Deriving dimensions of comparison

Abstract

In English, using the comparative more with a mass noun (more co ee) allows comparison along various dimensions, including volume and weight, while using more with a plural (more cats) typically only allows comparison by cardinality. Wellwood (2019) proposes to capture these facts via a constraint on the measure function μ expressed by the comparative when it is combined with a nominal expression whose denotation P has a parthood relation ≤. Wellwood’s constraint is that μ must satisfy ‘automorphism invariance’: