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Article published In: Language and Linguistics
Vol. 26:2 (2025) ► pp.199–223

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A unified semantic account of Mandarin ordinal phrases

ORCiD logo with link | National Chengchi University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 14 February 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00198.che
Abstract
Mandarin ordinal phrases demonstrate an ambiguity between a definite reading and an indefinite quantity reading, first observed by Tsai, Hui-Chin. 2011. On Chinese ordinal constructions. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 9(1). 89–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. However, contra Tsai, Hui-Chin. 2011. On Chinese ordinal constructions. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 9(1). 89–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar lexical-ambiguity view, this paper presents a compositionally unified semantic analysis of the ambiguity of Mandarin ordinal phrases. Specifically, the ambiguity of Mandarin ordinals under discussion is derived from the semantic application of type-shifting rules and the pragmatic restriction on the domain of the ordinal morpheme di (which is reminiscent of the in-situ approach to the ambiguity of superlatives), coupled with the semantic requirements of di; therefore, a unified semantics of the ordinal morpheme di is maintained under either reading. Furthermore, this paper suggests two important felicity conditions in general on the use of an ordinal phrase in discourse. Besides theoretical contributions, this paper also presents empirical discoveries showing that some generalizations in Tsai, Hui-Chin. 2011. On Chinese ordinal constructions. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 9(1). 89–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar are not entirely correct. For instance, it is false that all ordinal phrases in Mandarin Chinese must denote a singular entity (contra Tsai, Hui-Chin. 2011. On Chinese ordinal constructions. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics 9(1). 89–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Instead, the semantics of classifiers matters for the denotation of an ordinal phrase: a Mandarin ordinal phrase can denote a plural entity when a group classifier is used. Furthermore, the presence of measure classifiers or certain predicates such as sheng ‘give birth’ is not a reliable diagnostic for teasing apart the two readings; the role of contexts and world knowledge in determining the (un)availability of a given reading is identified and discussed. Finally, this paper illustrates how the proposed analysis explains three puzzling properties of Mandarin ordinal phrases: (a) why the indefinite quantity reading is missing in the subject position; (b) why the indefinite quantity reading is missing when the experiential aspect marker guo occurs; and (c) why an ordinal phrase with canonical sortal classifiers has to denote a singular entity.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.More on the ambiguity of Mandarin ordinal phrases
  • 3.A unified semantic analysis
    • 3.1Theoretical background
    • 3.2Proposal
    • 3.3Explaining the ambiguity of Mandarin ordinal phrases
    • 3.4Explaining three puzzles of Mandarin ordinal phrases
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • List of abbreviations
  • References
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