Constituency, Implicit Arguments, and Scope in the Syntax-semantics of Degree Constructions

We propose an adjunction-based analysis of comparative (and similar) constructions that captures the morphological and semantic relation between comparative heads (e.g., -er, as) and comparative clauses (e.g., those headed by than or as). Primarily motivating this proposal are the syntactic similarities that we observe between comparative constructions and other adjunction structures in grammar. Specifically, we propose that comparative clauses adjoin to the extended projection of the NP or VP containing the comparative morpheme, and enter into an agreement relation with that morpheme. This agreement relation is the overt morphological reflex of the head of the comparative clause taking scope over, and semantically valuing an implicit argument introduced by the comparative morpheme. We argue in detail that such a proposal is to be preferred over classic alternatives that posit a complementation rather than adjunction relation, such as Bresnan (1973) and Bhatt and Pancheva (2004). Our account captures the data motivating these alternatives, as well as familiar and novel data that such accounts do not predict.