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Article published In: Chinese Language and Discourse
Vol. 16:2 (2025) ► pp.305–343

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Between bare nouns and demonstratives

An experimental study of referent identifiability in Mandarin Chinese

ORCiD logo with link | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Published online: 26 May 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.24037.hua
Abstract
Identifiability, a universal semantic notion for referential interpretation, is realized differently across languages. While many languages encode identifiability via morphosyntactic definiteness (e.g., articles the and a/an in English), Mandarin lacks overt (in)definite articles and instead relies on alternative mechanisms to achieve similar meanings. This study examines how Mandarin speakers navigate identifiability, specifically focusing on two primary nominal strategies: bare nouns and demonstrative descriptions. A category judgment and forced-choice task were conducted to explore how Mandarin speakers use these forms in four types of contexts. Findings indicate that, although both bare nouns and demonstratives are acceptable for denoting anaphorically identifiable referents in Mandarin, speakers show a clear preference for demonstrative descriptions. This preference diverges from English, where the definite article (the) is generally favored over demonstratives (that) in comparable contexts. This contrast underscores inherent semantic distinctions between article-languages and article-less languages. It contributes to our broader understanding of identifiability expression cross-linguistically.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Two types of identifiability
    • 2.2Differences between definites and demonstratives in English
    • 2.3Identifiability marking in Mandarin
    • 2.4Mandarin bare nouns denoting identifiable referents
    • 2.4The distribution of demonstrative descriptions in Mandarin
    • 2.6Interim summary
  • 3.The experiment
    • 3.1Task
    • 3.2Test categories and materials
    • 3.3Prediction
    • 3.4Participants
    • 3.5Procedure
    • 3.6Results
      • 3.6.1The “categorical judgements”
      • 3.6.2The “forced choices”
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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