Degree and its many forms :
definition(s), parameters, and a few
questions.
Catherine CHAUVIN (U. de Lorraine,
Nancy)
Journées d ’agrégation sur « L’expression du degré »,
programme 2014
Université de Bordeaux 3, 24/01/14
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
I. WHY IS IT A PROBLEM?
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Degree => many forms
• Many aspects/ ‘chapters’ of language: quantification,
exclamation, modality, comparison/ superlatives,
aspect, adverbs, adjectives…
• + various forms, adjectives, adverbs, but also e.g.,
certain idioms: (as) fit as a fiddle…
• More or less lexicalized/ grammaticalized (e.g. very vs
many other « intensive » adverbs); « no » (open) mark
(?) (It’s expensive, e.g. Kennedy 2006)
• Semantic(s) and pragmatic(s) (?)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• + Links and opposition with other notions
(sub-classes? Qualitatively different? (all/
partly) Just different labels?)
• Degree
• Scale/ scalar/ scalarity
• Intensity/ [intensification]
• Gradation/ grading (Sapir)/ gradabilility/
grading/ graded/ gradience (Aarts)…
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Definition
• -> all that is not binary…?
• -> A ‘positive’ definition of degree?
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
+ The expression of degree (« L’expression du
degré »)
• => does this include/ exclude something?
• What does one mean by ‘expression’? (not.
semantics/ pragmatics)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• + It can/ may open other types of questions:
-> Discourse analysis
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• -> + Sociolinguistics?
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• A. Stephen Fry in Stephen Fry in America: ‘That’s rather
splendid’
-> Use of quite in the UK/ US (« understatement »…)
• B. Number of emphasis markers in teenage talk, and
constant evolution of this (French: top, trop; English:)
e.g. It sounds top banana! (D. Williams, Mr Stink p. 115)
Chloe grinned. That was superbrilliantamazing! (p. 329)
Completedness/ ‘telicity’/ ‘full; as much as it can be’: The bus was
chock-a-block with people. (226)
–
[+ ‘Lip gloss?’ ‘A smidge’ (181)]
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• C. (i.e., also) Language change?
-> « erosion » of emphasis markers and reinvention (‘expressiveness’/ expressivity)
• D. Role of genres, registers, once again here
Some of today’s examples are taken from children’s books written by
comedian D. Walliams, which shows quite a lot of invention for
degree markers and scales
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• [NB. Degree might also be used in a meta-/
theoretical way (e.g. how clear-cut linguistic
categories are, vs fuzziness, for instance, cf.
Aarts: 2007’s syntactic gradience; not dealt
with directly here]
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Still, important/ interesting => presence, many markers +
links between them:
Natural languages reflect this fact: all languages have syntactic
categories that express gradable concepts, and all
languages have designated comparative constructions,
which are used to express orderings between two objects
with respect to the degree or amount to which they
possess some property (Sapir 1944). (Kennedy 2006)
Very important role of scalar structures in language (Kennedy
et al.)
=> Different aspects to be explored/ (made more precise (?))
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
II. DEFINING
‘DEGREE’
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
2.1. Defining it ‘per se’?
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Not always explicitly defined (used vs defined)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Certain/ specific aspects may be openly
defined -> vs « degree » as such?
• Scale vs degree (Kennedy 2006); see below
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Everything that is not binary => too large
(what isn’t degree?) + not very precise…
• (+ difficulties to oppose complementary vs
gradable in a strict way (true, false; male,
female…; [partially?] contextual dependence)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Sapir 1944
‘link’ with comparison / comparison being the
most basic operation of all (=> comparison as
such, but also larger)
• Taken up by Kennedy (on comparatives): ‘The
ability to establish orderings among objects and
make comparisons between them according to
the amount or degree to which they possess
some property is a basic component of human
cognition.’
• => + more precise (series of) definitions
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• + many ways of expressing degree/ semantic
differences
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
2.2. Defining it in relation to
other notions
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Could be a question of theoretical choice, or
just preferences (no obvious reason but a
preferred choice of words)?
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Degree vs grade (and derived forms)
• Degree -> perhaps more traditional (although
common) More general as well
• Grading -> also Aarts 2007; but « gradience »
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Bierwisch, M. (1989). The Semantics of
gradation. In M. Bierwisch, & E. Lang (Eds.),
Dimensional adjectives. (pp. 71–261). Berlin:
Springer-Verlag.
• Cresswell, M. J. (1977). The semantics of
degree. In B. Partee (Ed.), Montague grammar
(pp. 261–292). New York: Academic Press.
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• => graded based on one type of property/
syntactic behaviour (gradability), but which in
itself needs further defining? (See part 3)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Degree and scalarity
Scale
A ‘historical’ difference => more ‘recent’ studies
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• + main difference could be that they include a lot
of work on time/ tense, and in particular, aspect
• => includes verb and event semantics in the study
of grading
• -> telicity (and discussion)
• -> incremental themes (e.g. He ate an apple)
• Link between time and degree -> the passing of
time is gradual, per se;
• + may include a gradual evolution of some
element that is associated to the event as time
passes (cf. incremental themes)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Allows for an integrated study of time and
degree
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• In Kennedy (2006), degree vs scale:
• a. Gradable adjectives map their arguments
onto abstract representations of
measurement, or DEGREES
• b. A set of degrees totally ordered with
respect to some DIMENSION (height, cost,
etc.) constitutes a SCALE.
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Degree and intensity
• Who uses the term « intensity »?
• Can be very large term: Romero (2007)/ (2005) ->
rhetorical, phonetics, …
• Problem of something that could be too
encompassing? (cf. « expressiveness »)
• Should it be made more precise? How?
• Is that just a possible effect of degree-marking («
effet de sens ») or on the contrary, is that much
vaguer than degree?
•
[Link with modality]
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Complicated terminology -> history of the
field, frameworks…
• + question of whether all these facts can or
cannot be subsumed under a same notion
• Try and define what is studied as clearly as
possible…
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
(On a tentative basis…)
• Grading => syntactic property
• Degree => value on a scale
• Scale => ordered set of points with values attached to
them (+ types of scale)
• Scalarity => possible link with a scale
• Gradability => possible use of grading terms
• Intensity => larger, includes saliency, expressiveness…
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
III. TYPES OF DEGREE/ WAYS OF
EXPRESSING DEGREE
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
[Quantity vs Quality opposition
• + ? (NB. not all on same level)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
-> modes of expression of degree: direct/ indirect
-> degree/ degree + something else
-> degree in quality/ quantity; degree in
quantification+qualification vs/ and space?/
time (links, differences)
-> [comparison/ superlatives and their forms/
uses]
-> there are scales… and scales? Scale types and «
gradation » in the organization of the lexicon/ in
grammar
-> there’s ‘degree of degree’ (so very nice; far
more impressive, etc.)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Direct/ indirect expression of degree
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Directness/ indirectness in the expression of degree
Lexicalized elements: very nice
Less lexicalized elements: ruddy hilarious (222)/
dead famous (?) +/- collocation?
Novel uses (?): bum-numbingly boring (119)
Direct: very nice
Indirect: i.e. pragmatic or discursive
Bum-numbingly boring -> degree by implicature?
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Pragmatics and semantics
NB. Scales and implicatures (Q-implicatures)
‘Is(n’t) she great?’
‘She’s nice.’
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Discursive
… and mixed devices (comparison, +…)
Chloe was a hundred times more excited than she
had ever been in her life. (240) (direct comparison)
But Chloe would have watched a hundred of them if
they meant not having to spend the day
campaigning with Mother. That was how boring it
was going to be. (120) (still direct comparison but less
directly constructed; constructed link between two independently
created situations; two ‘mental spaces’ ‘brought together’ vs
‘blended’ (?)) [finally not used: ?]
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
High degree/ center -> ways of constructing it
indirectly/ through discourse
This was evident. Sapphire had fake tan smeared
all over every inch of her skin. She was now
orange. As orange as an orange, if not orangier.
Think of the orangiest person you’ve ever met,
then times [sic] their orangeness by ten. And if
she didn’t look frightful enough already, she was
wearing a lime green mini-dress and clutching a
shocking pink handbag. (Billionaire Boy, p. 146)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• -> play on notion (‘orangeness’, ‘orangier’) and degrees of
belonging to it
• -> use of an element that could ‘embody’ central
characteristics (orange, fruit: as orange as an orange) +
discursive use of reinforcement (« if not orangier »)
• -> comparison with an independently constructed scene:
think of… (another situation, then make the link).
• -> modified cliché: « Think of… then double/ triple it »,
augmented quantity: ‘X ten’
• -> Finally ‘mental’ image is reinforced by prompting the
reader to picture orange + lime-green + shocking pink
together (… device?) -> + ‘saliency’
• => (all together)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• Hierarchy of situations vs in lexical field…
(pragmatic/ cultural) => expression of degree?
D. Walliams, Gangsta Granny
-> scale/ degree marked
by types of situation
(=> lexicalization?/
cultural dimension?)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
David Williams,
Billionaire Boy (idem)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Ibidem, to reinforce
the ‘purpleness’ of
the boy’s ‘bum’ later on
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
David Walliams,
Mr Stink (idem)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Another example (cf. slide 40)
Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it is
correct English to say he stinked, then he
stinked as well. He was the stinkiest stinky
stinker who ever lived.
A stink is the worst type of smell. A stink is
worse than a stench. And a stench is worse
than a pong. And a pong is worse than a
whiff. And a whiff can be enough to make
your nose wrinkle. (DW, Mr Stink, p. 11)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• -> use of word to emphasize degree (cf.
repetition + belonging to notional domain) +
here, play on different forms (all morphological
forms iconically put together to add to the idea
that the smell is strong)
• 2nd paragraph: resort to lexical scale in lexical
field of smell (partly constructed discursively)
Stink < stench < pong < whiff
(graded quality -> badness of smell)
• + whiff is supposed to be « enough.. »
(comparison/ enough)-> so the rest is gradually
worse
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Conclusions?
-> can be indirect/ direct; constructed
discursively
-> not always explicitly formulated (cf. types of
situations) + strong pragmatic/ cultural
component
-> can be a mixture of many devices at the same
time/ together
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Degree + something else
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Adverbs marking a high position on a scale
She knew full well what it was like (16)
Are just plain idle. (86)
The smell was especially bad today. (96-97)
? Looked stiffly immaculate (101)
It was thrillingly, terrifyingly real (143)
You must have been dead famous! (147-148)
… which Chloe thought pretty fitting (149)
A truly ridiculous voice (161)
She’s an absolutely fantastic girl (188)…
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• ‘The empirical picture is complicated
somewhat by the fact that not all modifiers
co-occur with all adjectives for apparently
idiosyncratic reasons’ (Kennedy 2006)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• => degree + degree and something else (not
necessarily « just » degree, perhaps never):
absolutely vs truly, etc.
• => something else that can express degree as well
(implicature; lexicalized or less so) cf. stiffly
immaculate (pragmatics again?)
Degree ‘only’
ø, maybe very??
Degree + something else
Truly X, thrillingly Y
[+ Degree by implicature
Stiffly immaculate?]
• => not just idiosyncrasy/ collocation, but semantic
compatibility…?
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Types of scales/ organization of the lexicon
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
There are scales and scales; graded fields and
graded fields
E.g. Modality: (might?)/ may/ must/ will?
Quantity/ quantifiers: no/ some/ all
-> cf. implicatures (Some students never handed in their papers)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
•
•
•
•
Totally open
Lower closed
Upper closed
Totally closed (Kennedy 2006)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Gradable adjectives:
-> equipollent vs non-equipollent (cf. Cruse
2004; + other examples -> …)
Old/ young, high/ low vs. sad/ happy…
Cruse 1986
Not open ==> closed
Not large =X=> small
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
Relative vs absolute adjectives (Kennedy 2006;
Kennedy et McNally 2005)
ordered sets (+ Cruse 2004)
haze< mist< fog < pea-souper, etc.
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
IV. SO…?
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
• - Multiple parameters
• - Should make sure they’re as well defined as
possible (although not always easy)
- Importance of:
=> lexicalization/ non lexicalization;
(i.e., all in all) Directness/ indirectness
 Pragmatic and discursive aspects (even cultural,
for some things) as well as semantics; to what
extent?
• Different modes/ ways of expressing degree
(‘degree’ in general/ types of degree)
Degree and its many forms. C. CHAUVIN. Bordeaux 24/01/14
References (to be completed + site)
Aarts B., 2007, Syntactic gradience, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Cruse, D. A., 1986, Lexical semantics, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.
Cruse D.A., 2004, Meaning in Language, Oxford, OUP, “Oxford Textbooks in
Linguistics”.
Kennedy C., 2006, Vagueness and grammar: the semantics of relative and absolute
gradable adjectives, Linguistics and Philosophy;
http://semantics.uchicago.edu/kennedy/docs/vg-epub.pdf
Kennedy, C., & McNally, L., 1999, From event structure to scale structure: Degree
modification in deverbal adjectives. In T. Matthews, & D. Strolovitch (Eds.),
Semantics and linguistic theory 9 (pp. 163–180). Ithaca, NY
Kennedy, C., & McNally, L., 2005, Scale structure and the semantic typology of
gradable predicates. Language, 81(2), 345–381.
Romero C. (2007), Pour une définition générale de l’intensité, Travaux de linguistique
54, p. 57-68.
Sapir, E. (1944). Grading: A study in semantics. Philosophy of Science, 11, 93–116.