similatives and the argument structure of verbs

i begin with the observation in haspelmath and buchholz (1998) that languages tend to use the same morpheme to mark the standard of comparison across equation constructions. in english, it is the morpheme as, in similatives like john danced as sue (did) and equatives like john is as tall as sue (is). the first goal of this paper is to provide an analysis of as that accounts for its distribution across these constructions. the second goal of this paper is to provide an account of haspelmath and buccholz’s second observation, which is that while languages can form equatives with parameter markers (pms; the first as in john is as tall as sue (is)), languages generally do not form similatives with parameter markers.