Jeff Jones wrote:
> Looking at my notes, I discovered that I made an error in that post: I've
> actually been using the term "precision" for slightly more vs. more vs. a
> lot more, not "degree"; but I'm glad I made the error, since it prompted
> your additional comment. I also see that the dictionary uses "degree" in
> the terms "positive degree", "comparative degree", "superlative degree",
> which to me isn't very good -- I prefer your usage. But that brings up some
> more questions:
> A) What's the linguistic term for this sort of thing?
What sort of thing are you talking about? If you mean the term for things like
"two years" in "two years older", it's "degree measure".
> B) It seems to me that
> 1) the "comparative" is an explicit comparison of one entity (or set of
> entities) to one other entity,
> 2) the "superlative" is a comparison of one entity to a number of others
> within the same group, and
> 3) the "positive" can be considered as an implicit comparison to some norm.
> Is this reasonable?
Reputable semanticists have claimed so--at least for scalar predicates.
Matt.