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Article published In:
International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Vol. 6:1 (2019) ► pp.46–75

Q-adjectives in Mandarin and the interpretation of nominal phrases

| National Tsing Hua University

In Mandarin, predicative quantity adjectives (henceforth, Q-adjectives; e.g., duō ‘many’ and shăo ‘few ’; henceforth, predicative Q-adjectives), but not ordinary adjectives (e.g., cōngmi̇́ng ‘smart’), may influence the interpretation of the nominals they are predicates of; while the Mandarin counterpart of speaking of the students one taught, Zhangsan many can (and only can) mean that the students that Zhangsan taught are many, that of speaking of the students one taught, Zhangsan smart can only mean that Zhangsan, but not the student/s that Zhangsan taught, is/are smart. This paper is to show how this previously unnoticed contrast may be accounted for in current theories of degree syntax and semantics. The proposal is couched on Solt’s (2015) analysis of Q-adjectives, according to which measurement of cardinality is introduced via a covert functional head rather than the Q-adjectives per se. The main idea is that in Mandarin the covert functional head that introduces measurement of cardinality semantically encodes a contextually provided function from individuals to individuals. Crucially, although the content of this function is context-dependent, various syntactic and semantic factors may be at play.

Keywords: measurement of quantity, Q-adjective, degree construction, ellipsis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Mandarin Q-adjectives and the association effect
    • 1.2The quantity vs. quality distinction
    • 1.3The association effect in a comparative
    • 1.4Not due to deletion; not due to coercion
    • 1.5Roadmap
  • 2.Locating the source of the association effect
    • 2.1The rise of the association effect
    • 2.2Predictions and seemingly loose ends
  • 3.The association effect in a comparative
    • 3.1 e-givenness and the association effect
    • 3.2Direct analysis and the association effect
  • 4.Some theoretical and empirical implications
    • 4.1The context dependency of the association effect
    • 4.2The Q-adjectives vs. ordinary adjectives
    • 4.3Predication vs. prenominal modification
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.18006.hsi
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