Speaker: Johanna Alstott (MIT)
Title: Ordinal Numbers: Not Superlatives, but Modifiers of Superlatives
Time: Wednesday, May 3rd, 1pm – 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: The semantics of ordinal numbers has garnered little attention in the literature. The few existing accounts of ordinals attribute to them all or almost all of the semantic properties of the superlative morpheme -est (Bhatt 2006; Sharvit 2010; Bylinina et al. 2014). This work discusses a construction problematic for these existing theories: the ordinal superlative construction (e.g. John climbed the third highest mountain). Existing theories give ordinals and superlatives such similar semantics that they struggle to explain how an ordinal and a superlative can join together and form a complex modifier like third highest. As an alternative, I propose a semantics according to which ordinals are exceptive modifiers of overt or covert superlatives. The n-th highest mountain is the mountain that, with the exception of n – 1 others, is the highest. Not only does this treatment of ordinals as modifiers of superlatives account for the ordinal superlative construction, but it lends itself to a principled account of other unsolved puzzles concerning how ordinals and superlatives differ with respect to plurality and definiteness. Considering these additional puzzles unearths a hitherto unrecognized presupposition for ordinals and establishes a set of desiderata that any theory of ordinals should capture.