Cambridge University Press Journal of Linguistics

Comparative Structures in English
Author(s): R. N. Campbell and R. J. Wales

Source: Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Oct., 1969), pp. 215-251
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4175039
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JL5 (I969) 193-320 Printed in Great Britain
Comparative structures in English*

R. N. CAMPBELL & R. J. WALES
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburg
(Received I2 August I968)
Linguistics, epistemology and psychology share many common interests; for

instance, an interest in the learning of language, in the nature of the fundamental
units of which linguistic systems are composed, in the correspondence between
language operations, logical operations and intellectual operations. The phenom-
enon of COMPARISON falls under the latter rubric, as do, for instance, NEGATION,
ASSERTION and PREDICATION. In the literature of these three disciplines we find
ample evidence of an interest in the latter three phenomena, but there has been
surprisingly little discussion of comparison. We say, 'surprisingly', since of these
four operations comparison might well be held to be the most important. In
any kind of classification the fundamental intellectual activity is the comparing
of one object, event, etc. with another or with others. Further, to adopt the term-
inology of psychology, our behaviour in any situation must be governed to some
extent by the recognition, whether implicit or explicit, of similarities and differ-
ences between that situation and others with which we have had to deal.
In traditional discussions, notably those of Jespersen (I929), Small (I923,
I929), Reichenbach (I947), Sapir (I949) and Cassirer (1953), there are many
interesting statements about semantic relationships holding between comparative
structures and others. However, current syntactic work (e.g. Lees, I96I; Smith,
I96I; Chomsky, I965, chap. 4; Huddleston, I967) has followed a course which
makes any formal semantic analysis of these constructions (and the relations
between them) extremely awkward, if not impossible. As psychologists, believing
that the phenomenon of comparison has considerable importance for theories of
intellectual development, we have been led to examine other possible syntactic
solutions in the hope of making some sort of progress towards an understanding
of the phenomenon as 'a great semantic and syntactical unit' (Small, 1929: 22).
Consequently, we shall not be too concerned to compartmentalize our dis-
cussion of comparison into homodisciplinary blocks, but will draw freely on the
technical resources of all three disciplines. We will begin by discussing some
aspects of the syntax of comparative structures.
* This work was done in conjunction with a study of the acquisition of some linguistic
and cognitive skills directed by Margaret Donaldson and supported by the Social Science
Research Council. We are grateful to her, John and Mary Marshall, James Thorne and in
particular the Editor, for their helpful comments and advice. Robin Campbell is now at
Psychology Dept, University of Stirling.
2I5
JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS
I. SHORTCOMINGS OF PREVIOUS TREATMENTS
We consider that the term 'comparative' should be used

structures relating, however indirectly, to a process of co
will confine ourselves in the main to a discussion of the syn
two-place, adjectival comparatives, as exemplified by (I) a
(i) John is as clever as Bill.
(2) John is more clever than Bill.
Recent studies of the English comparative construction (cf. Lees, I96I;

4i s _____
NP Predicate-phrase
I/
N Aux VP
[vAniml ... Present Copula Predicate
Jolhn
Compar Adjective
morthn 4: S 4Fg
clever
NP Predicate-phase
N Aux VP
[ Xnin~ ... Present Copula Predicate
BilAdjective
clever
Figure I
Smith, I96I; Chomsky, I965; Huddleston, I967) have all sta

assumption that even the simplest comparative sentence der
strings. According to Chomsky (I965), the deep-structure an
(2) is that given in Figure i.
In the derivation of (2) the T-rules first apply to the embedded phrase marker
and then to the full configuration to produce (omitting various details).
(3) John is more than # Bill is clever # clever.
The comparative transformation then deletes the boundary markers, the adjective
in the embedded sentence and permutes the segments - than Bill is - and -
clever- . This produces
216
COMPARATIVE STRUCTURES IN ENGLISH
(4) John is more clever than Bill is.
A final option allows for the deletion of the repeated copu

this construction goes, all the previous treatments are lar
result of analysing comparatives in this way is to assign
analyses to (2), (4) and also to sentences like (5) and (6):
(5) I am fatter than I was last summer,

(6) The river is as deep as it is wide.
However, there is some question as to whether there is sufficient motivation for

this analysis of simple comparative constructions.
Firstly, there seems to be some confusion about the role of ambiguity. The
existence of ambiguous sentences such as
(7) I like Peter better than Bill.
certainly constitutes a strong argument for the proposal that SOME comparatives,
e.g. (7), should be derived from complex bases. But sentences (i) and (2) are
unambiguous and a similar analysis therefore requires independent motivation.
An obvious argument, used extensively by Smith (I96I), appeals to generality of
application. Smith argues that all comparatives can be derived from a single
transformational rule of Comparative Conjunction in which deletion of the
corresponding predicate in the constituent sentence is blocked, unless, as in the
case of simple constructions like (I), this predicate is non-distinct from the
predicate in the containing sentence. However, this is only justified in terms of
generality per se. We feel that, although it is desirable to formulate rules which are
as general as possible, this desideratum brings with it a real danger of glossing
over important distinctions. In (i) two OBJECTS are being compared whereas in
(6) it is two PROPERTIES, namely the depth and width of the river, which are
being compared. We could preserve this distinction if we derived (i) and (7)
differently.
Other possible motivating factors are dealt with below. For the present, we
note only that ambiguity and certain semantic considerations provide a basis for
distinguishing (i) from (7) and (6) respectively. Secondly, there is considerable
disagreement in previous work as to what should be the structure of the con-
stituent sentence. Smith (I96I) and Chomsky (I965) opt for Nom - be - Adj
where the Adj is identical to the Adj in the matrix sentence. Lees suggests
Nom - be - that - Adj and Huddleston (I967) Nom - be - than - Adj, with the
same restrictions on the Adj. Of course, if these restrictions are not met, then
'two-variable' comparisons (cf. Huddleston, I967) such as
(8) John is fatter than Bill is tall
are produced, since deletion is blocked. This is generally considered a desirable
2I7
consequence! However, a case for Nom. - be - wh -

argued as well and there are doubtless other possibilities.' This widespread
disagreement suggests that the analysis has got off on the wrong foot at an early
stage. The principal reason for deriving (2) from a constituent sentence like
Bill is clever rather than, say, Bill is stupid is so as to meet the conventional
deletion requirements. In fact, Chomsky's main purpose in discussing compara-
tives is to draw attention to certain difficulties these constructions make for the
formulation of deletion conventions. Thus, for example, in a sentence like
(9) These men are more clever than Mary
the plural copula are must be used to delete the singular copula is in the embedded
sentence. Chomsky solves this and similar problems by reformulating the dele-
tion convention in the following way (I965: I82): 'nondistinctness rather than
strict identity is what is involved in deletion - only those features of a formative
that are inherent either to its lexical entry or to the position in the sentence where
it is inserted are to be considered in determining non-distinctness. Formally, we
can say that a formative must be regarded as a pair of sets of features, one mem-
ber consisting of the 'inherent' features of the lexical entry or the sentence
position, the other member consisting of non-inherent features introduced by
transformation. The general principle for erasure operations, then, is this: 'a term
X of the proper analysis can be used to erase a term Y ... just in case the inherent
part of the formative X is not distinct from the inherent part of the formative Y.
Though this seems entirely reasonable it does weaken an important convention
(since recoverability is of paramount importance) and may well have unforeseen
ramifications in other parts of the syntax of English. However, we wish to ques-
tion the use of optional deletion transformations on much more general grounds.
Consider the following pairs of sentences:
(io) I bought a green hat,

(ii) I bought a hat which was green.
Since (io) is derived from the structure immediately underlying (Ii) by opera-
tions of deletion and permutation, it has always seemed unfortunate to us, as
psychologists, that, by any reasonable metric, (io) must be adjudged more
complex than (i i). However much linguists, such as Chomsky, may rail against
the confusion of competence with performance, it is now clear that any attempt
to describe or explain human language performance must make appeal to gram-
mar, and it seems reasonable to suppose that a complexity-metric can be defined
over derivations which will have some correlation, however wayward, with em-
pirical measures of complexity. At any rate, if it turns out to be impossible to
[i] Since we wrote this article, a paper by Doherty & Schwartz (I968) has come to our
attention, in which the authors do in fact adopt this latter suggestion.
2i8
establish low-level generalizations of this sort, then the p

between linguists and psychologists, like the previous nineteenth-century
alliance, will come to naught. Putting it at its weakest, given two analyses of
comparatives of roughly equal value from a purely linguistic point of view, we
should like to see a willingness on the part of linguists to accept psychological
considerations as being relevant to choosing between these analyses. Cries of
'psychologism' seem irrelevant here (and elsewhere - but this is a separate ques-
tion). What we shall suggest below is an analysis of English comparatives which
involve neither optional deletion transformations nor a special comparative
transformation. Although perhaps no more successful than previous analyses, we
will argue that it is more highly valued from a psychological point of view.
A further and perhaps the most important point has to do with the fact that
it is difficult to see how semantic analysis of comparatives can proceed from the
usual type of syntactic base. Clearly, sentences like (i) or (2) do not entail either
(I2) or (I3): 2
(I2) John is clever,

(I3) Bill is clever.
Indeed, it is remarkable how much semantically uninterpretable information
appears in the deep structure of comparatives, if the usual kind of analysis is
followed. For instance, the introduction of a Measure Phrase leads to matrix
and constituent sentences which are both at variance semantically with the
surface form.
(I4) Roger is 3 years older than Robin
which would be derived from base strings3
(I5) Roger is 3 years old,

(i6) Robin is old.
[2] In fact, semantic analysis of sentences like (I2) and (I3) is faced with two possibilities
(cf. Bierwisch, I967; Katz, I967: either (i) postulating a relational marker, roughly
[greater in (size) than (an average. . .)] (cf. Katz, I967: I87), or (ii) supposing (I2) to
have been derived from, loosely, John is more clever than A, where A is some dummy
element carrying features which might be realized as the average N where N is some
superordinate of John. Adopting (i) greatly complicates a semantic theory of the type
proposed by Katz. On the other hand, adopting (ii) results in an infinite regress of base
structures, given the current syntactic framework. Thus (2) would be derived from
something like Yohn is more than # Bill is more than # A is more than # ... # . . .
clever # clever # . . . clever. This is obviously an implausible derivation!
[3] Possibly the double-based approach to comparatives was suggested as being compatible
with the simple logic of relations, such that fxy entails fx and, under some circumstances,
fy. By the same token, however, consideration might have been given to the parallelism
between adjectives and verbs (which we discuss below), e.g. Bill hates John, Bill is
greater than John. Such an approach is made explicit by Johnson (I922) in his alternative
title for the chapter on 'Relationals', namely 'Transitive Adjectives'.
zi9
Matters are even worse in the case of comparative con

and Adj. In sentence (I7) the constituent sentence is no
the surface sentence, but in fact contradicts one of its en
(I7) I am too ill to eat anything.
These facts would be of no account if it were a general feature of English, that

there was little or no SEMANTIC relation between deep and surface structures in
complex sentences. However, other complex constructions like those resulting
from Relative and Complement embeddings do not seem to present such serious
problems. At any rate, it would considerably simplify semantic analysis, whether
we follow Katz (I966, I967) or Chafe (I968) and Southworth (1967), if the sense
of surface sentences could be related in some fairly direct way to the sense of the
base sentences which underlie them. Most of the efforts of Katz and his followers
in recent years have been directed to showing that this is in fact possible in the
case of simple sentences, and that the fairly direct relation in question is syn-
onymy. However, no one, as far as we are aware, has considered what sorts of
relations might be involved in dealing with complex sentences (except possibly
Fillmore, I965). In the case of the troublesome analysis of simple comparatives
which we have been discussing, the fact that Bill is clever is not entailed by the
surface form presents serious difficulties to both of the two theoretical approaches
mentioned above, since in both cases we have the problem of 'disposing of' the
reading assigned to the constituent sentence. In fact, it is interesting to note that,
when Katz does discuss comparison (I967: I85-I87), his remarks are addressed,
not to the underlying sentences, but to the surface forms. We suggest here
that a reasonable metatheorem might be something like: for any pair of base
nodes S and S', where S immediately dominates S' (that is, no other S node
'intervenes'), then the reading assigned to S should be a 'simple' semantic
function of the reading assigned to S' (where 'simple' semantic function corres-
ponds to entailment, negation, etc).
One final point may be made in criticism of previous work. Comparative
expressions co-ordinate with (a) other comparatives, e.g.
(i8) John is bigger and stronger than Bill (is),
and also with (b) transitive verbs, e.g.
(i9) Class A is wider than and includes Class B.
This shows, if the current analysis of comparatives is the correct one, that co-
ordination must be ordered fairly late in the sequence of transformational rules:
specifically, it must follow the rules which (obligatorily) delete the matching pre-
dicate in the constituent sentence. This is probably too strong: rather, it shows
that the rule for co-ordination is not ordered with respect to other transforma-
tions but may be applied whenever its structure-index etc. is satisfied. However,
220
this is not compatible with current transformational theory w

recursive power to the base component. Chomsky (I965: 224, f
rule schemata of the form
(20) X-+Xn and X
might be applied to major categories (or the constituents that dominat

the base, further modifications being carried out by singulary transfo
However, this is clearly impossible in the case of (I9), above, since the
deletion of the constituent predicate would block unless it, too, underw
recursion - a technically fearsome requirement. In view of these variou
culties with the current transformational analysis of comparatives, we ar
ing a radically different analysis, which follows below.
2. AN ALTERNATIVE FORMULATION
The fundamental assumption of all the previous analyses, namely th

paratives are derived from TWO base strings, is historically respectabl
as the comparative morph was traditionally referred to as 'the comparative
conjunction' (Jesperson, I929; Poutsma, I904). However, apart from this, there
seem few a priori grounds for adopting this assumption and, if the criticisms of
section i are pertinent, then there are few a posteriori grounds either. We shall
therefore reject it and begin with the alternative assumption, namely that com-
paratives are derived from ONE base string. If this is so, then (I) might have the
deep-structure analysis represented in Figure 2.
Now, no comparative transformation is required and forms like (4) John is
more clever than Bill is will be derived from the structure given in Figure 2 by
addition transformations exactly analogous to the deletion transformations used
formerly but achieving the opposite effect.
Of course, in order to derive forms like (6) The river is as deep as it is wide it will
be necessary to retain the previous comparative transformation or some alterna-
tive to it, for instance, the second alternative proposed by Smith (I96I: 354)
which involves nominalization. Thus (6) would be derived from something like
(21) # # the river is nom deep # as - as # the river is nom wide # #
This is not as unsatisfactory as it might at first appear, since it sets (6) apart from
(i), (2) and (4) in terms of relative syntactic complexity (as we suggested above).
The objections raised by Smith to this proposal are not so serious when the
matrix comparative construction is simple, as we are suggesting. However, like
Huddleston (I967) we do not consider that this type of reduction of all compara-
tives to simple comparatives is desirable. For one thing, it leads to extremely
clumsy derivations in many cases involving recourse to elements corresponding
to, for instance, the number of nom, in structures like
22I
(22) John bought more records than Mary
which do not appear in the surface form. We shall not attempt here to deal with
any possible objections to our suggested analysis which make reference to more
complex constructions. (Rather, in the following section we shall attempt to
show that our suggestions lead to an interesting set of generalizations about
SIMPLE sentences.) However, there is one observation of Huddleston's (which he
attributes to Pilch, I965, and which was also noted by Chomsky, I965: 234,
fn. 36) which we must deal with because it seems to constitute syntactic evidence
Pred phrase
Nom VP
Predicate
N Aux Cop Comp Adjective Nom
John present be er - than big Bill

as - as
Figure 2
for the double-based type of analysis of simple comparatives.4 Huddleston points

out that:
[4] The argument of Lees (I96I, p. 172) that the relation between the deviance of
(a) *The table is amazed

and (b) *The boy is more amazed than the table
'already requires us to formulate a set of rules deriving comparative constructions from

simpler sentences' no longer has any force, since nothing prevents us from 'effecting
these connected restrictions simultaneously' by means of selectional rules of the sort
proposed in Chomsky (I965: chap. 2). Of course, such rules are already required for
such verbs as kill, marry, etc., which impose similar restrictions on their subjects and
objects.
222
(23) I bought a bigger car than a Mini
and
(24) I bought a car bigger than a Mini
have different entailments, whereas (23) entails
(25) A Mini is a car,
(24) does not. Hence the deviance of
(26) *a bigger man than Mary,
as against
(27) a man (who is) bigger than Mary.
Huddleston suggests that this problem be dealt with by having, underlying
(23) and (24), respectively,

(28) A Mini is a than big car
and
(29) A Mini is than big.
However, there are severe technical difficulties with this. The derivation of (23)
from (28) (or rather from whatever underlies (28) ), and from
(30) I bought a car

and
(3i) The car was big
would be excessively intricate, and hence the simpler or more 'normal' of the
two senses of (24) would have the more complicated analysis.
As an illustration of what we mean by talking of 'severe technical difficulties'
consider how Smith, incorporating Huddleston's suggestion, would derive (23).
First of all, note that the derivation of (23) in this way involves a high degree of
embedding and requires the following four sentential strings:
(32a) I bought a Rel car

(32b) the car was more than Comp big
(32c) a Mini is a Rel car
(32d) the car is big
Derivation would proceed as follows:
(32e) a Mini is a car which is big

(32f) a Mini is a car big
223
(32g) A Mini is a big car

(32h) the car was bigger than a Mini is a big car
(32i) the car was bigger than a Mini is a car
(32j) I bought a car which was bigger than a Mini is a car
(32k) I bought a car bigger than a Mini is a car
(321) I bought a bigger car than a Mini is a car
(32m) I bought a bigger car than a Mini
Now what is difficult here from a technical point of view is the framing of th
conditions, in a non ad hoc way, under which these transformations operate. In
particular, the conditions for the last two operations pose problems. Secondly, if
the optional deletion deriving (32k) from (32j) is not applied, then we are left
with an unacceptable sentence. Moreover, we cannot delete the final nominal
earlier, since its presence is required to control the order-change at (321). We have
no idea as to whether or not these difficulties could be surmounted.5 In this
respect it is hardly surprising that Thorne (I968: 297) should remark: 'The
reason for this - the partial failure [of the computer-program for syntactic
analysis] to handle and and the total failure to handle as and than - is very simple.
It is directly related to the fact that we ourselves have an incomplete under-
standing of and and only vague ideas about the grammar of as and than.'
However, we have still to show how the observation of Huddleston, Pilch and
Chomsky can be accounted for by our simpler scheme. The solution we will
suggest is a tentative one; it raises difficulties of a different sort. First of all, it ha
been suggested that the subject of the embedded relative need not be FORMALLY
identical to the nominal which it modifies. In fact, we believe that what is
crucial to relativization is not FORMAL identity but identity of REFERENCE. Mor
over, this is true not only of relativization, but also of other transformational
processes, such as reflexivization and pronominalization. We do not intend to go
into this question in any detail (for some discussion see Postal, I967), since we
see no good solution at present. However, if this is a correct view, then the
necessity for FORMAL IDENTITY disappears (for some other arguments for th
proposal see Chafe, I967). Once this restriction is removed it is clear that the
shifting to prenominal position of comparatives and other adjectival expressions
could be made conditional on the feature structure of the subject of the embedded
relative. Loosely, where Bill is not a lawyer we would have
(33) I know a lawyer # wh-person is more successful than Bill #,
[5] In Doherty & Schwartz (I967) an attempt is made to overcome just these technical
problems. Whether this attempt is successful or not is open to doubt, since they 'solve'
the problems mentioned here by analysing the embedded complement of comparison,
corresponding to (a) A Mini is a wh- big car, as derived from, roughly, (b) A car # wh-
the Mini is a car # Mini is wh- big, without giving any justification for this peculiar
structure. Their article provides some first-rate examples of what we mean by 'clumsy
derivations' and 'severe technical difficulties'.
224
whereas, where Bill IS a lawyer we would have
(34) I know a lawyer # wh-lawyer is more successful than Bill #.
Notice that this might account for the ambiguity of
(35) I bought a painting which was very expensive,
whereas
(36) I bought a very expensive painting
is unambiguous. However, we do not feel that this is the whole story by any
means. For although (35) might be regarded as ambiguous, the same might be
said of
(37) The painting was very expensive,

(38) The elephant was big,
i.e. 'big for an elephant' or 'big for an animal'.6 We have thus a very difficult
problem. Whereas the ambiguity of (37), (38) and even (35) might be dismissed
as syntactically irrelevant, the ambiguity of
(39) I know several lawyers who are more successful than Bill,
which we regard as essentially the same sort of ambiguity, is certainly relevant,

since under one reading of (39) (viz, where it is success as a lawyer that is at
stake) we can prepose the adjectival group more successful whereas under the
other reading (viz. where it is success as a person which is at stake) we cannot
prepose it.
Further, we have exactly the same problems with superlatives. For instance,
(40) I have the prettiest wife in town
says something about my wife as compared with other wives in town, whereas
(4I) I have a wife who is the prettiest in town
is odd, if not unacceptable, without the presence of a nominal complement which

may be girl or one, etc.
(42) I have a wife who is the prettiest girl in town.
It is worth noticing that this example, and of course its many analogues, poses
problems for relativization since it too (cf. fn. 2) leads to an infinite regress of
base structures. Let us now summarize these various facts. Consider the follow-
ing sentences:
[6] This example has been extensively discussed by Weinreich (I966), Katz (I967),
Lyons (I968).
C 225
(43a) That painting was expensive,

(43b) That painting was an expensive one,
(43c) That painting was an expensive item,
(43d) That painting was an expensive purchase,
(44a) That painting was more expensive than that statue,
(44b) That painting was a more expensive art-work than that statue,
(44c) That painting was a more expensive item than that statue,
(44d) That painting was a more expensive piece than that statue,
(45a) That painting is the most expensive in my house,
(45b) That painting is the most expensive one in my house,
(45c) That painting is the most expensive thing in my house,
(45d) That painting is the most expensive possession in my house.
Now, structures like (43a) transform to . . . that expensive painting ... only if they
can be paraphrased by a structure like (43b). That is, (43a) is ambiguous between
the interpretations associated with (43b-d). (44a) is unambiguous and is para-
phrased by (44b), (44c) or (44d). (45a) is likewise unambiguous but is not
paraphrased by (45c) or (45d), but only by (45b), to which, we suggest, it is
transformationally related. This accounts for the presence of the definite deter-
miner in (45a), which is semantically, but clearly not syntactically, 'necessary'.
That is, we are suggesting that (45a) is derived from (45b). However, if (45a) is
derived from (45b), what then is the derivation of (45b)? As was pointed out
above, we cannot derive it from
(46) That painting is the # wh the painting is the most expensive in my house
# one,
since we would then be in an infinite regress.

We suggest that all these facts can be accounted for neatly by postulating a
transformational rule something like (47) on page 227.
Obviously, in support of this rule we need (i) a special base rule
(48) Nom -_ *
which is ordered with respect to other feature-assignment rules, and

the effect of transferring to the nominal complement all the features listed
above the transformational 'trigger' (the asterisk) and (ii) a second transforma-
tional rule which orders the complement with respect to the constituents of
the predicate.7 The effect of these rules is to give the same underlying structure
to (43a) and (43b); to (44a), (44b), (44c) and (44d); and to (45a) and (45b). The
[7] Some support for these suggestions is provided by the existence of such forms as
(a) He is too big a man to be overlooked, (b) j7ohn's mother is as bigoted a woman as I know,
(c) How nice a man he is! where, not only the head of the complement noun phrase, but
the determiner also, follows the predicate head.
226
(47) Nom-Complement Formation

Nom Nom
+ F2 ] Predicate +F 2
2
? F2
+F_ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~F
+ F ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ +
Fq
L Nominal
I
underlying structures associated with (43c) and (43d) differ from that associated
with (43b) in the position of the transformational 'trigger'. Likewise for (45c)
and (45d). The rule will, of course, be optional in the case of (43a) and (44a)
and obligatory in the case of (45a), the obligatorily-introduced one in (45b)
being deleted to produce (45a). The awkward facts of relativization are then
easily accounted for; those Adj + Noun combinations where the Noun is not
introduced transformationally will have the Adj introduced in the normal
manner from a relative clause, the permutation transformation achieving this
being made conditional on identity of feature composition above the asterisk
(in addition to identity of reference, however that is to be marked).
Of course, there are still difficulties in our formulation. Clearly, it is only
relevant to a certain class of adjectival predicates, for instance we do not have
(49) *John is an anxious man to see Bill
nor
(50) *John was a rude person to Peter

although we do have
(5I) Mary was a good friend to John.
Secondly, it may have even wider scope than we suggest. Consider
227
(52) John was a sailor

(53) I like Bill as a person
(54) Doctors as people are occasionally quite likeable.
It is possible that the italicized elements are related in the way we suggest.
Clearly, we need to consider the relationships between proper nouns, pronouns,
full nouns, articles, etc. in much greater detail.8 Since these issues are not
relevant here, we will not pursue them.
It is worthy of note that certain languages (e.g. Burmese, Chinese, Viet-
namese, and other languages with 'classifiers') seem to require a rule of just
this sort. In these languages one can identify classes of noun complements
which, in general, do not occur in isolation (cf. Hla Pe, I965). An interesting
question, to which we have been unable to find an answer, is whether or not
in such languages there correspond to English
(55) The painting was expensive
a range of structures, differing only in the choice of the classifier, which mark
the ambiguities of the English form. Hla Pe (I965: 170) says: 'A classifier
indicates an attribute of the object which assigns it to a class. Each classifier can
be applied to several objects of similar attribute, and some of these objects may
have more than one attribute. A person may be classed as a human being or an
animal according to his behaviour; and a horse or an elephant as merely an
animal or a mount and a sword as just a straight long thing, or as a weapon.
The choice of classifier is prompted by the occasion.' If this is so, then this
adds some credibility to our suggestions.
3. SOME SUGGESTED REVISIONS

We have now to show how our suggested simple analysis of comparatives
relates to other single-based English sentences. We will argue that our suggestion
allows a 'gap' in English syntax to be filled and leads to greater generality in the
base component. Thus, although our suggestions are for what MAY be a fairly
ad hoc analysis of simple comparatives (when compared with other comparative
structures) we contend that this analysis is not ad hoc when the rest of English
deep grammar is considered.
[8] Proper names, pronouns and definite articles seem to be related syntactically in a
poorly understood way. For instance, in general they do not co-occur with one another;
that is, we do not find *the John, *the he or *he John. They are also related semantically
in that they all are used to refer to SPECIFIC individuals. Postal (1967) has suggested that
pronouns be considered a special sort of definite article. Though this is perhaps too
strong a claim, it is certain that they are all to be associated with definiteness. This
suggests that another structure marker may be required (introduced after the rule
assigning definiteness to the complex symbol dominated by Nom). Together with our
suggestions in the text, this makes Bierwisch's (i 967) notion of marker-trees seem useful,
not only in semantic analysis, but also in syntax.
228
It has often been remarked, most recently by Lyons (I9

of adjective with noun as 'substantives,' common in traditional grammars,
resulted from a confusion of morphological with syntactic criteria and obscured
a deeper relationship between verb and adjective. Lyons went on to point out
formal and semantic similarities between intransitive verbs and adjectival
predicates, suggesting that, at some level of analysis, perhaps deeper than the
level of deep structure as defined by most current transformational work, the
following sentences have essentially the same description (we will neglect differ-
ences of tense, mood and aspect):
(56) Mary dances,

(57) Mary is beautiful,
(58) Mary is one-eyed,
(59) Mary left.
One might argue for a similar formal and semantic parallelism between TRANSI-
TIVE and COMPARATIVE constructions, since, like transitive constructions, com-
paratives involve two-place 'predications'. Thus if this proposal is accepted,
the following sentences might be described as identical at some level of deep
structure:
(6o) Mary cooked the fish,

(6I) Mary is more beautiful than Jane.
Consider now the following pairs of sentences:
(62) Mary was embarrassed (by Jane)

(63) Mary was (more) embarrassed (than Jane)
These and many other similar sentences suggest that the correspondence
between PASSIVES and comparatives is far more complete than that between
active transitives and comparatives. This calls in question the parallelism
suggested by Lyons and suggests instead that simple adjectival predicates are
to be related to short passives and comparative predicates to full passives.
Indeed for the former two types of structure, intuition often fails to distinguish
one from the other. For example, which of the following sentences are 'verbal'
(i.e. short passives) and which 'adjectival'?
(64) Mary was depressed

(65) The door was closed
(66) John was exhausted
However, matters are even more complex than this. Logicians have often
marked a distinction between 'contrary' and 'contradictory' pairs of adjectives,
in terms of their different entailments. In these terms, pairs of adjectives, such
as big-small, beautiful-ugly, etc. (in fact, all those adjectives which allow com-
229
parison) are 'contraries', whereas dead-alive, true-false

of which normally allow comparison) are 'contradictories'. Semantically, we
would say that in (67) there is an unexpressed 'norm' of comparison whereas in
(68) there is not.
(67) John is big

(68) John is dead
Notice, too, that in short passives there is usually said to be an unexpressed

agent. We could capture all these facts syntactically if we could relate (i) 'contra-
dictory' adjectivals to 'pure' intransitive predicates (both being derived from a
single predicate-element without a following nominal), (ii) 'contrary' adjectivals
to short passive predicates (both being derived in the environment of a following
deleted or dummy nominal). However, before attempting to formalize these
notions, we will have to discuss the status of passives with respect to actives.
Firstly, there are considerable difficulties of JUSTIFICATION for the view that
passives are transformationally derived from active structures with a passive
'trigger' in the Manner Adverbial (cf. Belasco, I967; Svartvik, I966; Lyons,
i966b). Secondly, there are also technical difficulties, which are often disgu
by the somewhat carefree way in which transformational rules are written. That
is, the passive transformation does considerable violence to the constituent-
structure assigned by the base to active structures-a nominal immediately
dominated by the Verb Phrase being subsequently immediately dominated by
S and vice-versa. If this sort of rule is to be allowed, then arguments for any
sort of order in the base component, hierarchical or otherwise, are correspon-
dingly weakened, since all this order-information can be included in the right-
hand side of the transformational rule. The rule to produce active transitives and
full passives might then look something like this:
(69) fAux, V, Noml, Nom2 } FNomx uAux [V(^ Nomx1 1

I ~ ~ ~ ~ f L LPredis
where {x ranges over i and 2
x ranges over 2 and i f

A similar proposal has been made by Fillmore (I967). Chomsky's argument
(1957: 43), that 'all the subject-verb restrictions need to be stated the other way
round' if actives and passives have separate derivations, are diminished in force,
since these restrictions may be assigned before (69) operates; that is, we assume
that each of the categories on the left-hand side of (69) heads a complex symbol.
In particular, the symbol headed by V will have 'slots' corresponding to certain
features assigned to the accompanying nominals.
Recent syntactic work (cf. Fillmore, I967; Anderson, I968) has been directed
to some solution similar to that outlined above. Hence we claim no great origin-
230
ality for these suggestions. However, in the two papers re

is set by the phenomena of ergativity. In 'ergative' languages (e.g. Eskimo,
Basque, Georgian), the subject of active transitives and agent of passives is
superficially case-marked while the object of active transitives, subject of
intransitives and subject of passives, adjectivals, equationals, etc. is unmarked
for case (cf. Lyons, I968: 350 ff.). The argument runs that if these superficial
regularities reflect a deeper regularity of case-features, then these deep case-
features may be used to control selection-restrictions and 'subjectivalizing' rules
like (69). We feel that, although there may be much to be said for the 'case-
grammar' approach, the phenomena of ergativity do not seem to be particularly
important. The fact that the subject of intransitives in these languages is un-
marked may be more simply accounted for by a simple rule which states that
when only one nominal is present in the deep-structure of a sentence (leaving
adjuncts out of account), then that nominal is unmarked. This makes good sense
from a communication point of view, since there is no other nominal from which
it is to be distinguished (in terms of function). Indeed, this rule may be univer-
sally applicable.
Further, in the English examples in terms of which the ergative relation is
normally discussed, e.g.
(70) John opened the door,

(7I) The door opened,
ergativity seems best considered as a property of verbs rather than of nominals.

Although the subject of structures like (7I) is always non-agentive, this is not
true in general of the subjects of intransitive verbs, e.g.
(72) John laughed.
This leads to considerable confusion between agency and ergativity, since the
subjects of active transitives are normally, though by no means always, agentive.
If this is an acceptable view then nothing remains to be explained except the
fact that certain languages mark the subjects and objects of transitive verbs
differently. But this is exactly what we would expect if these case-markings are
superficial features of the nominals in question. It is notable that in Turkish
and Russian the subjects and objects are differently marked just in the case
that there IS possibility of confusion, namely when the OBJECT is definite (Turk-
ish) or animate (Russian), both of which are typical features of SUBJECT nominals
(cf. Lyons, I968: 294). It seems, therefore, preferable to consider ergativity in
English to be a property of certain verbs, e.g. open, change, move, etc., which
allow deletion, or rather non-realization of the copula in short passive construc-
tions. We suggest that the so-called intransitives which figure in discussions of
ergativity in English are in fact pseudo-intransitive, those with agentive nominals
being reflexive, those with non-agentive nominals being reduced short passives.
231
We are now in a position to formalize the above sugg

suggestions which seem plausible. (We omit in what f
(a) the constituency or deep structure origins of the au
distinctions of tense, mood or aspect, (b) adjunctive e
propose for the base are the following.
(A) I - { P(redicate), N(ominal), N(ominal) }

r + animate
(B) N(ominal) - + agent
L + lexical
(i) + animate agentive
+ agent
(ii) - animate instrumental

+ agent f
... r~~~ locative
(iii) -agent nomative
nominative
(iv) - lexical dummy
There are fairly strict limitations on allowable combinations. We d

how to incorporate these. We can, however, state them; thus
(a) if only one Nominal is present, then it must be agentive or n
(b) if two Nominals are present, then we may have the followin
tions and no others:'
{agentive, nominative}, {agentive, locative}

{nominative, nominative}, {nominative, instrumental}
{nominative, locative}
(C) P N P N
a2 U2
where a1, etc. are featu

cate CS with features f
these three rules we ha
[9] It is possible that this

optional nominal, permitt
(b) We elected John Chairm
only interested in monadic
tion.
232
(73) _ p N N
locative + animate + animate l
nominative, - agent , - agent l

+ lexical + lexical
locative I nominativejJ
There follows the rule for subject formation and order assign
(D) {P, N, (N)} -+ [N [P (N)]Pred]Z

Note that (a) if two nominals are present on the left, either one may become
subject and (b) if N contains [dummy], then it cannot be moved to subject
position.
(E) (i) case -+ 0 in env. P
(ii) N N
Fc2e] -> case : in env. P_
case 0
In this rule all the

It is clear that in a
the extensive justif
we will illustrate the basic structures generated by these rules with some
examples. (Fig. 3 shows some details of the derivation of the simple comparative
example, (2) discussed in an earlier section.) We first give a set of lexical entries
in (74) and follow this with a number of sample sentences, (75) to (84).
(74) P: old {nominative, locative}

single {nominative}
laugh {agentive}
f instrumental nominative
m agentive n
kill {{ instrumental , nominative}
agentive J
know {nominative, locative}
go {agentive, locative}
N: John {+ animate, + agent, + lexical, ...

door { - animate, - agent, + lexical, . ..
knife { - animate, ? agent, + lexical, ....
233
Tns Mood Aspect p N N Predicate
lnominative, + animate
locative) - agent - agent
- dummy - dummy nominative .
nominative locative
nnominative, + directional { locative
_ dummy - spatiotemporal n
- to I
S S
Tns Mood Aspect Tns Mood Aspect /
Predicate Predicate
N I{ locati -N N P locative N
+ directional .1
- spatiotemporal
John clever more-than Bill
Figure 3
(75) [agentive [P nominative]]

cf. John killed Bill; Mary cooked the fish; Mary moved (i.e. Mary moved Mary
Mary ate (i.e. Mary ate z)
These latter two examples demonstrate possible uses of [dummy].
(76) [nominative [P agentive]]
cf. John was killed by Bill; The fish was cooked by Mary; Mary moved (i.e.
Mary was moved by a); Mary was annoyed (i.e., Mary was annoyed by a)
(77) [agentive [P locative]]
cf. J7ohn went to school; John left (i.e. John left from a)
(78) [locative [P agentive]]
cf. (if acceptable): The room was entered by J7ohn; the school was reached (i.e.
the school was reached by A).'0
[Io] Rule (E.i) may have to be modified to account for the odd behaviour of locative sub-
jects. In fact, it seems as if what we require in such cases is a special rule which rewrites
234
(79) [nominative [P locative]]

cf. John is bigger than Peter; John is as big as Peter; Jo
The ball rolled along the floor; Yohn is in San Francis
are in z); John resembled his father; The book is J1ohn
is big more-than z).
(8o) [locative [P nominative]]

cf. J'ohn has a book; John knows Peter; John owns a Cadillac (cf. fn. io)
(8I) [nominative [P instrumental]]

cf. The door was opened with a key; the door opened at a touch
(82) [instrumental [P nominative]]

cf. My key opened the door; A knife killed my father
(83) [nominative [P nominative]]

cf. The ball hit the ground; The people love the king; John spilt his coffee (acci-
dentally)
(84) [agentive [P]]

cf. John laughed; John was rude
(85) [nominative [P]]

cf. The ball bounced; Mary is one-eyed; Number 7 is odd; Bill died; Bill is dead.
Consideration of these and other examples shows that we now have succeeded
in relating and distinguishing the different types of adjectives and adjectival
predicates in the ways suggested earlier in this section. Also we have succeeded
in relating adjective and verb in the manner suggested. Obviously, there is
enough material in this grammar to form the background of a very wide-ranging
discussion and we have not even begun to consider the consequences of deve-
loping some of the N's as E.
There is one distinction which we have still to make, namely that which
distinguishes 'equatives' from 'comparatives'. The complements of both of these
comparatives are derived from a locative nominal. We want to mark these
locative nominals in such a way that in one case, where the expression is 'equa-
tive', the locative constituent (see rule E) is developed as as-as and in the other
case as more-than.
Considering other locatives for the moment (notice that we have defined
the feature [locative] into the Predicator, replacing it in the Nominal by [nominative].
Thus the Predicator CS underlying have, own, etc., differs from the CS underlying be,
belong, etc., in the presence of the feature locative. Likewise, the presence of [locative]
in the CS's of verbs like go, look, come, etc. is realized as go + Locative Particle, etc. If
we allowed this rule to apply optionally under certain circumstances, this might enable
us to account for the wide inter- and intra-idiolectical variation on the constituency of
such particles: cf. (a) Who did you give the book to, (b) To whom did you give the book.
235
locative (cf. rule B) in such a way that it corresponds on

with what has been traditionally regarded as a locative) w
[P locative]] constructions the locative structures selected
temporally 'directed' expressions, as in
(86) He went to the school,
whereas in some of the [nominative [P locative]] constructions the locative

structures selected correspond to 'undirected' expressions, as in
(87) John lives in Florence.
Let us mark this distinction by an additional rule:
F(i) locative -* + directional.
Further, although we have not dealt with such constructions here, we will
require a second distinction to mark off non-spatiotemporal locatives from the
above types. Consider the following sentences:
(88) John bought a book from Peter,

(89) John sold a book to Peter,
(go) John laughed at Peter,
(9I) John threw a stone at Peter.
The locative in (gi) is clearly spatiotemporal whereas the locatives in (88), (89)
and (go) are clearly not (other cases are not so clear). Let us now mark this
distinction by the rule
F(ii) locative -+ ?spatiotemporal.
Finally, we will distinguish location 'towards' the nominal from location

'away from' the nominal by the rule
(Fiii) + direction -+ +to.
It should be noted that these rules are unsatisfactory inasmuch as they intro-
duce much redundancy, that is, the selection of these features is controlled by
the environment of the locative nominal to some extent and by the animacy of
the locative nominal.
In terms of these distinctions, the locative complement of comparison will
be marked [+directional, -spatiotemporal, ?to] depending on whether the
locative constituent is realized as as-as, corresponding to [+'to] and more-than,
corresponding to [ - to]. It should be pointed out that little of this set of distinc-
tions is new. In fact, much of it is quite traditional and has been recently
discussed in terms similar to ours by Lyons (I968: 298 ff.).
A distinction was drawn by Donaldson & Wales (I968) between 'functional'
and 'descriptive' comparatives according to whether or not the 'norm' of
236
comparison is a nominal or an infinitival expression specifying a function for

which the 'focus' of comparison is suitable or not. For example, (92) and (93)
are 'functional' comparisons
(92) John is too tired to swim the Channel,

(93) John is tired enough to sleep for a week,
whereas those comparative expressions we have been considering are 'descrip-

tive' comparisons. We could derive 'functional' comparatives from (94), if we
were to state the environmental restrictions required to generate (94):
(94) [John [tired locative ]

+ directional
- spatiotemporal
+to
It would seem that modality is involved somehow, since (92) and (93) are related
in an obvious way to (95) and (96):
(95) John couldn't swim the Channel,

(96) John could sleep for a week.
At any rate, there seems no difficulty in principle with this suggestion and
we will suppose it to be a good one. Corresponding to [+ to] we will have
[locative] realized as 'enough' and corresponding to [-to] as too.
Many of the above suggestions, rules, remarks, etc. argue for a strong and
complete (in the formal sense) parallelism between verb and adjective in deep
structures. Recently, there has been much discussion of this proposal, notably
by Lakoff (I965), Lyons (i966a, I968) and Anderson (I968). To the various
remarks of these authors we have little to add (over and above our proposals
about comparatives), save that we believe the general thesis to be correct. How-
ever, it seems to us that a profitable line of further investigation of this topic
might proceed by way of methods similar to those we have employed here. For
instance, although we have throughout attempted to set up correspondences
between different sorts of adjectives and different sorts of verbs, we have not
carried these distinctions to their limit. A recent paper by Garcia (I967) provides
a useful discussion of verbs in terms of (a) their lexical content and (b) the
freedom with which they combine with different sorts of complements. At one
end of the scale we have the Modals, themselves by no means homogeneous in
terms of their behaviour with respect to (a) and (b), which in these terms take
an obligatory sentence-like complement. Between the modals and 'full' lexical
verbs we have an enormous variety of equivocal verbs like begin, try, succeed,
make, do, happen, etc., 'equivocal' as to their lexical or grammatical nature.
Likewise, English adjectives exhibit the same sort of continuous progression
from 'modal' adjectives like free, able, bound, obliged, etc. through adjectives
237
which take sentence-like complements, keen, happy, anxi

to 'full' adjectives like big, beautiful, etc., which only ta
when combined with comparative elements like too and enough. It would be
interesting to examine these progressions in the context of a base grammar
similar to that which we have proposed and a highly desirable bonus would be
a clearer understanding of the enigmatic categories of tense, mood and aspect.
4. COMPARATIVE STRUCTURES IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Apart from mechanisms similar to that employed in English, we find two

other principal ways of forming comparative expressions. The first of these,
common in many African languages and in some Sino-Tibetan languages,
involves the use of a comparative 'pro' verb with the meaning 'surpass' or
'exceed'. For instance, in Vietnamese (cf. Thompson, I965), there are three
such verbs hon, qua and bang. Their use is illustrated by the following examples:
(97) Tien n'ay hon tien c'ua toi

(money this be-greater money possessive-classifier me)
'This sum of money is greater than mine.'
(98) Co Lan mua hon co Hong
(young-lady Lan buy be-greater young-lady Hong)
'Miss Lan bought more than Miss Hong.'
(99) Ong ay om hon t6i
(male-classifier just-referred-to be-sick be-greater me)
'He is sicker than me.'
(ioo) Cali ghi niay to bang caii kia
(general-classifier chair this be-big be-equal general-classifier that)
'This chair is as big as the other one.'
Clearly these verbal forms behave much as the comparative morphemes (more ...
than and as ... as) do in English.
The second mechanism involves case-marking of the complement of com-
parison. The case used is commonly the ablative or dative. Frequently this
mechanism co-exists in the language with one or other of the other mechanisms.
(In some languages the 'adjective' is inflected, in others not.) Tswana (cf. Cole,
1955) exhibits such a variety of methods, as the following examples show:
(ioi) Baruti obolthale gofeta Kgomindintsi

(Baruti clever to-surpass Kgomindintsi)
'Baruti is more clever than Kgomindintsi.'
(Io2) Nua kemoleele gogaisa rre

(I tall to-exceed father-my)
'I am taller than my father.'
238
(I03) Orata dina gofeta dijo

(He-likes food to-surpass drink)
'He likes drink more than food.'
In (IOI)-(1o3) an infinitive verbal comparative is employed.
(104) Tlou ekgolo bogolo go-kubu/ m6-kubu-ng

(elephant big more locative-hippo)
'An elephant is bigger than a hippo.'
(I05) Orata dino bogolo go-dijo/ m6-dijo-ng

'He likes drink more than food.'
In (Io4) and (105), the comparative particle bogolo is followed obligatorily by a

locative noun, either personal (go-) or impersonal (m6-... -ng).
(io6) Tlou ethata mo-kubu-ng

(elephant strong locative-hippo)
'An elephant is stronger than a hippo.'
In (io6) there is no comparative particle, and the locative is obligatorily im-

personal. Cole (I955) describes these various locative nominals as being non-
directional. However, Tswana exhibits a full locative paradigm in terms of the
distinctions drawn in section 3. And it seems perhaps more correct to describe
them as non-spatiotemporal and directional.
Although we have given examples from only two languages, these mechanisms
are exceedingly widespread. Remnants of the case-marked comparative persist
in some Indo-European languages (e.g. Icelandic), and this type of construction
was commonplace in the older Indo-European languages (e.g. Latin, Greek,
German, Old Irish, Old English, etc., etc., cf. Small, I929). The particular
cases employed vary from language to language, but 'equatives' most commonly
take an accusative or dative complement whereas 'comparatives' most commonly
take ablative or dative complements. Certainly this evidence does not call our
analysis in question. Whether it supports it or not is another matter. Obviously
the status of case is crucial here. If all case inflexions are the result of late
surface-structure transformations, then case-marking does not provide any sort
of basis for deciding between the alternative analyses. If, however, some cases
are represented in the deep structure of nominals, as we suggest, then the case-
marked complement of comparison may be significant. At any rate, the high
incidence of comparative 'verbs' shows that we are not wrong in looking for a
parallelism between comparative structures and di-nominal verb structures.
5. SOME SEMANTIC CONSIDERATIONS
Given a base grammar of the kind proposed in section 3 and an analysis of
239
simple comparative sentences as shown in Figure 3, there are still several

questions which we have deliberately avoided. For instance, what is the role
of the lexicon? How is the selection of subjects controlled? At what point, if
anywhere, does semantic interpretation take place? Alternatively, is this type
of grammar more suitable for a generative (as opposed to interpretive) semantic
approach? Clearly, we have not examined enough data to give firm answers to
all these questions. However, we can say that lexical selection must take place
BEFORE the subject-forming and structure-assigning rule, since otherwise our
suggestions are a prey to Chomsky's remarks about selection restrictions and
active and passive sentences (I957: 43-cited above in connexion with rule (69)).
Further, the selection of subjects seems to depend partly on contextually derived
features on S: such as topicalization, and partly on the 'constituents' of Z, e.g.
the odd behaviour of locatives noted in footnote IO.
Regarding the latter two questions, as psychologists, we find the 'generative'
semantic approach (cf. Chafe, I968; Southworth, I967) more attractive. More-
over, there seem to be many other reasons than those suggested by Chafe and
Southworth for favouring this approach. For instance, it provides a possible
means of eliminating semantic redundancy from base-structures. Consider (107)
and (io8):
(107) My car is fast,

(io8) My car goes fast.
Although these sentences are vastly different from a formal point of view, they
are synonymous, and (io8) is semantically redundant in that both go and
fast involve the notion of motion. It might not be too far-fetched to imagine
rules, operating after the subject-forming rule, which introduce redundancies
of this sort. The rule suggested in section 2 for forming noun-complements is
an example of such a rule. This would then allow us to maintain a simpler
statement of the meta-rule connecting form and meaning, namely, all and only
those sentences deriving from identical base-structures (that is, before rule D
operates) have identical readings. ('Interpretive' semantics of the kind proposed
by Katz (I967; etc.) has to allow for the possibility that distinct base structures,
such as those normally considered to underlie (107) and (io8) might have the
same readings.) This general view of the nature of the connexion between
semantics and syntax will be implicit in what now follows.
Comparative sentences present a wide array of semantic problems, some of
which we have already discussed. One feature of these sentences which has not,
however, been discussed previously is the different 'sensitivity' of different
comparative structures to contextual factors. For example, simple 'comparative'
structures as exemplified by
(IO9) John is taller than Bill
240
seem to be relatively free from contextual variation in the sense that, loosely,
their meaning is the same, no matter what the context. Also, their application
is relatively unrestricted from a contextual point of view, given of course that
John and Bill are 'comparables' in this respect and that John, say, subtends a
greater angle at the eye. (There are, of course, other phenomenonological factors
which might complicate this a little.) However, sentences such as
(iIo) John is as tall as Bill
seem to present problems. Idiolects vary on this point. Some speakers maintain
firmly that (iI Io) must be glossed by
(iii) John and Bill are of equal height.
Others maintain no less firmly that John may, in fact, be taller. It may well be
that both factions are wrong and that the correct view lies somewhere between.
For consider,
(I 2) John is as rich as anyone here.
Clearly, the 'exactly equal' school of thought has problems here, as they do in
another way with
(II3) John is not as tall as Bill,
whereas, the 'greater than or equal' faction have problems in so far as the more
'normal' interpretation of (iio) must be that glossed by (iii), even if that
glossed by
(I 14) John is at least as tall as Bill
is possible. Clearly, the existence of such sentences as (I14) and similar sen-
tences with, just, exactly, easily, etc., reflects this plasticity of meaning (notice
that we prefer to avoid the term 'ambiguity', since it is difficult to see how such
an ambiguity might be STRUCTURALLY marked). The same sort of problems arise
with negation, e.g.
(I 15) I did not drive from Edinburgh to London on Saturday
(cf. Wales & Grieve, forthcoming, for some discussion of this and similar
questions).
Further, other comparative forms present problems in terms of application.
Consider
(i I6) John is as short as Bill,

(II 7) *I found a diamond as small as my thumb,
(ii8) How small is Bill's house?
Sentence (ii6) seems to entail that both John and Bill are 'short'. Put another
D 241
way, a condition for its acceptability is that, in the cont

are 'short' (this is not, of course, true of (I09) in gener
(II7) and (i i8) seems to be controlled by the same sort of considerations, the
difference being that in (II 7) the context is intra-sentential. We can summarize
all these facts by saying that comparative structures like that underlying (I09)
seem to be semantically unmarked, as compared with the other types of com-
parative structures, although of course it is difficult to relate this to any formal
features of these structures. Notice that we have the problems of the same sort
in cases where the formally marked sentence is semantically unmarked (in this
sense) and vice-versa. Compare (iI9) and (I20):
(II9) Applicants should be 6 feet tall,

(I20) Applicants should be more than 6 feet tall.
Here, the formally marked sentence (I 20) has a straightforward interpretation

(i.e. it is semantically unmarked), whereas the formally unmarked sentence (iI 9)
may be semantically equivalent to either (I2I) or (I22):
(I2i) Applicants should be 6 feet tall or over,

(122) Applicants should be exactly 6 feet tall.
That is, (i I9) is semantically marked, in this sense. We shall now put forward
some suggestions as to how these notions might be formalized. Before doing
so, however, it will be necessary to discuss briefly the changing role of trans-
formational rules.
Since the early days of generative syntax there has been a gradual but steady
change in the role of transformational roles. Whereas formerly generative power
resided almost solely in these rules, it now resides in the base rules. Moreover,
in Chomsky's early grammars (e.g. 1957), certain transformations (e.g. question,
negation and passive) formalized semantically important relations between
kernel and non-kernel sentences. This fact provided scholars (e.g. Lyons, I963)
with a technical apparatus suitable for investigating these traditionally important
semantic relations. On the face of it, this 'bonus' of early generative grammar
has now been lost (cf. Katz & Postal, I964: I I8-i I9). However, we should like
to argue here that there is no reason why one should not still investigate these
same semantic relations (and others) using the same sort of transformational
framework.
An apparent objection to this might run as follows. A generative grammar of
a language formally describes the native speaker's knowledge of his language.
If a particular rule does not figure in that grammar, then it does not characterize
any aspect of the native speaker's knowledge and is therefore irrelevant to the
goals of synchronic linguistic theory (as defined by Chomsky). To this objection
we reply that this is a very narrow view to take of linguistic theory, and that,
even if one accepts this view of the purpose of synchronic description, our
242
suggestion is still reasonable on two counts: (i) these semantic relations are
crucially involved in the structure of discourse, and attempts should be made
to formalize this aspect of synchronic description; (ii) even in the more limited
context of the description of individual sentences, current semantic theory is
in no position to lay down hard and fast meta-rules about the way semantic
phenomena are to be studied.
We recognize of course that our method of semantic analysis is of a tentative
and preliminary nature, and that the results of applying this method must
eventually be incorporated into base structures before it attains much theoretical
significance. We will first illustrate the method with reference to a (relatively)
simple set of sentences. Passive sentences are sometimes distinguished from
active sentences in deep structure by the presence of a dummy element domin-
ated by a Manner Adverbial (cf. Katz & Postal, I964). This dummy operates
as a 'trigger' which allows the passive transformation to operate, permuting the
nominals and adjoining an extra constituent to the auxiliary verb.
This operation may be broken down into two operations, as follows:
A: 'nominal-permutation' X-Nom1-Y-Nom2-Z +---X-Nom2-Y-Nom1-Z

B: 'alteration of voice' X-Aux-V-Y ---> X-Aux-[be-en]-V-Y.
As they stand, these operations characterize formal relations between sentence-

structures at a level fairly close to the surface. Since we are studying these
operations, qua formal relations between sentences rather than qua processes in
the derivation of sentences, we have used a double-headed arrow, '+---*', to
indicate their bidirectionality. Consider the following sentences:
(I23) John killed Bill,

(I24) Bill killed John,
(I25) John was killed by Bill,
(I26) Bill was killed by John.
The operations A and B allow us to relate (I24) and (125) to (123), or (I26)
and (I23) to (I25), etc. If we add to A and B a further two operations I and C,
I: 'identity' S >-- S
C: 'passive' apply A, B,
then we can relate (I23), (124), (I25) and (I26) to each of (I23), (124), (125) or
(126). We can represent this completeness as in Table i.
The four operations, or rather relations, thus constitute a GROUP, known as
the four-group (cf. Birkhoff & MacLane, I965: I3I). This much might be
regarded as a trivial consequence of our definitions. But so far we have only
been concerned with relations of form. Consider now the SEMANTIC effects of
these four operations. Whereas A and B effect a change in meaning, I and C
preserve meaning. Moreover, from the point of view of their semantic effects,
243
Table i
I A B C
I I A B C
A A I C B
B B C I A
C C B A I
A and B are EQUIVALEN

looking at this is to say t
decomposable into two co
semantic effects. Therefo
with respect to the gener
us postulate two further o
structure, which characte
the following pairs:
{(I 24), (125)} and {(I 23)

respectively.
Thus, e, applied to sentence Si, results in either Si or AB(Sj) and likewise f

results in A(Si) or B(Si).
These two SEMANTIC operations form a group with two members. Further,
the group Of FORMAL operations I, A, B, C iS HOMOMORPHIC with this group
(for the notion of a homomorphic group, cf. Birkhoff & MacLane, i965: 138),
as follows:
{I, C} -+ e; {A, B} -+ f
Although we have, for simplicity, discussed these formal and semantic relations
in terms of operations, we stress again that it is the RELATIONs between these
sentences that we are attempting to characterize and not, for the moment, their
derivation in a grammar. That is the 'operations' are UNDIRECTED.
However, we would now like to refer to our earlier remarks about the passive
transformation and argue that, for a certain class of transitive sentences, each
pair of members of that class contain in their deep structures sequences of
'choices' related as e or as f. That is, in terms of our base grammar proposals
in section 3 (and assuming that lexical selection occurs at a stage before the
244
assignment of the case features, [agentive], etc.), sentences (123) to (I26) will
all have the same base structure: the predicator kill combined with the two
nouns John and Bill. When this structure underlies (123), the John is assigned
the feature [agentive] and it is made subject; when it underlies (I24), Bill is
assigned the feature [agentive] and is made subject; and so on. We expect that
when this sort of structure is better understood, then we will be able to set up
relationships between feature-assignments corresponding to the semantic rela-
tions we have discussed.
Let us now briefly consider a more complex example. Consider the following
set of sentences:
(I27) John is bigger than Bill, I

(I28) John is not bigger than Bill, II
(129) John is as big as Bill, III
(130) Bill is bigger than John, IV
(I3I) John is smaller than Bill, IV
(I32) John is not as big as Bill, IV
(I33) Bill is not bigger than John, III
(I34) John is not smaller than Bill, III
(I35) Bill is as big as John, II
(136) John is as small as Bill, II
(I37) Bill is smaller than John, I
(138) John is not as small as Bill, I
(I39) Bill is not smaller than John, II
(140) Bill is as small as John, III
(I4I) Bill is not as big as John, I
(142) Bill as not as small as John. IV
In order to account for the formal relationships between these sentences we

will require i6 'operations'. We may construct these from the following five
basic operations (note that 'A' and 'B' denote different 'operations' from those
they denoted in the earlier example):
I: 'formal identity' S-*S

A: 'negation' X-Aux-Y?--+X-Aux- not -Y
B: 'correlate of comparison' X-(er-than)-Y<- -+X-(as-as)-Y
C: 'nominal permutation' (see above)
D: 'polarity reversal' X-[ Adj -Y- -,X-[ Adj -Y
L+ PolJ L -PolJ
(We will not dwell upon the obvious parallelism between the operations of
'alteration of voice', discussed above, and 'polarity reversal': cf. Lyons, I968:
245
463-468.) These five operations relate such pairs as (I27) and (I28), (127) and
(I29), (127) and (I30), (127) and (I3i). To continue:
(127) & (132) are related by E AB BA
(I 27) & (I33) are related by F AC CA
(127) & (I34) are related by G AD DA
(I27) & (I35) are related by H BC CB
(I27) & (136) are related by J BD DB
(I27) & (I37) are related by K CD DC
(I27) & (138) are related by L ABD ED AJ, etc.
(I27) & (39) are related by M ACD FD AK -GC, etc.
(127) & (140) are related by N BCD HD, etc.
(I27) & (I4I) are related by 0 ABC EC, etc.
(127) & (142) are related by P ABCD EK - OD, etc.
Thus we have the matrix represented in Table 2.
We would now like to relate the sentences SEMANTICALLY according to the
Roman numerals on the right of the above list. (All the sentences tagged 'I' are
synonymous, as are all those tagged 'IIF, and so on.) Of our five 'basic' formal
relations, four are semantically significant, that is, effect DISTINCT changes in
meaning. As with the simple example with which we began, we can set up
correspondences between formal and semantic relations as follows:
{I, K, L, O} e [e: semantic identity Si+---Si]

{A, H, J, M} - n [n: negation SiSi]
{B, F, G, N} c [c: correlative Si+--+#Si]
{C, D, E, P} r [r: reciprocal Si Ysi]
An example or two may clarify these relationships. (I27) and (I35) are forma
related by operation H -BC, which does not involve formal negation, not ev
as a constituent operation. And (135) and (141) are formally related by operati
A. But (I27) and (141) are synonymous, i.e. (I27)_ e(I4I). Therefore, the
semantic effect of operation H, in this instance, is equivalent to the semantic
effect of operation A. Consideration of other instances shows that this is true
in general. Hence the characterization of this particular semantic relation as 'n'
simply captures the equivalent semantic relations embodied by the formal
relations A and H. Consideration of J and M shows that they, too, must be
grouped with A. Rearranging the above matrix according to these groupings,
we have the matrix represented in Table 3.
Labelling the four sets of formal relations, E, N, C and R respectively, it is
clear that, e.g. if two sentences are related by way of operations X and Y, that
is if S1 _ XY(S2), where X belongs to E and Y belongs to N, then the net
effect of X and Y is the same as that resulting from Z, where Z also belongs to
N. Our matrix thus collapses to that shown in Table 4.
246
Table 2
I A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P
I I A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P
A A I E F G B C D O L M J K P H N
B B E I H J A O L C D N G P K F M
C C F H I K O A M B N D P G J E L
D D G J K I L M A N B C E F H P O
E E B A O L I H J F G P D N M C K
FFCOAM
F F C O A M HII K
KEPGNDLB
E P G N D L B J
G G D L M A J K I P E F B C O N H
H H O C B N F E P I K J M L D A G
J J L D N B G P E K I H A O C M F
K K M N D C P G F J H I O A B L E
L L J G P E D N B M A 0 I H F K C
M M K P G F N D C L O A H I E J B
N N P K J H M L O D C B F E I G A
OO H F E P C B N A M L K J GI D
| P N M L OK J H G F E C B AD I
Lastly, since E -+ e, etc., our four- semantic r

the four-group, and the group of the i6 formal r
group of the 4 semantic relations, as shown above.
Again, we would like to argue, although we are
247
Table 3
E N C R
I K L O A H J M B F G N C D E P
I I K L O A H J M B F G N C D E P
K K I O L M J H A N G F B D C P E
L L O I K J M A H G N B F P E D C
0 O L K I H A M J F B N G E P C D
A A M J H I O L K E C D P F G B N
H H J M A O I K L C E P D B N F G
N -?
J J H A M L K I O D P E C N B G F
M M A H J K L O I P D C E G F N B
B B N G F E C D P I O L K H J A M
F F G N B C E P D O I K L A M H J
G G F B N D P E C L K I O M A J H
N N B F G P D C E K L O I J H M A
C C D P E F B N G H A M J I K O L
D D C E P G N B F J M A H K I L 0
E E P D C B F G N A H J M O L I K
LP P E C D N G F B M J H A L 0 K I
strate this formally, that we could, in principle, set up relations between feat
assignments in simple comparatives corresponding to the semantic relations we
248
Table 4
E N C R
E E N C R
N N E R C
C C R E N
R R C N E
have discussed. Moreover, if, as suggested earlier in this section, there are
grounds for considering one form of the simple comparative construction
semantically primitive in some sense, then other forms could be related to this
basic form by way of these relations between feature-assignments. For instance,
(I27) John is bigger than Bill and (I38) 7ohn is not as small as Bill are related
semantically by e, and formally by L = ABD. In terms of the features discussed
in Section 3, and others not discussed there, the features assigned to (I27)
might include locative-*[-to], P--[+polarity] and Mood-+[-negative], and
those assigned to [138], locative-+[+to], P-+ [+polarity] and Mood-*[+nega-
tive]. In that case we could set up a DIRECTED relationship, [-to, +polarity,
- negative] _ e[+ to, - polarity, + negative], making the selection of the right-
hand side triad of features conditional (though OPTIONAL) on certain contextual
information about Bill, namely, that he is 'small' (though of course we do not
know how to represent this information formally).
Finally, a strong argument for our classification of sentences like
(I43) John is too old to get the job

(I44) John is not young enough to get the job, etc.
as comparatives is that they, too, exhibit the same set of semantic and formal
relationships as do comparative sentences with -er/more. . . than and as. . . as.
Clearly, much of what we have suggested is speculative. In particular, our
grammatical suggestions require extensive justification which it is not possible
to provide here. It may therefore turn out that some or all of our proposals are
ill-founded. Our main purpose has been to re-open discussion of comparative
structures with a view to revising the older type of analysis, which we believe
to have been unsatisfactory in that it assigned superficial status to the linguistic
expression of what we believe to be a fundamental linguistic, logical and intellec-
tual operation.
249
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Comparative Structures in English

Author(s): R. N. Campbell and R. J. Wales

Comparative structures in English*

Linguistics, epistemology and psychology share many common interests; for

I. SHORTCOMINGS OF PREVIOUS TREATMENTS

We consider that the term 'comparative' should be used

Recent studies of the English comparative construction (cf. Lees, I96I;

[vAniml ... Present Copula Predicate

[ Xnin~ ... Present Copula Predicate

Smith, I96I; Chomsky, I965; Huddleston, I967) have all sta

(4) John is more clever than Bill is.

A final option allows for the deletion of the repeated copu

(5) I am fatter than I was last summer,

However, there is some question as to whether there is sufficient motivation for

(7) I like Peter better than Bill.

(8) John is fatter than Bill is tall

are produced, since deletion is blocked. This is generally considered a desirable

consequence! However, a case for Nom. - be - wh -

(9) These men are more clever than Mary

(io) I bought a green hat,

establish low-level generalizations of this sort, then the p

(I2) John is clever,

(I4) Roger is 3 years older than Robin

which would be derived from base strings3

(I5) Roger is 3 years old,

Matters are even worse in the case of comparative con

(I7) I am too ill to eat anything.

These facts would be of no account if it were a general feature of English, that

(i8) John is bigger and stronger than Bill (is),

and also with (b) transitive verbs, e.g.

(i9) Class A is wider than and includes Class B.

this is not compatible with current transformational theory w

(20) X-+Xn and X

might be applied to major categories (or the constituents that dominat

The fundamental assumption of all the previous analyses, namely th

(21) # # the river is nom deep # as - as # the river is nom wide # #

(22) John bought more records than Mary

N Aux Cop Comp Adjective Nom

John present be er - than big Bill

for the double-based type of analysis of simple comparatives.4 Huddleston points

(a) *The table is amazed

'already requires us to formulate a set of rules deriving comparative constructions from

(23) I bought a bigger car than a Mini

(24) I bought a car bigger than a Mini

have different entailments, whereas (23) entails

(25) A Mini is a car,

(24) does not. Hence the deviance of

(26) *a bigger man than Mary,

(27) a man (who is) bigger than Mary.

Huddleston suggests that this problem be dealt with by having, underlying

(23) and (24), respectively,

(29) A Mini is than big.

(30) I bought a car

(3i) The car was big

(32a) I bought a Rel car

Derivation would proceed as follows:

(32e) a Mini is a car which is big

(32g) A Mini is a big car

(33) I know a lawyer # wh-person is more successful than Bill #,

whereas, where Bill IS a lawyer we would have

(34) I know a lawyer # wh-lawyer is more successful than Bill #.

Notice that this might account for the ambiguity of

(35) I bought a painting which was very expensive,