Nominal phrases in predicative position and degree modification in French and Greek: a syntax-semantics analysis

Degree modifiers (DMs) are linguistic expressions that modify gradable items. Gradable items are-in their turn-known for mapping their arguments onto abstract representations of measurement, else called degrees, and associated with a scale, a set of degrees ordered with respect to some dimension (see Kennedy 1999, Kennedy and McNally 2005, inter alia). 

Degree mοdification is far from being a uniform phenomenon across the board. French and Greek are two interesting language examples in that they exemplify also cases in which degree modification involves non-gradable nouns. The present paper focusses on this less documented but quite frequently met case of degree modification in copula sentences (1-8). Our empirical basis includes data collected from parallel corpora available in Sketch Engine but also constructed data. 

Copula sentences as in (1-3) express a love relation between the subject and the denotation of the noun phrase (Vlachou to appear). Data as in (4-8) show that the translation couple DEF-genitive+NP/très+NP in copula sentences in Greek and French, respectively, is productive (see Moustaki 1995 for Greek), and, interestingly, does not always involve a loving relation between the subject and the noun denotation. In this paper, we attempt at providing a typology of copula sentences of the type DEF-genitive+NP/très+NP in Greek and French (Μari & Martin 2008). 

Copula sentences of the form DEF-genitive+NP/très+NP participate in three categories (Groups A, B and C below). Sentences of the Groups A and B (see data) involve the formation of complex predicates keeping the lexical semantics of the NP participating in the final semantic representation. The difference between the examples participating in Groups A and B is that in Group A the meaning is that “someone loves (doing) something” while in the examples of Group B the NP-genitive assigns a quality to the subject, i.e., the meaning is that “someone/something is a person/object of a given quality”. Inserting a DM poli (“very”) in examples of Group B is not always felicitous, perhaps an indication of weak compositionality. Sentences in Group C are non-compositional, being idiomatic cases that do not accept any modification. We will propose that copula sentences with a genitive-NP that participate in Groups A and B in Greek involve an empty noun which takes as a modifier the genitive-NP and investigate the possibility of extending this analysis in the French cases, focusing on the status of the DM and the dependent NP.

Data

Group A

1. Georges est très sport. 

           George is    very sport

         “George is a sports lover.”

2. a. O   Jorghos ine (poli) ton          spor.

              The George is    very  the-GEN spor

             “George is a sports lover.” 

3. a. Jean est très  salade.

    John is  very salad

b. O    Janis ine (poli) tis           salatas.

    The John is    very the-GEN salad

“John is a salad lover.”

Group B

4. a. Marie est très mode.

    Mary is   very mode

            b. I      Meri ine ( ??poli) tis            modhas

    The Meri is   very      the-GEN mode

“Mary is very modern.”

5. a. Le   joueur de cette équipe est très confiance.

    The player of this   team  is     very confidence

b. O    pektis aftis tis omadhas ine (??poli) tis            ebistosinis. 

    The player this the team       is   very      the-GEN confidence

“We have confidence in this player.”

Group C

6. To aftokinito ine tu            kutju.

The car          is    the-GEN box

“The car is completely new (we just bought it).”

7. O Jorghos ine tu             thanata.

The George is the-GEN death

“George is completely exhausted.”

8. a. Georges est très docteur.

    George  is  very doctor

b. O     Jorghos ine tu            jatru.

    The George is the-GEN doctor

“George is completely insane.”