TY - JOUR AU - Deal, Amy Rose AU - Hohaus, Vera PY - 2019/07/24 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Vague predicates, crisp judgments JF - Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung JA - SuB VL - 23 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - 10.18148/sub/2019.v23i1.537 UR - https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/537 SP - 347-364 AB - <p>Nez Perce is a language &nbsp;with a dedicated comparative &nbsp;morpheme and crisp judgments in its comparatives, but with no means to express differential measurement in its comparative. &nbsp;These data can be captured by two different types of analyses: either Nez Perce has a negative setting of the Degree Semantics Parameter ([<em>±</em>DSP]) (Beck et al., 2009), along with a comparative operator that allows manipulation of context (Klein, 1980), or it has a positive setting of said parameter, but the comparative operator does not provide a slot for a differential degree argument. We show that the “degreeless” analysis of gradable adjectives in Nez Perce provides a unified and simple explanation for a cluster of additional properties of the language. At the same time, our findings draw attention to hitherto unattested variation within degreeless languages: other [-DSP] &nbsp;languages like Motu (Beck et al., 2009), Washo (Bochnak, 2015) and Warlpiri (Bowler, &nbsp;2016) lack the Klein-style &nbsp;comparative operator present in Nez Perce.</p> ER -