Why more and less are never adverbs

Bibliographic Data

ID10140718
AuthorsB Reynolds (0000-0003-0073-7195, Humber College, corresponding author)
Year2024
Pages1-29
Publication date2024-10-04
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2267 • E-ISSN: 1469-7742
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022226724000239
OpenAlexW4403134069
LanguageEN
References cited16

I argue that more and less are always determinatives, contrary to the categorization in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language ( CGEL ), which treats them as adverbs in analytic comparatives. Evidence is presented of contrasts between more / less and much / little in various contexts, challenging CGEL ’s empirical claim that such contrasts never occur in analytic comparatives. The observed distributional patterns can largely be explained by the semantics of more / -er and much without positing a category distinction: more /- er establishes a salient scale-internal reference point, while much requires such a point to already be present. Furthermore, mere distributional differences should not be relied upon for category assignment, following arguments by Payne , Huddleston & Pullum (2010). For these reasons, analyzing more and less as adverbs in any context is unnecessary and unparsimonious. The determinative analysis can account for all the relevant data. Beyond the narrow point about categorization, the paper illustrates the contributions of semantic, pragmatic, and distributional evidence in resolving category assignment

Linguistics · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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