Rajesh Bhatt presented an invited talk at UC, Berkeley on October 10. A title, and abstract, follow.
Amounts versus Cardinalities
Semantic treatments of differentials in comparatives treat measure
phrases (`one pound' in `Jules is one pound heavier than Jim') and
numerals (`one' in `Jules has one more book than Jim') alike. This
seems justified based on the syntax of English but an examination of a
wider variety of languages reveals a peculiar restriction. In Hebrew,
Hindi-Urdu, or German, one cannot say `one more book'; instead the
form `one book more' must be used. I'll explore the consequences of
this peculiar restriction for the semantics of comparatives and the
distinctions between cardinalities and amounts.
