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« Peter Alrenga Special Lecture Friday | Main | What's Special About This Number?»
Peter Alrenga Colloquium
Peter Alrenga
UC Santa Cruz
Different, Same, Like, and the semantics of qualitative comparison
Friday, February 16, 3:30 pm, Machmer E-37
Abstract
In this talk I examine the structure and interpretation of "similarity comparisons", which are comparative constructions headed by different, same, and like (1).
(1) a. I am different now than I used to be.
b. I am the same now as I used to be.
c. I'm still a lot like I used to be.
Though similarity comparisons pattern with well-studied scalar comparisons (2) in a variety of ways, I argue that they are best understood as comparisons of qualities, or attributes, rather than comparisons of degrees.
(2) a. I am taller now than I used to be.
b. I am as happy now as I used to be.
I explore an account of similarity comparisons in which the notion of "shared qualities" is formalized in terms of relative location along a dimension, and the more general understanding of comparison which emerges from it.