The present volume is the result of a project which concentrated on a selected subset of linguistic knowledge with the aim of giving a systematic account of the various aspects of structure and process in this subset and the interpretation of these. The subset that for a number of reasons appeared appropriate to this undertaking centres around the dimensional adjectives of German. That the en­ terprise ultimately produced a less integrated and complete result than expected is due to several reasons. Some of these are of an intrinsic nature, ever present, and not particularly surprising. Some, however, are related to the character of the project itself and are worth commenting upon, as they reflect specific expe­ riences and difficulties which we encountered during several years of working on the project. We started from the assumption that the dimensional adjectives constitute a sufficiently rich, but nevertheless limited domain of grammatical and concep­ tual structure which is fairly well understood and explored in relevant aspects. Consequently we expected that summarizing, integrating, and extending the nu­ merous results that were available should quickly lead to a more complete picture of the interaction of the components involved. However, even had the premise of this assumption been correct, the conclusion turned out to be wrong fairly early in the project. On closer inspection, the investigations of the phenomena were much less complete, the facts agreed upon less systematic, and the proposed anal­ yses far less convincing than supposed initially.

Focussing on Dimensional Adjectives: Introductory Remarks.- 1 Background and Orientation.- 2 Framework and Topics.- 3 Limits and Perspectives.- The Syntax of Comparative Constructions.- 1 Positioning in the Theory of Grammar.- 2 Assumptions and the Problem Context.- 3 Assumptions about the Base Structure of Adjectival Constructions.- 4 Lexically Realized Comparatives.- 5 Morphologically Realized Comparatives.- 6 Syntactic Structure of the Comparans Phrase.- 7 Concluding Comments.- The Semantics of Gradation.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Technical Preliminaries.- 3 Analyses of Comparison.- 4 More Facts and Distinctions.- 5 The Conceptual Basis of Gradation.- 6 The Semantic Form of the Dimensional Adjectives.- 7 The Semantic Form of the Comparative and the Equative.- 8 Problems with Quantifiers.- 9 More Degree Items.- 10 The Semantic Form of Evaluative Adjectives.- 11 Outlook.- The Semantics of Dimensional Designation of Spatial Objects.- 1 Introduction and Overview.- 2 Dimensional Designation: Facts and Problems.- 3 Dimensional Designation: Perceptual Basis and Conceptual , Categorization.- 4 Conceptual Representation of Spatial Objects.- 5 An Outline of the Semantics of 'groß-klein'.- 6 Conclusion.- Language Acquisition and Development of Children's "bigger" and "more" Judgements.- 1 Introduction.- 2 On the Semantics of "bigger".- 3 On the Semantic Development of "bigger".- 4 On Relations Between "bigger" and "more" Judgements.- 5 Concluding Remarks.- Comprehension of Comparatives: The Process of Conceptual Interpretation.- 1 The Problem.- 2 Theoretical Framework.- 3 Structural Assumptions.- 4 Experiment 1: Verification Problems.- 5 Experiments 2-5: Question-Answering Problems.- 6 Concluding Remarks.- Somewhat Longer - Much Deeper - Furtherand Further: Epilogue to the Dimensional Adjective Project.- 1 Semantic Form - The Interface Between the Grammar G and the Conceptual System C.- 2 (+Pol)/(?Pol)-Asymmetries, Semantic vs. Conceptual Complexity, and Markedness.- 3 Some Prospects and Outlooks.- Author Index.