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Similarity demonstratives.
- Source :
-
Lingua . Sep2014 Part A, Vol. 149, p74-93. 20p. - Publication Year :
- 2014
-
Abstract
- Similarity demonstratives are a particular class of demonstratives found across languages, e.g., German so , English such , Polish tak and Turkish böyle . These demonstratives occur as modifiers of nominal and/or verbal and adjectival phrases posing the problem of how to reconcile their demonstrative characteristics with their modifying capacity. It is hypothesized in this paper that they express similarity to – instead of identity with – the target of the demonstration gesture thereby generating ad-hoc kinds. The paper focuses on the interpretation of ad-nominal and ad-adjectival occurrences of German so . An analysis is presented combining truth-conditional semantics with multi-dimensional attribute spaces with the help of a generalization of adjectival measure functions. Similarity is defined in such spaces as indistinguishability with respect to a given set of relevant dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00243841
- Volume :
- 149
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Lingua
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 98598443
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2014.05.003