著者

高橋 玄一郎

出版者

鹿児島大学

雑誌

鹿児島大学総合教育機構紀要

巻号頁・発行日

no.2, pp.53-66, 2019-03

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These notes and discussion are primarily concerned with English comparative and equative constructions such as in the following two discourse fragments : 1) Taro was born on March 21th, while Jiro was born on February 20th of the same year. That means Jiro is older than Taro rather than * Jiro is as old as Taro. 2) Taro always gets better grades than his brother, Jiro. Although Jiro is as bright as Taro (cf. Jiro is brighter than Taro), he is not as good at taking tests. Judging from the results of the test using the two discourse fragments above, some first year college students seem to be confused with the difference in meaning of the two types of constructions: "X -er than Y" and " X as ⋮ as Y. " Researchers have elucidated equatives do not merely indicate strict identity between the two entities (X and Y), but convey a meaning of the same or more (cf. not" exactly equal" but" at least equal"). In order to better understand the subtlety of meaning regarding the context of particular situations, excerpts from narrative passages and dialogues are provided. Also, the practical use of similar expressions will be demonstrated by using a scene from the classic story called" The Praising Game"