Abstract

It is natural to assume that the explicit comparative – John is taller than Mary – can be true in cases the implicit comparative – John is tall compared to Mary – is not. This is sometimes seen as a threat to comparison-class based analyses of the comparative. In this paper it is claimed that the distinction between explicit and implicit comparatives corresponds to the difference between (strict) weak orders and semi-orders, and that both can be characterized naturally in terms of constraints on the behavior of predicates among different comparison classes.

Citations