How to do comparison in a language without degrees: a semantics for the comparative in Fijian

Abstract

Kennedy (2009) distinguishes between implicit and explicit comparison (IC/EC): IC is exemplified by ‘Compared to John, Mary is tall’, and EC is of form, ‘Mary is taller than John’. Kennedy goes on to ask whether there are IC-only languages. We show that Fijian is an example of one. Along the way, we demonstrate that not all of Kennedy’s diagnostics for IC can be reliably applied across languages, and offer some novel diagnostics of our own. We propose a semantics for Fijian comparatives that makes no appeal to degree arguments, and discuss possibles source of the cross-linguistic variation.