Re: Comparison Terminology

Jeff Jones wrote:

> > There's an additional (optional) component to comparatives, namely the
> > "degree of comparison". The degree tells you the amount--as measured
> > along the scale of comparison--by which the subject and standard of
> > comparison diverge from each other. For example, in "John is two years
> > older than Bill", the subject of comparison is "John", the standard of
> > comparison is "Bill", the directionality is "(more)", the scale is
> > "(age)", and the degree is "two years" (viz. on the scale of age, the
> > measure of distance between John and Bill is two years).
>
> This component is something I hadn't thought about very much, yet. I had
> been considering using "degree" for something like slightly more vs. more
> vs. a lot more.
Well, you can use "degree" for both, since they're mutually exclusive:

  John is slightly older than Bill.
  John is two years older than Bill.
  * John is slightly two years older than Bill.

Furthermore, they fulfill the same semantic function of indicating the
distance between John and Bill on the scale of comparison:  It's just that
"two years" represents a specific measurement of degree, while "slightly" and
"a lot" are vaguer.

Matt.