Beck Effects in the Comparative

Abstract

This paper defends a “classical” quantificational view on the semantics of comparatives. Building on a proposal in Heim (2000), I examine the role of syntax in scope interactions between the comparative operator and other scope bearing elements. I reevaluate Heim’s interface constraint, known as Kennedy’s generalization and propose to reduce it to a more general constraint about intervention effects of quantifiers, independently motivated in Beck (1996a). My proposal also sheds light on long known puzzles in the than-clause of comparatives.