Metalinguistic Comparatives in Greek and Korean: Attitude Semantics and Expressive Content

Abstract

In this paper, we present a parallel between Greek and Korean in metalinguistic comparatives (MCs), and propose an analysis for both languages that combines an attitudinal semantics (building on Giannakidou and Stavrou 2008) with expressive meaning. The comparative morpheme supplies the former, and the than-particle supplies the latter. We discuss also data from Korean showing a two way distinction between “regular” MCs, and antiveridical MCs.We argue that the use of MC than particles, in all variants, brings about an individual’s emotive state, and propose that the morphemes contain expressive indices in the sense of Potts 2007. Our analysis has two implications: first, it allows the hypothesis that all metalinguistic functions in language are indeed part of the grammar in the particular way formulated here; second, our use of expressive indices supports Potts’s view of the expressive component as separate, but interacting, with the descriptive content: the than particle is not vacuous, but the place where descriptive and expressive meaning interact.