The present paper examines the syntax and semantics of adjectives in Mandarin Chinese and argues that adjectives have to be recognized as a separate part of speech in Mandarin. I show that adnominal adjectives introduced by de should not be analysed as reduced relative clauses or small clauses, since adjectives that cannot be used predicatively can be used adnominally in conjunction with de. For adjectives in direct juxtaposition with the noun, evidence from N-subdeletion and multiple adjective ordering shows that the [A N] sequence has to be analysed as a noun phrase, not as a compound. Accordingly, both types of modification strucures, ‘A de N’ and ‘A N’ need to be taken into account by typological studies. Finally I provide evidence for the existence of two morphologically different classes of adjectives with distinct semantic and syntactic properties, i.e. ‘simple’ adjectives and ‘derived’ adjectives.
2024. Native and non-native parsing of adjective placement – An ERP study of Mandarin and English sentence processing. Brain and Language 254 ► pp. 105427 ff.
Wu, Chenyan & Lawrence Yam-Leung Cheung
2023. 形容词并列短语对其关联词的选择. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 10:2 ► pp. 284 ff.
Börjars, Kersti & Tine Breban
2022. Structural persistence as an explanatory factor in synchrony and diachrony*. Transactions of the Philological Society 120:2 ► pp. 299 ff.
Paul, Waltraud
2021. Nobody there? On the non-existence ofnobodyin Mandarin Chinese and related issues. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 66:3 ► pp. 279 ff.
2020. The Semantic Properties and Syntactic Behaviors of the Complex Forms of Chinese Adjectives —A discussion based on four southern Chinese dialects. Bulletin of the Chinese Linguistic Society of Japan 2020:267 ► pp. 24 ff.
Zhang, Yiwen
2020. Nominal property concepts and substance possession in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 29:4 ► pp. 393 ff.
2013. Reduplication of adjectives in Chinese: a default state. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 22:2 ► pp. 101 ff.
THAM, SHIAO WEI
2013. Change of state verbs and result state adjectives in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Linguistics 49:3 ► pp. 647 ff.
Grano, Thomas & Chris Kennedy
2012. Mandarin transitive comparatives and the grammar of measurement. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 21:3 ► pp. 219 ff.
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