More than a subordinate clause: coordination or subordination in comparatives, clausal or phrasal standards

This chapter offers an answer to four main theoretical debates regarding the syntax and semantics of particle comparatives that have been the subject of ample discussion since the early 70s, focusing on Spanish and English data. Debate 1 addresses the issue of the linkage type between the comparees: is there a coordinate or a dependent (subordinate) relation between them? Debate 2 examines the process or processes responsible for Comparative Ellipsis, an ellipsis operation claimed to silence one or several constituents in clausal standards of comparison. Debate 3 focuses on the issue on the nature of the standard of comparison: can standard markers select for both clausal and phrasal complements? Debate 4 concerns the nature and mechanisms responsible for Comparative Deletion and Comparative Subdeletion: that is, the obligatory omission of a measure and a gradable predicate or a quantified nominal from the standard (as illustrated by the unacceptability of “More women than [I was expecting (*thirty men/*many women)] came.”). What is the nature and mechanisms responsible for Comparative Deletion and Comparative Subdeletion, and why are these processes obligatory? In sum, this chapter offers a formal diagnosis protocol that allows us to distinguish the underlying structure of the major comparative subclasses: coordinate or dependent comparatives, with either clausal or directly phrasal standards. The present analysis allows us to dispense with the ad hoc rule of Comparative Ellipsis: its effects are derived from the common deletion operations that apply to either coordinate or subordinate structures. Moreover, Comparative Subdeletion is shown not to always be the result of w h -movement (Chomsky, 1977), nor an ad hoc deletion rule (Bresnan, 1975); but the result of multiple and symmetric quantifier raising.