Abstract

This article seeks to reconcile the ‘movement’ account of the interpretation of superlative and comparative degree quantifiers with a class of apparent counterexamples. Superlative and comparative degree quantifiers compare the extent to which a target term and alternatives to the target instantiate a gradable property. On the movement analysis, the target and the gradable property are determined by the scope of the degree quantifier in the syntactic structure. As a structural consequence, terms in the scope of the degree quantifier are indifferent to the presence of the degree quantifier. This leads to incorrect empirical predictions in some contexts, apparently undermining the movement account. I provide an analysis of these contexts in which the unexpected interaction of degree quantifiers with other terms in their scope is a side effect of quantification over situations inherent in the degree quantifier itself.