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Full-Text Articles in Semantics and Pragmatics
The Grammar Of Approximating Number Pairs (Anps) In Mandarin Chinese, Xuehuai He
The Grammar Of Approximating Number Pairs (Anps) In Mandarin Chinese, Xuehuai He
Pomona Senior Theses
"There are twenty or thirty people." What exactly does this mean? Is it exactly twenty or thirty, or is it an approximate range? What about "twenty or twenty-six people"?
Approximating number pairs (ANPs) are a kind of approximative expression that takes a number pair and expresses a quantity close to it. There are constraints on the structure and choice of numerals: many combinations would be ungrammatical or denote a precise disjunction rather than being approximative. Studies like Eriksson et al. (2010) statistically generalized the grammar of ANPs through corpus studies on select European languages. However, these surface-level generalizations fail to …
The Non-Uniformity Of Chinese Wh-Indefinites Through The Lens Of Algebraic Structure, Zhuo Chen
The Non-Uniformity Of Chinese Wh-Indefinites Through The Lens Of Algebraic Structure, Zhuo Chen
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation investigates the non-uniformity of Chinese wh-indefinites. The different algebraic structures associated with the different wh-indefinites are shown to play a signif- icant role in determining their possible readings. Specifically, those wh-indefinites that are associated with an unordered algebraic structure can give rise to an epistemic reading in both positive and negative sentences. Those wh-indefinites that are associated with a structure of total ordering never have an epistemic reading. They have an existential reading in posi- tive sentences and generate an insignificance reading under a clausemate negation. Shenme ‘what’ is a special in that it straddles both types of …
A Discussion Of Delimitative In Mandarin Chinese, Qi Zhang
A Discussion Of Delimitative In Mandarin Chinese, Qi Zhang
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This thesis investigates how delimitative marking in Mandarin Chinese is better considered as an instance of verb-phrase modification instead of aspect marking. The study investigates data with verb reduplication cases caused by delimitative marking from both syntactic and semantic points of view. Through observations and analyses, it is found that delimitative marking does not have the same distribution as other aspect markers, but rather shows resemblance to temporal modifiers syntactically. Semantically, instead of providing a viewpoint as other aspect markers do, delimitative indicates the temporal length (shortness) of the event. In addition, it is found that delimitative marking has strict …