Similarity demonstratives

•Similarity demonstratives include, e.g., English ‘such’ and German ‘so’.•Similarity demonstratives generate ad-hoc kinds by similarity.•The paper provides a semantic analysis of similarity demonstratives.•The notion of similarity is spelt out in multi-dimensional attribute spaces.•These spaces are linked to standard semantics by generalized measure functions.

Similarity demonstratives are a particular class of demonstratives found across languages, e.g., German so, English such, Polish tak and Turkish böyle. These demonstratives occur as modifiers of nominal and/or verbal and adjectival phrases posing the problem of how to reconcile their demonstrative characteristics with their modifying capacity. It is hypothesized in this paper that they express similarity to – instead of identity with – the target of the demonstration gesture thereby generating ad-hoc kinds. The paper focuses on the interpretation of ad-nominal and ad-adjectival occurrences of German so. An analysis is presented combining truth-conditional semantics with multi-dimensional attribute spaces with the help of a generalization of adjectival measure functions. Similarity is defined in such spaces as indistinguishability with respect to a given set of relevant dimensions.