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Decomposing same

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Abstract

Motivated by the cross-linguistic connection between same and scalar equatives, this paper proposes an explicit equative-like syntax and semantics of the same-construction by decomposing same into an equation head -eqtv (parameter marker) and an identity predicate ident (parameter). This move not only provides a novel way of unifying the internal and external uses of same under a compositional account, but also further sheds light on why same differs from other relational adjectives in terms of the licensing conditions for the internal use.

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Notes

  1. It is not the case that all two-place predicates can be parameters, but a precise definition of a parameter will not be given in this paper and is left for future research.

  2. Since the standard phrase surfaces at the right edge of the sentence, obligatory extraposition at PF is often assumed in syntax, see similar treatments in the analyses of comparatives (Matushansky 2002; Bhatt and Pancheva 2004). I will remain agnostic about the syntactic details in terms of when the standard phrase forms a constituent with the equation head (see discussions in Bhatt and Pancheva 2004).

  3. One reviewer expresses the concern that EqP can take sentential scope with the existence of the definite article while Q-adjectives such as fewer cannot (*The fewer than 20 students have ever met Beth, see Solt 2015). The reason might be that the role of the definite article in SAME is a bit different than its typical use: ‘the same N’ can survive under existential and possessive constructions, unlike typical definite phrases, as pointed out to me by Peter Alrenga, Keny Chatain and Linmin Zhang:

    1. (i)
      figure s
    1. (ii)
      figure t

  4. I thank Keny Chatain for pointing out that the existence of MAX in my proposal is necessary in order to capture the uniqueness presupposition of same.

  5. The symmetric relation is defined as follows: If for any x and y: R(x,y)↔R(y,x), then R is a symmetric relation.

  6. Notice that each can license the internal reading of same as well (e.g. Each girl met the same boy). While Thomas and Sudo (2016) do report some experimental evidence showing that each can license cumulative readings in certain environments, this is a controversial point to make, and thus I have to leave open whether the current analysis could directly extend to the case involving each. An alternative to addressing (39) which does not rely on a particular analysis of every and can potentially extend to each, is to follow Charnavel (2015) and Dotlačil (2010) in assuming that an implicit reciprocal the others exists in those cases. I will not pursue this option here since Chatain (2020) points out some differences between a construction involving an overt reciprocal like ‘Every girl met the same boy as the others’ and one without it like (39), showing that the two might not be equivalent.

  7. The pluralization operator is represented by the superscript asterisk∗ (see its definition in fn. 3), while the distribution operator is represented by the normal asterisk *.

  8. While my proposal relies on the assumption that every should be analyzed in a particular way because they can have cumulative readings under certain cases, I am not claiming that they can yield cumulative readings in the same-constructions in (39), which they don’t. It is well known that the distribution of the cumulative readings of every is extremely restricted (Kratzer 2000; Champollion 2010) and especially rare in the subject position.

  9. Another possibility is that since the plural internal use is not blocked for similar and identical because they do not express the identity relation like same, such a use is competing with their singular internal use without DIST as a more economical way of expressing the internal reading when the comparee and the standard are provided by the plural nominal the girls: the plural use involves Hmg but the singular use without DIST involves Hmg plus Quantifier Raising of -eqtv.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my advisors of this project: Chris Kennedy and Itamar Francez. I thank Peter Alrenga, Heather Burnett, Manuel Križ, Richard Larson, Peter Lasersohn, Yimei Xiang, and the audiences at the UChicago Linguistics and Philosophy Workshop, SICOGG 20, SuB 24 for the feedback, especially Keny Chatain, Daniel Hardt, and Line Mikkelsen for the extensive discussions. Special thanks go to the three anonymous reviewers of Natural Language and Linguistic Theory and the handling editor (Roumyana Pancheva) for their helpful comments. I also thank Jackie Lai for his support. All remaining errors are my own.

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  1. Department of Linguistics, The University of Chicago, 1115 E. 58th Street, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    Yenan Sun

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Sun, Y. Decomposing same. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 40, 911–931 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-021-09522-1

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