Running head: COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 1

Comparative Deletion and Subdeletion

Yuanyuan Sun

Colorado State University

COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 2

Introduction

According to Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman (2016), one of the basic and crucial

human cognitive capacities is to be able to comprehend and express differences and similarities.

One of the most significant constructions in English to help people do that is the comparative.

Specialized morphology and syntax in different languages offer foundation for the comparative

constructions (Kennedy, 2004). English uses adjectives, adverbs, the inflectional morphemes

such as er as well as quantifiers such as more and less to express comparison (Celce-Murcia

& Larsen-Freeman, 2016). In addition, English allows for the possibility of using a range of

phrase types after than/as to help express more complicated comparisons (Kennedy, 2004).

According to Bresnan (1973), the comparative clause construction in English can be a huge

challenge for English learners because of its syntactic complexity. There are various

grammatical processes in the English comparative clause construction, for instance, recursions,

deletions, permutations, and suppletions. All these could cause ambiguity and puzzles for the

learners. This paper will take a closer look at the topic of comparative deletion and subdeletion.

The definition and form of both comparative deletion and subdeletion will be briefly presented

first. As a fairly new classification of English comparative constructions, there are still many

arguable approaches to analyze this construction (Chae, 1992). The paper will introduce

two main types of approaches about comparative deletion and subdeletion rules. Based on this

discussion, then this paper will focus on discussing different arguments and perspectives

towards the issues within the topic, which is if comparative deletion and subdeletion should be

treated as the same type of syntax.

COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 3

Definitions of comparative deletion and subdeletion

To start with the definitions of comparative deletion and subdeletion in terms of both

form and meaning, Bresnan (1973, 1975, cited in Kennedy & Merchant, 2000) introduced the

term of Comparative deletion (CD) to describe constructions in which an adjectival, adverbial,

or nominal constituent is eliminated from the surface representation of the complement of than

or as (henceforth the comparative clause) in sentences. Kennedy and Merchant (2000) offered

the example as follow:

(1) Zizou didnt score as many goals as we thought he would score ____.

Compared to CD constructions, only the degree term is missing in the comparative

subdeletion constructions (CSD). Kennedy and Merchant (2000) offer an example as follow:

(2) By actually refuting his own early self, Wittgenstein was as unusual as Frege was

___ noble when confronting not to say applauding Russells objections.

From the other perspective of expressions on comparison, Kennedy (2002) defined CD

as the constructions which compare two quantities of the same sort of stuff such as (3):

(3) The galaxy contains more stars than the eye can see ___. (number of stars)

Kennedy (2002) defined CSD as compare quantities of different sorts of stuff such

as (4):

(4) Michael Jordan has more scoring titles than Dennis Rodman has ____ tattoos.

(number of scoring titles vs. number of tattoo)

From the definitions of CD and CSD, it can be easily seen that both types of

comparative constructions are featured with the missing compared element in the comparative
COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 4

clause. Concerning with the missing compared element, a question could be raised about what

kind of syntactic process is engaged in removing the compared item in the comparative clause

(Corver, 2005). Two deletion rules will be discussed in the next section of the paper in detail.

Discussion on deletion rules

Corver (2005) introduced two deletion rules in his paper, unbounded Deletion

(Bresnan's approach) and wh-movement (Chomsky's approach). At the same time, he offered

various arguments as evidence to support or be against one or the other analysis.

With regards to the unbounded deletion rule, it is a very unified and generalized deletion

rule Bresnan proposed for both comparative deletion and comparative subdeletion. In addition

to the basic rule that the compared constituent in the comparative clause should be deleted,

Bresnan also stressed how much should be removed form the compared constituent. Generally

speaking, Bresnan argues that only as much is deleted from the compared constituent by the

rule of Comparative Deletion as is maximally recoverable from the head of the comparative

clause (Corver, 2005). In other words, in somewhat more explicit terms, only the maximal

subphrase of the compared constituent identical to a corresponding subphrase of the head

undergoes Comparative Deletion (Corver, 2005). Bresnan offered two examples with respect

to this rule:

(5) a. There isnt as large a number of women as there was ___ of man. NP- deletion.

b. They make better police dogs than they make ___ pets. AP-deletion.

However, many people have raised doubts towards if a single rule can truly achieve

the goal of removing a part of the compared elements or the entire compared element
COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 5

effectively and successfully in both CD and CSD. Corver (2005) offered two exceptional

examples regarding to the unbounded deletion rule from Pinkham (1982)s paper:

(6) a. *John has a longer desk than Sue has [a [ wide] table].

b. *John has [a [longer] desk] than Sue has [a table].

In (6)a, the quantifier of an attributive adjective phrase got removed; In (6)b, the

attributive AP got deleted, both under identity with those of the matrix compared phrases.

However, none of the deletion rule applied successfully to these two sentences. Since these

sentences are in CSD structures, it may indicate the ineffectiveness of the unbounded deletion

rule on the CSD structures.

Another deletion rule was Chomsky's approach called the rule of wh-movement.

According to Chomskys analysis of Comparative Deletion constructions in the research

program through 1973 to 1977. As a result, Chomsky claims that various construction types

such as topicalization, clefts, wh-interrogatives, relatives all can be included into a general

movement schema - Move Wh-. More specifically, moving a wh-constituent to Comp such as

[Spec, CP] (Corver, 2005). A possibility is the movement of Quantity Phrase(QP) out of NP to

COMP and possible from COMP to COMP, which is similar to the wh- elements. Chomsky

also provided three wh-diagnostics, which refers to the general characteristics of wh-movement

rule, for application with real case examples (Corver, 2005):

(7) a. It leaves a gap.

John met more linguists than Sue had met (them).

b. Certain verbs/bridge verbs license (apparent) violations of subjacency.

COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 6

John met more linguists than I believed that Sue had met.

c. It observes island constraints: the Complex NP Constraint, the Wh-Island

constraint, the Adjunct Condition, the CSC, etc.

*John met more linguists than I believed the claim that Sue had met.

The uniformity of CD and CSD

According to what have been discussed in this paper, the researchers have been trying

to develop a perfect unified approach to deal with the process of both CD and CSD. However,

the complexity of the constructs has been made this job very challenging. The task of

conquering the challenges are also very closely related to the central question in the study of

the Comparative Deletion and Subdeletion constructions: The uniformity of CD and CSD. Do

CD and CSD have the same syntax essentially? Is there any possibility that the two

constructions being unified so that linguistics could come up with a single syntactic rule of

comparative formation? If the answer is no, what are the reasons for assigning CD and CSD

different syntactic analyses? (Corver, 2005) There are many different arguments toward these

questions, which will be discussed more in the rest of this paper.

To start with, there are many researchers holding the idea that there is uniformity

between CD and CSD. Based on the hypothesis that Comparative Deletion and Subdeletion

share a single rule of comparative formation, Bresnan proposed the unbounded rule of

Subdeletion, to provide a general schema of Comparative formation. Chomsky had a similar

hypothesis so that he developed the wh- movement rule, recasting Bresnans proposal (Corver,

2005). Recently researchers such as Kennedy expressed the same argument (Kennedy, 2002).
COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 7

Kennedy gave evidence for the uniform analysis approach of comparative

constructions of CD and CSD in her work (Kennedy, 2002). Above all, Kennedy showed a

summary of central claims on English Comparative Formation, which is shown in (8):

(8) English Comparative Formation

a. CD involves overt movement of the compared constituent to the specifier of a

clausal complement of than/as, plus deletion under identity with the head of the comparative

(cf. Hankamer 1971; Chomsky 1977).

b. CSD involves covert movement of the compared constituent to the specifier of a

clausal complement of than/as.

Generally speaking, Kennedy considered that the CD and CSD constructions the

derivational output of one and the same syntactic rule (Corver, 2005). Kennedy reviewed

Bresnans deletion rule that obligatorily eliminates a degree term from the compared

constituent. Then she claimed that the subsequent analyses and observations showed that CD

and CSD have properties similar to wh-movement construction. Based on these, Kennedy

raised a few assumptions: Both CD and CSD should have a set of shared properties; they should

react the same to constraints on movement or deletion; can be derived fundamentally in the

same way. Next, Kennedy listed three pieces of evidence to confirm all the assumptions.

The first evidence is that both CD and CSD are ill-formed when the gap is embedded

in an extraction island (Kennedy, 2002). Both CD and CSD require a gap. A few examples

were offered too by Kennedy (2002).

(9) Wh-islands
COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 8

a.*The shapes were longer than I wondered whether they would be.

b. *The shapes were longer than I wondered whether would be thick.

Sentential subjects

a.*There are more stars in the sky than that the eye can see is certain.

b. *There are more stars in the sky than that the eye can see planets is certain.

The second evidence is based on the definitions of CD and CSD. The uniform analysis

is necessary because both comparative constructions share the similar semantic conditions:

both of them are expressing the comparison of two amounts. However, this evidence tends to

be not strong enough as the definitions of CD and CSD are not identical. As mentioned earlier

in this paper, CD is comparing amounts of the same sorts of stuff, while CSD is comparing

amounts of two different stuff. (Kennedy, 2002).

Except for the positive evidence supporting the uniform analysis approach, there is

also some evidence against it (Kennedy, 2002).

The first evidence is that the left branch condition could appear when the unbounded

deletion rule is applied in the CSD (Corver, 2005). The left branch condition refers to the rule

that normally left-branch-modifying elements cannot be moved away from the constituent

they modify (Corver, 2005). For example, moving away the same type of phrase from what it

modifies in interrogative construction is unacceptable (Corver, 2005):

(10) a. *How many did you meet [ biologists]?

b. *How was the table [ wide]?

The second evidence is that similar to other types of movement and deletion
COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 9

operations, CD doesnt accept contraction of an immediately preceding auxiliary, while before

a CSD site contraction of an immediately preceding auxiliary is acceptable (Kennedy, 2002).

Some examples were listed as below:

(11) a. I thought there was more meat than there is/*'s.

b. John was more upset then than he is/*'snow.

c. There's more meat than there's rice.

d. John was more upset then than he's angry now.

The last evidence is that the comparative constructions can be very complicated. There

is a construction called multiply-headed comparative. Thorny and tough problems may occur

when it comes to the application of the uniform analysis to this kind of comparative

construction. (12) shows two example sentences of the complicated comparative constructions:

(12) a. Christmas makes as many children as happy as it makes adults unhappy.

b. Max persuaded more men to buy more cars than you persuaded women to buy

trucks.

First of all, there are multiple heads in the comparative phrases in the sentences. It

is confusing and challenging to directly apply unbounded deletion rule to these sentences.

Furthermore, to analyze the semantic meaning of the multiply-headed comparatives can be

complicated. Kennedy (2002) gave the interpretation of the sentence (12)b as follow:

(13) [the number of men that Max persuaded to buy cars > the number of women

that you persuaded to buy trucks]AND [the number of cars that Max persuaded men to buy>

the number of trucks that you persuaded women to buy]

COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 10

It can be easily seen that in the sentence (12)b the multiply-headed CSD works very

well, but on the other hand, parallel examples of multiply-headed CD are unacceptable

(Kennedy, 2002).

Overall speaking, whether comparative deletion and subdeletion have the same

syntax and can be incorporated in the same rule remains big argument, and clearly, there is no

definite answer for all the questions.

Pedagogical Indications

With regards to pedagogical discussion, in consideration of the fact that the construction

of comparative deletion and subdeletion are actually very complicated syntactically, its

necessary and significant for teachers to take specific characteristics of students particularly

their proficiency levels into account during instruction.

Students should have reached a certain level of background knowledge, including

comparative morphology, noun phrases, adjective phrases, quantities and clauses to be able to

comprehend and produce these structures. For the students new to the construction, it would

be helpful if the teacher simplified the instruction. Instead of giving students complicated

linguistic definitions of the constructions of CD and CSD, the teacher can consider using

Kennedy (2002)s definition for the instruction in the beginning. It may not be too challenging

for students to understand that CD compares two quantities of the same sort of stuff while

CSD compares two quantities of the same sort of stuff.

Moreover, though there are many debates on if there is a generated deletion rule for

both construction, for classes with lower level students, if the constructions in the class
COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 11

materials conform to the generated deletion rules aforementioned in this paper, it may be

helpful for the teacher to inform students the rules. In this case, the rules could help students

acquire the basic form of the comparative constructions in the beginning. As for the advanced

class, students may encounter the exceptions of the generalized rules. The teacher can inform

students that there are constraints of the rule, and avoid students from using the generated rules

in all their production of the constructions at all the time. Overall, more research on

construction of comparative deletion and subdeletion is needed. The English teachers and

students could be benefited if one day a more accurate and easier-conducted deletion rule is

developed in the future.

Ur (1988) proposed that grammar teaching goes through four stages, which a general

framework which a wide variety of teaching techniques can fit into: presentation, isolation and

explanation, practice and test. The first two stages focus on helping students perceive and

understand the various aspects of the target grammar structure. Its possible that for a

complicate and difficult structure like comparatives, the first two stages may take some time.

However, Ur (1988) suggested that if the structure is very close to a parallel in the native

language, it may take much less time for students to acquire the structure. Thus, before the

instruction, the teacher can do research in the comparative structure in students native

language to see if it can help students learn the comparatives in English.

COMPARATIVE DELETION AND SUBDELETION 12

References

Bresnan, J. W. (1973). Syntax of the comparative clause construction in English. Linguistic

inquiry, 4(3), 275-343.

Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2016). The grammar book: Form, meaning, and use

for English language teachers (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning, 767-

787.

Chae, H. R. (1992). English comparatives and an indexed phrase structure grammar. Annual

Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 18(1), 37-48.

Corver, N. (2005). 15 Comparative deletion and subdeletion. The Blackwell Companion to

Syntax. Oxford: Blackwell, 1-60.

Kennedy, C. (2002). Comparative deletion and optimality in syntax. Natural Language &

Linguistic Theory, 20(3), 553-621.

Kennedy, C. (2004). Comparatives, semantics of. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics

(2nd Edition), Lexical and Logical Semantics section. Oxford: Elsevier.

Kennedy, C., & Merchant, J. (2000). Attributive comparative deletion. Natural Language &

Linguistic Theory, 18(1), 89-146.

Ur, P. (1988). Grammar practice activities: A practical guide for teachers. New York., NY:

Cambridge University Press.