The semantics of N-by-N adverbials

Abstract

This paper will argue for a new analysis of N-by-N adverbials that they require a plural event and quantize the rate (when the N is a unit noun) or the participants (when N is a number or a sortal noun) of each subevent based on contextually interpreted free variables. It differs from previous analyses in that it does not link N-by-N adverbials to scalar change (Henderson 2013) or to the mereological make-up of some participants (Beck and Stechow 2007). And as a result, this paper is able to provide a unified analysis of N-by-N adverbials containing different types of nouns and capture their interaction with numbers and subevents.