International Workshop on Degrees and Grammar: An East Asian Perspective (DeG2019)

Degree Semantics has received much momentum in recent years. Findings in this framework have not only shaped the development of linguistic theory (esp. that of natural language semantics), but also deepened our understanding of a number of core phenomena in natural languages, such as gradability, comparison, modification, exclamation, etc. (cf. Cresswell 1976; von Stechow 1984; Kennedy 1999; Kennedy & McNally 2005, among countless others). Recently, much attention has been paid to (i) the ontology of degrees, and (ii) the cross-linguistic variation of degree semantics (e.g., how the presence/absence of degree abstraction explains the cross-linguistic variation in comparison constructions) (Grosu & Landman 1998; Moltmann 2009; Beck et al. 2009; Scontras 2017; among many others). Inspired by these findings, this workshop aims to bring together current research on gradability, comparison, and degree modification from a cross-linguistic perspective, with a focus on Chinese and other east Asian languages (such as Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc.).

Selected papers presented at the workshop will be published in a special issue of Language and Linguistics, an SSCI and A&HCI indexed journal, on the proviso that the papers satisfy the publication standard of the journal