1 On metalinguistic comparatives and negation in Greek

In this paper, we identify a paradigm of metalinguistic comparatives in Greek headed by the preposition para. Para clauses are lexically distinct from other comparatives clauses in Greek (headed by apo, apoti). Building on earlier intuitions, we propose a semantics of metalinguistic MORE as a contrast between two propositions in terms of how appropriate of preferred they are by some individual. Syntactically, metalinguistic comparison appears to behave like a co-ordinate structure with ellipsis in the para-clause. Our account is extended to metalinguistic negation, lexicalized by oxi in Greek, which, on a par with metalinguistic comparison, is defined as a binary operator, also contrasting two propositions. 1 Main claims and implications In this paper we identify a novel paradigm of comparatives in Greek, introduced by the comparative proposition para ‘than’: (1) Ta provlimata sou ine perissotero ikonomika para nomika. the problems yours are more financial than legal Your problems are financial more than legal. Para comparatives have the meaning associated with metalinguistic comparison (MC; see McCawley 1988 and references therein), reinforced in the English example with the order reversal between financial and more which is only allowed in the MC. The sentence in (1) means, according to McCawley, that “it is more appropriate for me to say that you problems are financial, than to say that your problems are legal”. We will analyze para-clauses as involving syntactically clausal (TP) ellipsis (following the specific implementation of Merchant 2001, 2006), subject to the condition that there be strict focus parallelism between the para-remnant and the overt constituent in the preceding clause. This condition will be used to explain the fact that para clauses appear to require single remnants. We will then propose a semantics for MC where the metalinguistic comparative MORE expresses not a relation between two degrees to which a predicate holds, but a contrast between two propositions in terms of how appropriate of preferred they are by some individual (in the default case, the speaker). Finally, we extend our account to another instance of metalinguistic contrast in Greek—metalinguistic negation, lexicalized by oxi (Giannakidou 1998). On a par with MC, we define oxi as a binary operator distinct from regular negation, contrasting also two propositions. Our analysis certainly does not exhaust the issues associated with MC—it merely scratches the surface of a topic that remained largely unexplored in the comparatives literature, and it probably raises (at least) as many questions as it answers. Yet, if what we say here is close to being right, our analysis has the following implications. First, it provides an argument that metalinguistic functions are encoded in the grammar in a systematic way, and are not merely pragmatic devices (as suggested, e.g. in Horn 1989 for metalinguistic negation). Second, if MC involves, as we will be suggesting, some sort of co-ordination, then at least for some comparatives a co-ordination analysis is plausible (see Lechner 2004 for arguments that comparatives involve generally a parse that at some point is similar to that of co-ordinate structures).