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Article published In: Language and Linguistics
Vol. 21:2 (2020) ► pp.213–253

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A revisit to the [Num-Cl-Modifier-de-N]/ [Modifier-de-Num-Cl‑N] variation in Mandarin Chinese

 | The Education University of Hong Kong
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 2 April 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00061.jin
Abstract
This paper investigates the licensing condition of the [Num(eral)-Cl(assifier)-Mod(ifier)-de-N(oun)] / [Mod-de-Num-Cl‑N] variation in Mandarin Chinese. It is observed that this variation represents a complex interface phenomenon in the nominal domain, which is subject to the semantic condition concerning the i(ndividual)-level/​s(tage)-level nature of the modifier contained on the one hand, and the discourse-related condition concerning contrastive topic (ct) on the other. Based on this, at the syntax-semantics interface level, this paper proposes a division of the syntactic domain of adnominal modification to account for the discrepancy between i‑level and s‑level modifiers in terms of their capability in forming [Mod-de-Num-Cl‑N] in the neutral context. In the meanwhile, at the syntax-discourse interface level, in light of the interface-induced analysis pursued by Neeleman, Ad & Van de Koot, Hans. 2008. Dutch scrambling and the nature of discourse templates. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 11(2). 137–189. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and Horvath, Julia. 2010. “Discourse features”, syntactic displacement and the status of contrast. Lingua 120(6). 1346–1369. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, it is claimed that the word order of [Mod-de-Num-Cl‑N] could be adopted as a linguistic device to encode ct within the nominal domain in Mandarin Chinese, in which case the ordering of [Mod-de-Num-Cl‑N] is licensed for the purpose of establishing a transparent mapping between syntactic configuration and information structure.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous approaches
  • 3.Facts revisited
    • 3.1Preliminary: Individual‑level vs. stage‑level modifiers
    • 3.2Comparison: Cases with i‑level modifiers vs. cases with s‑level modifiers
    • 3.3Examination on the case with an s‑level modifier
    • 3.4Examination on the case with an i‑level modifier
  • 4.Towards a solution
    • 4.1Analysis of [Num-Cl-[Mod-de]s‑level-N]/​[[Mod-de]s‑level-Num-Cl‑N]
    • 4.2Analysis of [Num-Cl-[Mod-de]i‑level-N]/​[[Mod-de]i‑level-Num-Cl‑N]
  • 5.Consequences
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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