Place and distance
Locative expressions in Mandarin and Cantonese
The topic of this chapter is locatives containing
a measure expression (like the English 60 yards behind the
palace) in Mandarin and Cantonese. More generally, it
is about the structure of locative PPs. The hypothesis in Terzi (2010), which says
that locatives are modifiers to an N Place (which itself is the
complement to a locative P), offers a helpful framework in
accounting for our data. We observe that in Mandarin and Cantonese,
the N Place is obligatorily overt if the location denoting
expression which modifies it is not an inherent location and not
headed by an AxPart. It is optionally overt when it is modified by
an inherent location (like a toponym) or by a phrase headed by an
AxPart.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Preliminaries
- 3.The AxPart
- 4.The AxPart and Measure
- 5.The AxPart and Ground
- 6.Place and the N Place
- 7.Modification or apposition
- 8.A brief note about the alternative form
- 9.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
References (49)
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