Degree Abstraction Parameter (DAP)

I will first discuss scope ambiguities and then the negative island effect in Nenets in order to establish the parameter setting of Dap.

Scope Ambiguities: As I have established in section 2.3.2.1, Nenets lacks clausal stan- dards. Also, as discussed in section 2.2.2 for Russian, testing ambiguities like the one in (12-a) is enough for Nenets, since in Nenets there is only Heim’s phrasal operator, i.e. we are not concerned with possible confounders (like differences in ellipsis site), when we are faced with a scope ambiguity. But first, we need to establish that Nenets has inverse scope phenomena at all. I did this by testing ambiguities with two generalized quantifiers, like the English example in (11).

(11) Every teacher likes one student.

a. surface scope (∀ > ∃): For every teacher x there is a student y such that x likes y.

b. inverse scope (∃ > ∀): For one student x it is true that every teacher y likes that x.

I have tested the Nenets counterpart of (11). Remember that the canonical word order in Nenets is SOV. With surface structure SOV, both the surface and the inverse scope readings were available. With a scrambled structure OVS where the object (‘one student’) came first, only the inverse scope reading was available. Having established the existence of different readings for the surface order with individual-type quantifiers, let us now turn to scope ambiguities containing the comparative operator.

In examples like the following, my informants got both the wide scope reading for the degree operator and the wide scope reading for the modal. Example (12-a) shows a predicative comparative disambiguated via context towards the reading where ‘want’ takes scope over the comparative. Example (13-a) shows a predicative comparative with a different modal, namely the Nenets correlate to ‘must’ , where this time the comparative operator takes scope over the modal.

(12) Context: Zina always wanted to be tall. The height 1.85m is her ideal. The height of her friend Ljusya is 1.80m. Unfortunately, Zina’s height does not reach her ideal. She is just 1.70m tall (but Ljusya’s does not reach Zina’s ideal either). a. Zina Zina Ljusya-xad Ljusya-abl. jamb-ŋe long-ess. ŋes’ be xarva. want.3sg.

‘Zina wants to be taller than Ljusya (is tall).’ (want>comp)

(13) Context: Both Zina and Ljusya are 1.70m tall. Both of them want to become models and want to apply to two different agencies. Zina wants to get into the

agency “Beauty face”, while Ljusya wants to get into the agency “Topmodel”. The minimal height required for “Beauty face” is 1.80m and for “Topmodel” only 1.75m. a. Zina Zina Ljusya-xad Ljusya-abl. jamb-ŋe long-ess. ŋebta be tara. must.3sg.

‘Zina has to be taller than Ljusya (has to be).’ (comp>must)

Finally, example (14) is an adverbial comparative where the comparative operator again scopes over ‘want’.

(14) Context: Vika and Olya both want to learn to play the guitar. Vika wants to play musical pieces in no matter which genre and in any, even difficult arrange- ment. Olja will be happy, even if she can play the simplest songs with only a couple of chords. a. Vika Vika Olja-xad Olja-abl. gitara-xana guitar-loc. savo-vna good-prol. sanakuvs’ play xarva. want.3sg.

‘Vika wants to play the guitar better than Olja (wants to play the guitar).’ (comp>want) So far, we can therefore conclude that Nenets does have scope ambiguities of the type attitude predicate/modal + comp that I discuss in section 2.2.2 for Russian. These ambiguities only illustrate real scope ambiguities if the comparative standard is genuinely phrasal, which is the case in Nenets.

In fact, I have also tried to elicit examples from Heim (2001) and Beck et al. (2009), i.e. minimal requirement readings like in (30) (cf. section 1.3.2.1) repeated in (15). These are the ones that work for English, i.e. a language with clausal standards, as well. (15) (Context: The draft is 10 pages.) The paper is required to be exactly 5 pages

longer than that. (Heim 2001: 224, ex. (28)) a. [exactly 5pp comp than that] [1 required [the paper be t1,d long]]

max(λd.∀w ∈ Acc5 → the paper is d-long in w) = 15pp

‘The minimum length required for the paper is 10 pages.’ (The paper is exactly 15 pp long in those acceptable worlds where it is shortest.)

“minimum requirement reading ”

b. required [[exactly 5pp comp than that] [1 the paper be t1,d long]]

∀w ∈ Acc → max(λd. the paper is d-long in w) = 15pp ‘The paper is exactly 15 pp long in every acceptable world.’

In English, both readings are attested. How about Nenets? According to Beck, Hohaus & Tiemann (2012), with Heim’s operator (that we assume for Nenets) we can get minimal requirement readings. However, the following Nenets example only allows for the reading in (15-b), but not the minimal requirement reading.

(16) (Context: The draft is 10 pages.) a. Padvemda” The.written saml’aŋ-h 5-gen. stranica-h pages-gen. piruwna exactly jamba-rka long-rka ŋebta be tara. must.3sg. ‘The article is required to be exactly 5 pages longer than that.’

= The article has exactly 15 pages. 6=The article has 15 pages or more.

Now, the reasons for this might be manifold and I only can speculate about them at this point. First of all, the reason could be (i) methodological. Remember that my informants are presented with the Russian translations of the English sentences. So if I translate the sentence in (16), I encounter problems like the exact translation of the modal ‘required’ into Russian. Russian modals might work differently from English, cf. e.g. Krasikova (2010). And Nenets modals might work differently again. There is also (ii) the numeral, which could receive an ‘at least’ or an ‘at most’ interpretation. In addition, (iii) these ambiguities are notoriously hard to get even in English as I know from own elicitations with English native speakers.

I will now leave aside the Heim-type exactly-ambiguities. Since Nenets only has phrasal comparatives, I will conclude from ambiguities like (12-a), (13-a) and (14) that these are real scope ambiguities that require degree abstraction.

Negative Island Effect (NegIs): Importantly, Nenets does not fulfill an important re- quirement to even test NegIs. Namely, Nenets only has phrasal standards and hence no degree relative clauses that could provide an island for movement. This will be elabo- rated on shortly.

An example for the effect was given in (29), section 1.3.2.1 and is repeated in (17). (17) *Mary bought a more expensive book than nobody did.

This is a point of grammatical variation where, for English, we find NegIs, while, for instance, in Japanese, the construction is judged grammatical (Beck et al. 2009: 11). The NegIs arises when a negative element appears in the than-clause. According to von Stechow (1984) and Rullmann (1995), who provide a semantic explanation for NegIs, the ungrammaticality is due to the fact that the maximum degree of the than-clause is undefined resulting in the unacceptability of the whole sentence.

(18) λd.nobody bought a d-expensive book _{maximum undefined!} In Japanese, the sentence is judged grammatical, because the than-clause does not de- scribe sets of degrees, but rather sets of individuals (cf. Beck, Oda & Sugisaki 2004). If it is a set of degrees, i.e. syntactically a clause like in English, then we are faced with a real NegIs. Thus, crucially, the prerequisite for testing NegIs is the availability of clausal standards. As I have shown in 2.3.2.1, Nenets does not permit clausal standards. That is why this diagnostics cannot be applied to Nenets. Hence unsurprisingly, only ungrammatical sentences like (19) can be yielded by elicitation.

(19) *Vanya Vanya temdavy buy.part. mir’eta expensive tolangubc’ book xib’a-xart-xad who-self-abl. ni-vy neg.-pst.part. temda. buy.3sg.

English: ‘*Vanya bought a more expensive book than nobody did.’

The sentence in (19) is ill-formed. Discussing the reasons why that is would lead too far, but the clear result of this is that NegIs is not a good diagnostics for abstraction over degrees in Nenets.

Therefore, the only true diagnostics for degree abstraction we are left with in Nenets are the aforementioned ambiguities in (12-a), (13-a) and (14). With these I conclude that Nenets does have degree abstraction and thus the positive setting of the Dap, i.e. [+Dap].