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Article published In: International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Vol. 5:1 (2018) ► pp.33–58

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Bare numeral phrases in Mandarin and the Minimalist Mapping Hypothesis

 | Academia Sinica
Published online: 10 August 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.17002.wen
Abstract
We pursue an agreement-based analysis of the bare numeral phrases in Chinese. Bare numeral phrases in Chinese often occur with the you marker in the preverbal position. With the marker, a bare numeral phrase obtains an individual-denoting reading, which has an existential meaning. In contrast, several syntactic environments do not need the you marker, and the bare numeral phrase obtains the quantity-denoting reading. In addition to the existential you marker, we observe that the distributions of the two readings are correlated to the lower (root) modals (Mod) and the middle aspects (Asp). We argue that the correlation can be analyzed through syntactic feature agreement. That is, the bare numeral phrase carries an unvalued quantificational feature in the null D, and its unvalued feature is valued by the corresponding existential you marker, Asp, and/or Mod heads through (multiple) agreement. We argue that the proposed feature agreement mechanism can improve upon the (Extended) Mapping Hypothesis (Diesing, M. (1992). Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Tsai, W. -T. D. (1999). On Economizing the theory of A-bar dependencies. New York: Garland.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (2001). On Subject Specificity and Theory of Syntax-Semantics Interface. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 101, 129–168. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) under the Minimalist Program.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Two previous approaches
    • 2.1DP and NumP: Li (1998)
    • 2.2Extended mapping hypothesis: Tsai (1999, 2001)
  • 3.On the sources of the LF operators
  • 4.Syntax of bare numerals in Chinese
    • 4.1Deriving the q-denoting reading from multiple-agreement
    • 4.2Deriving the i-denoting reading
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
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