1 Slightly gradable: The semantics of degree modifier čut' OLGA KAGAN LAVI WOLF Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Abstract: The present paper investigates the degree item čut' in Russian, which can be tentatively translated as 'slightly' or 'a bit'. Its properties are of interest because it can appear in range of different domains. We show that it can be found in the AP, VP, AspP and NegP areas. We argue that in all these domains, čut' makes the same semantic contribution. Specifically, it applies to a predicate that has a degree argument as part of its semantics and contributes the entailment that this degree slightly exceeds the standard of comparison on the relevant scale. When combined with negated VPs, čut' applies to a likelihood scale, which results in a reading comparable to that of the counterfactual almost. The investigation of this degree modifier points to the linguistic relevance of scale structure across domains. 1 Introduction In the past several decades, the crucial role that scalarity plays in natural language semantics has been revealed. Degree semantics has been employed in the linguistic literature largely in order to capture semantic-pragmatic properties of gradable adjectives (cf. e.g. Kennedy 1999, 2007, Rett 2008, McNally 2011, Sassoon and van Rooij 2012 and references therein). However, linguistic relevance of scale structure has also been shown to extend beyond the adjectival domain. Thus, degree semantics allows to capture a wide range of phenomena within the verbal, nominal and even prepositional domains (cf. e.g. Hay et al. 1999, Kennedy and Levin 2002, 2008, Filip and Rothstein 2006, Filip 2008, Rappaport Hovav 2008, 2011, 2013, Piñón 2008, Caudal and Nicolas 2005, Kearns 2007, Beavers 2007, 2012, Kagan to appear, Greenberg 2010, Qtit 2014.) In this context, investigation of degree modifiers plays an important part. It contributes to our understanding of the role of scales in natural language semantics, the range of domains in which gradability is linguistically relevant and the parallelism between these domains. In this paper we investigate the degree item čut' in Russian, which, under its most basic use, can be tentatively translated to English as 'slightly' or 'a bit'. Its properties are of interest because it can appear in a range of different domains. Below, we argue that it can be found in the AP, VP, AspP and NegP areas. Crucially, we argue that in all these domains the item fulfills essentially the same degree modification function. Thus, one goal of the present study is to render support to the fact that scale structure is linguistically relevant across syntactic categories.