On maximality in Mandarin possessives
Chyan-an Arthur Wang
| Chung Yuan Christian University/xxxxxxxxxxxx
The possessive construction in Mandarin is similar to English prenominal possessives except that maximality is presupposed only for cases involving inherently relational nouns. In this paper, I adopt the hypothesized split of argument and modifier genitives proposed by Partee & Borschev (2001, 2003) and argue that modifier-genitives can occur NP-internally in Mandarin possessives, whose appearance is restricted to cases with non-relational nouns. The discrepancy of the maximality presupposition observed in Mandarin can thus be captured since non-relational nouns can have a split of interpretations between argument and modifier genitives, resulting in a non-maximality reading.
Keywords: maximality, relational nouns, possessives, Mandarin Chinese
This article is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 31 May 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/consl.00002.wan
https://doi.org/10.1075/consl.00002.wan
On maximality in Mandarin possessivesReferences
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