The Meaning of More

This book reimagines the compositional semantics of comparative constructions using words such as more, as, too, and so on. Working within a degree semantics framework, the central thesis of the book rejects a fundamental assumption of that framework: that gradable adjectives like tall lexicalize functions from individuals to degrees, i.e., measure functions. Alexis Wellwood argues that the functional complex associated with comparative morphology - such as the morphosyntax underlying more or its suffixal variant -er in English - itself introduces measure functions; this is the case whether it targets adjectives like taller or more intelligent; nouns, as in more coffee, more coffees; verbs, such as run more, jump more; or expressions of other categories. Expressions that comfortably appear in comparative constructions are thus distinguished from those that do not in terms of a difference in measurability : only those predicates which have non-trivial structure on their domains of predication are measurable. This distinction unifies the independently motivated distinctions between, for example, gradable and non-gradable adjectives, mass and count nouns, singular and plural noun phrases, and telic and atelic verb phrases. It furthermore attributes the patterns of constrained variability in the selection of measure functions to the nature and structure the relevant domains of predication are thought to have.