The Fine Structure of the Comparative
Pavel Caha, Karen De Clercq, Guido Vanden Wyngaerd
October 2018
 

The paper provides evidence for a more articulated structure of the comparative as compared with the one in Bobaljik (2012). We propose to split up Bobaljik's CMPR head into two distinct heads, C1 and C2. Looking at Czech, Old Church Slavonic and English, we show that this proposal explains a range of facts about suppletion and allomorphy. A crucial ingredient of our analysis is the claim that adjectival roots are not a-categorial, but spell out adjectival functional structure. Specifically, we argue that adjectival roots come in various types, differing in the amount of functional structure they spell out. In order to correctly model the competition between roots, we further introduce a Faithfulness Restriction on Cyclic Override, which allows us to dispense with the Elsewhere Principle.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/003790
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: to appear in Studia Linguistica
keywords: comparative, nanosyntax, suppletion, adjectives, morphology, syntax
previous versions: v4 [December 2018]
v3 [October 2018]
v2 [July 2018]
v1 [December 2017]
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