discourse analysis


• -> + Sociolinguistics?


• A. Stephen Fry in Stephen Fry in America: ‘That’s rather splendid’

-> Use of quite in the UK/ US (« understatement »…)

• B. Number of emphasis markers in teenage talk, and constant evolution of this (French: top, trop; English:)

e.g. It sounds top banana! (D. Williams, Mr Stink p. 115)Chloe grinned. That was superbrilliantamazing! (p. 329)

Completedness/ ‘telicity’/ ‘full; as much as it can be’: The bus was chock-a-block with people. (226)

– [+ ‘Lip gloss?’ ‘A smidge’ (181)]


• C. (i.e., also) Language change? -> « erosion » of emphasis markers and re-

invention (‘expressiveness’/ expressivity)

• D. Role of genres, registers, once again hereSome of today’s examples are taken from children’s books written by

comedian D. Walliams, which shows quite a lot of invention for degree markers and scales


• [NB. Degree might also be used in a meta-/ theoretical way (e.g. how clear-cut linguistic categories are, vs fuzziness, for instance, cf. Aarts: 2007’s syntactic gradience; not dealt with directly here]


Still, important/ interesting => presence, many markers + links between them:

Natural languages reflect this fact: all languages have syntactic categories that express gradable concepts, and all languages have designated comparative constructions, which are used to express orderings between two objects with respect to the degree or amount to which they possess some property (Sapir 1944). (Kennedy 2006)

Very important role of scalar structures in language (Kennedy et al.)

=> Different aspects to be explored/ (made more precise (?))


II. DEFINING ‘DEGREE’II. DEFINING

‘DEGREE’


2.1. Defining it ‘per se’?2.1. Defining it ‘per se’?


• Not always explicitly defined (used vs defined)


• Certain/ specific aspects may be openly defined -> vs « degree » as such?

• Scale vs degree (Kennedy 2006); see below


• Everything that is not binary => too large (what isn’t degree?) + not very precise…

• (+ difficulties to oppose complementary vs gradable in a strict way (true, false; male, female…; [partially?] contextual dependence)


• Sapir 1944‘link’ with comparison / comparison being the most basic operation of all (=> comparison as such, but also larger)

• Taken up by Kennedy (on comparatives): ‘The ability to establish orderings among objects and make comparisons between them according to the amount or degree to which they possess some property is a basic component of human cognition.’

• => + more precise (series of) definitions


• + many ways of expressing degree/ semantic differences


2.2. Defining it in relation to other notions

2.2. Defining it in relation to other notions


• Could be a question of theoretical choice, or just preferences (no obvious reason but a preferred choice of words)?


• Degree vs grade (and derived forms)

• Degree -> perhaps more traditional (although common) More general as well

• Grading -> also Aarts 2007; but « gradience »


• Bierwisch, M. (1989). The Semantics of gradation. In M. Bierwisch, & E. Lang (Eds.), Dimensional adjectives. (pp. 71–261). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

• Cresswell, M. J. (1977). The semantics of degree. In B. Partee (Ed.), Montague grammar (pp. 261–292). New York: Academic Press.


• => graded based on one type of property/ syntactic behaviour (gradability), but which in itself needs further defining? (See part 3)


• Degree and scalarity

Scale

A ‘historical’ difference => more ‘recent’ studies


• + main difference could be that they include a lot of work on time/ tense, and in particular, aspect

• => includes verb and event semantics in the study of grading

• -> telicity (and discussion)• -> incremental themes (e.g. He ate an apple)• Link between time and degree -> the passing of

time is gradual, per se;• + may include a gradual evolution of some

element that is associated to the event as time passes (cf. incremental themes)


• Allows for an integrated study of time and degree


• In Kennedy (2006), degree vs scale:

• a. Gradable adjectives map their arguments onto abstract representations of measurement, or DEGREES

• b. A set of degrees totally ordered with respect to some DIMENSION (height, cost, etc.) constitutes a SCALE.


• Degree and intensity

• Who uses the term « intensity »?• Can be very large term: Romero (2007)/ (2005) ->

rhetorical, phonetics, …• Problem of something that could be too

encompassing? (cf. « expressiveness »)• Should it be made more precise? How?• Is that just a possible effect of degree-marking (« effet

de sens ») or on the contrary, is that much vaguer than degree?

• [Link with modality]


• Complicated terminology -> history of the field, frameworks…

• + question of whether all these facts can or cannot be subsumed under a same notion

• Try and define what is studied as clearly as possible…


(On a tentative basis…)

• Grading => syntactic property• Degree => value on a scale• Scale => ordered set of points with values attached to

them (+ types of scale)

• Scalarity => possible link with a scale• Gradability => possible use of grading terms

• Intensity => larger, includes saliency, expressiveness…


III. TYPES OF DEGREE/ WAYS OF EXPRESSING DEGREE

III. TYPES OF DEGREE/ WAYS OF EXPRESSING DEGREE


[Quantity vs Quality opposition

• + ? (NB. not all on same level)


-> modes of expression of degree: direct/ indirect-> degree/ degree + something else-> degree in quality/ quantity; degree in

quantification+qualification vs/ and space?/ time (links, differences)

-> [comparison/ superlatives and their forms/ uses]

-> there are scales… and scales? Scale types and « gradation » in the organization of the lexicon/ in grammar

-> there’s ‘degree of degree’ (so very nice; far more impressive, etc.)


Direct/ indirect expression of degreeDirect/ indirect expression of degree


Directness/ indirectness in the expression of degree

Lexicalized elements: very niceLess lexicalized elements: ruddy hilarious (222)/

dead famous (?) +/- collocation?Novel uses (?): bum-numbingly boring (119)

Direct: very niceIndirect: i.e. pragmatic or discursiveBum-numbingly boring -> degree by implicature?


Pragmatics and semantics

NB. Scales and implicatures (Q-implicatures)

‘Is(n’t) she great?’‘She’s nice.’


Discursive… and mixed devices (comparison, +…)

Chloe was a hundred times more excited than she had ever been in her life. (240) (direct comparison)

But Chloe would have watched a hundred of them if they meant not having to spend the day campaigning with Mother. That was how boring it was going to be. (120) (still direct comparison but less directly constructed; constructed link between two independently created situations; two ‘mental spaces’ ‘brought together’ vs ‘blended’ (?)) [finally not used: ?]


High degree/ center -> ways of constructing it indirectly/ through discourse

This was evident. Sapphire had fake tan smeared all over every inch of her skin. She was now orange. As orange as an orange, if not orangier. Think of the orangiest person you’ve ever met, then times [sic] their orangeness by ten. And if she didn’t look frightful enough already, she was wearing a lime green mini-dress and clutching a shocking pink handbag. (Billionaire Boy, p. 146)


• -> play on notion (‘orangeness’, ‘orangier’) and degrees of belonging to it

• -> use of an element that could ‘embody’ central characteristics (orange, fruit: as orange as an orange) + discursive use of reinforcement (« if not orangier »)

• -> comparison with an independently constructed scene: think of… (another situation, then make the link).

• -> modified cliché: « Think of… then double/ triple it », augmented quantity: ‘X ten’

• -> Finally ‘mental’ image is reinforced by prompting the reader to picture orange + lime-green + shocking pink together (… device?) -> + ‘saliency’

• => (all together)


• Hierarchy of situations vs in lexical field… (pragmatic/ cultural) => expression of degree?

D. Walliams, Gangsta Granny

-> scale/ degree marked by types of situation

(=> lexicalization?/ cultural dimension?)


David Williams, Billionaire Boy (idem)


Ibidem, to reinforce the ‘purpleness’ of

the boy’s ‘bum’ later on


David Walliams, Mr Stink (idem)


Another example (cf. slide 40)

Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it is correct English to say he stinked, then he stinked as well. He was the stinkiest stinky stinker who ever lived.

A stink is the worst type of smell. A stink is worse than a stench. And a stench is worse than a pong. And a pong is worse than a whiff. And a whiff can be enough to make your nose wrinkle. (DW, Mr Stink, p. 11)


• -> use of word to emphasize degree (cf. repetition + belonging to notional domain) + here, play on different forms (all morphological forms iconically put together to add to the idea that the smell is strong)

• 2nd paragraph: resort to lexical scale in lexical field of smell (partly constructed discursively)

Stink < stench < pong < whiff(graded quality -> badness of smell)

• + whiff is supposed to be « enough.. » (comparison/ enough)-> so the rest is gradually worse


Conclusions?-> can be indirect/ direct; constructed

discursively-> not always explicitly formulated (cf. types of

situations) + strong pragmatic/ cultural component

-> can be a mixture of many devices at the same time/ together


Degree + something elseDegree + something else


Adverbs marking a high position on a scale

She knew full well what it was like (16)Are just plain idle. (86)The smell was especially bad today. (96-97)? Looked stiffly immaculate (101)It was thrillingly, terrifyingly real (143)You must have been dead famous! (147-148)… which Chloe thought pretty fitting (149)A truly ridiculous voice (161)She’s an absolutely fantastic girl (188)…


• ‘The empirical picture is complicated somewhat by the fact that not all modifiers co-occur with all adjectives for apparently idiosyncratic reasons’ (Kennedy 2006)


• => degree + degree and something else (not necessarily « just » degree, perhaps never): absolutely vs truly, etc.

• => something else that can express degree as well (implicature; lexicalized or less so) cf. stiffly immaculate (pragmatics again?)

• => not just idiosyncrasy/ collocation, but semantic compatibility…?

Degree ‘only’ ø, maybe very??

Degree + something else Truly X, thrillingly Y

[+ Degree by implicature Stiffly immaculate?]


Types of scales/ organization of the lexiconTypes of scales/ organization of the lexicon


There are scales and scales; graded fields and graded fields

E.g. Modality: (might?)/ may/ must/ will?Quantity/ quantifiers: no/ some/ all

-> cf. implicatures (Some students never handed in their papers)


• Totally open• Lower closed• Upper closed • Totally closed (Kennedy 2006)


Gradable adjectives:-> equipollent vs non-equipollent (cf. Cruse

2004; + other examples -> …)Old/ young, high/ low vs. sad/ happy…

Cruse 1986Not open ==> closedNot large =X=> small


Relative vs absolute adjectives (Kennedy 2006; Kennedy et McNally 2005)

ordered sets (+ Cruse 2004)haze< mist< fog < pea-souper, etc.


IV. SO…?IV. SO…?


• - Multiple parameters• - Should make sure they’re as well defined as

possible (although not always easy)- Importance of:=> lexicalization/ non lexicalization; (i.e., all in all) Directness/ indirectness Pragmatic and discursive aspects (even cultural,

for some things) as well as semantics; to what extent?

• Different modes/ ways of expressing degree (‘degree’ in general/ types of degree)

Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14References (to be completed + site)

Aarts B., 2007, Syntactic gradience, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Cruse, D. A., 1986, Lexical semantics, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.Cruse D.A., 2004, Meaning in Language, Oxford, OUP, “Oxford Textbooks in

Linguistics”.Kennedy C., 2006, Vagueness and grammar: the semantics of relative and absolute

gradable adjectives, Linguistics and Philosophy; http://semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy/docs/vg-epub.pdf

Kennedy, C., & McNally, L., 1999, From event structure to scale structure: Degree modification in deverbal adjectives. In T. Matthews, & D. Strolovitch (Eds.), Semantics and linguistic theory 9 (pp. 163–180). Ithaca, NY

Kennedy, C., & McNally, L., 2005, Scale structure and the semantic typology of gradable predicates. Language, 81(2), 345–381.

Romero C. (2007), Pour une définition générale de l’intensité, Travaux de linguistique 54, p. 57-68.

Sapir, E. (1944). Grading: A study in semantics. Philosophy of Science, 11, 93–116.

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