Measure Adverbials
Résumé
I will defend and generalize an analysis of measure adverbials in which measure adverbials are part quantifiers ranging over the parts of some measuring entity. This analysis was first proposed for temporal measure adverbials by Dowty (1979).1 In this account, the PP for two hours in (la) quantifies over subparts of an interval of two hours. The analysis can be generalized to spatial measure adverbials as in (lc) and (ld) so that, for example, worldwide in (lc) quantifies over geographical subregions of the globe. I will show that together with some simple assumptions about the event structure of verbs, this analysis correctly predicts that in general, measure adverbials apply only to predicates that denote atelic (undelimited) events or ones having homogeneous extensions. Thus, this homogeneity requirement need not be stipulated as it is in accounts which treat measure adverbials as event predicates rather than quantifiers. I argue that the homogeneity restriction for a number of reasons cannot be cast as a sortal restriction on an event predicate.