How to be positive

CAHA, Pavel, Karen DE CLERCQ, Michal STARKE and Guido VANDEN WYNGAERD. How to be positive. In GLOW 42, May 7–11 2019, Oslo. 2019.

Basic information

• Original name: How to be positive
• Authors: CAHA, Pavel (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution), Karen DE CLERCQ (56 Belgium), Michal STARKE (756 Switzerland, belonging to the institution) and Guido VANDEN WYNGAERD (56 Belgium).
• Edition: GLOW 42, May 7–11 2019, Oslo, 2019.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60203 Linguistics
• Country of publisher: Norway
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14210/19:00107393
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords in English: adjective; positive; syncretism; comparative; *ABA
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

Recent literature has seen the rise of interest in *ABA patterns. These constrain form identity between three (or more) categories. For instance, Bobaljik (2012) observes that in the triplet positive–comparative–superlative (pos–cmpr–sprl), pos and sprl are never the same to the exclusion of cmpr. Bobaljik (and much related work) interprets these patterns in terms of structural containment: if the structure of sprl properly contains cmpr, and if cmpr contains pos, *ABA follows. However, Bobaljik and Sauerland (2018) argue that there are more ways to derive *ABA patterns, and that a careful study of containment patterns is crucial. Our paper revisits Bobaljik’s original case for containment (adjectival degree morphology), and suggests that a more symmetric view on the relationship between pos and cmpr is needed, crucially without giving up the possibility of deriving *ABA.

Links

• GA17-10144S, research and development project: Name: Lineární kontiguita v jazyce

Investor: Czech Science Foundation