Alrenga, Kennedy and Merchant 2012 (AKM) propose that in English, both the comparative morphology '-er/more' (COMP) and the standard marker 'than' (STND) introduce the semantics of comparison. AKM's primary goal is to account for correlations between the scope of the standard phrase and the scope of comparison, but they also point to some potential implications of their analysis for the typology of comparatives, for the morphosyntax of comparatives on the one hand, and for the distinction between “phrasal" and “clausal" comparatives on the other hand. This talk explores these implications, focusing on English, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. (And maybe Hebrew!)
