A Phrasal Analysis of English
English,, Japanese and Chinese Comparative Constructions
Ryosuke Hattori
University of Tokyo
In the previous studies in comaparatives, languages have been classified into two
types based on whether they allow clausal type comparatives or not, assuming
parameters prepared solely for dealing with comparatives. However, some phenomena
cannot be simply explained by this distinction alone. For example, Japanesecomparatives ban only the degree-compared but not quantity-compared clausal
comparatives, while languages like Chinese do not seem to allow clausal comparatives
at all. This paper tries to find out more general parameters which explains this contrast.
Through analysing the syntactic derivations of comparative constructions in Englishand Japanese, this paper shows that the difference in their derivation comes from how
they react to the Left Branch Condition by Ross (1967/1986). We argue that in English,
the moved operator in comparative clause is a zero adverb instead of left-branch
modifier, based on the semantics by Izvorski (1995), which explains the grammaticalityof the sentence in which the LBC is apparently violated in the previous analyses.
(1) a. The desk is as high as [whi it is [AP [e]i wide]]b. The table is longer than [ø to what extent/degree]i it is wide ti.
This type of movement is prohibited in Japanese because it has no such degree
expression as to what extent to avoid the extraction of left branch elements.
(2)*kono-table wa [ano-tukue-ga [[x-much]i haba-hiroi] x-muchi] yori nagai
This table-Top that desk-Nom
wide
than long
However, if we change the degree + adjective string to a noun habahiro-sa 'width', thesentence become grammatical.
(3) kono-table wa [NP ano-tukue-no [N habahiro-sa]] yori nagai
This paper assumes that degree expression here changes its form to a suffix -sa andtransforms the adjective into a noun, avoiding the extraction of the degree in thissentence, (i.e. habahiroi 'wide' + -sa 'x-much (suffix)' = habahiro-sa 'width').
This paper further proposes that every language has only phrasal comparatives.

Based on this hypothesis, Chinese, Japanese and English comparatives uniformly have,in their than/yori/bĭ-complement, a phrase with relative clause modifying the head of it.
(4) Tā măi shūbĭ [NP tā măide [N ø quantity]i] duō
He bought books than she bought DEmany(5) He bought more books than [AdvP [Adv ø in what quantity] [she bought books [e]i ]]Under the analyses above, the only differences are the position (first or last) and the1status (N or Adv) of the head. These differences are explained by parameters as follows.
(i) Head-position Parameter: language positions a head before or after its complement(ii) Degree-extraction Parameter: degree modifier of an adjective can be extracted
out of the phrase or not
Japanese or Chinese set (i) as "after the complement" and (ii) as "no" while English
have the opposite values. This hypothesis has advantages in that these parameters can beobserved in non-comparative contexts (e.g. interrogative as in (6): without intonation on
wh for the Japanese counterpart) too, so that we do not have to assume the parameterswhich are prepared solely for analysing comparatives.
(6) a. [To what extent]i was the New deal effective [e]i?
b. ?*[dono-kurai]i New deal seisaku-wa [ [e]i yukou] desitaka?
To what extent
policy-Top effctive was
The paper finally presents some cross-linguistic and interpretational evidence thatsuggests the phrasal analysis of English "clausal" comparatives and supports thehypothesis. The first evidence comes from similarity of English comparatives and
Italian counterparts, which have an overt adverbial head with very similar behaviour toa relative clause, in that they both seem to have sensitivity to island effects. Anotherevidence comes from similar behaviours to the NPI licensing between English
comparative "clause" and relative clause headed by a noun, where they are proved tohave the same type of head movement and very similar structures.

REFERENCES
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