Jun Chen
List of John Benjamins publications for which Jun Chen plays a role.
Articles
2019 Chapter 23. Meaning change from superlatives to definite descriptions: A semantic approach Historical Linguistics 2015: Selected papers from the 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Naples, 27-31 July 2015, Cennamo, Michela and Claudia Fabrizio (eds.), pp. 479–500 | Chapter
This paper analyzes a hitherto unnoticed semantic change process in Chinese, in which superlative operators emerge from lexical (adjectival) materials, and subsequently turn into definiteness markers. Our analysis focuses on the compositional semantics that underlies this meaning change trajectory.… read more
2019 Scalarity, degree reading and maximality in a Mandarin numeral construction The interface of semantics & etymology, morpho-syntax, and pragmatics in Chinese, Peck, Jeeyoung (ed.), pp. 148–179 | Article
This paper investigates the semantics of an understudied Mandarin numeral construction type, here dubbed da-NumPs (i.e. number word < da ‘big’ < noun). Drawing primarily upon evidence from online Mandarin corpora, we argue for a taxonomy of this construction that comprises two distinct… read more