A pragmatic explanation of the mei-dou co-occurrence in Mandarin.
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| Title: | A pragmatic explanation of the mei-dou co-occurrence in Mandarin. |
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| Authors: | Liu, Mingming1 markliu@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn |
| Source: | Journal of East Asian Linguistics. Sep2021, Vol. 30 Issue 3, p277-316. 40p. |
| Subject Terms: | Pragmatics, Mandarin dialects |
| Abstract: | Mandarin universal terms such as mei-NPs in preverbal positions usually require the presence of dou 'all/even'. This motivates the widely accepted idea from Lin (Nat Lang Semant 6:201–243, 1998) that Mandarin does not have genuine distributive universal quantifiers, and mei-NPs are disguised plural definites, which thus need dou—a distributive operator (or an adverbial universal quantifier in Lee (Studies on Quantification in Chinese. Ph. D. thesis, UCLA), Pan (in: Yufa Yanjiu Yu Tansuo [Grammatical Study and Research], vol 13, pp 163-184. The Commercial Press)—to form a universal statement. This paper defends the opposite view that mei-NPs are true universal quantifiers while dou is not. Dou is truth-conditionally vacuous but carries a presupposition that its prejacent is the strongest among its alternatives (Liu in Linguist Philos 40(1):61–95, 2017b). The extra presupposition triggers Maximize Presupposition (Heim in: Semantik: Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenssischen Forschung, pp 487-535. de Gruyter, Berlin, 1991), which requires [douS] block [S] whenever dou's presupposition is satisfied. This explains the mei-dou co-occurrence, if mei-NPs are universal quantifiers normally triggering individual alternatives (thus stronger than all the other alternatives). The proposal predicts a more nuanced distribution of obligatory-dou, not limited to universals and sensitive to discourse contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: | Education Research Complete |
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| Abstract: | Mandarin universal terms such as mei-NPs in preverbal positions usually require the presence of dou 'all/even'. This motivates the widely accepted idea from Lin (Nat Lang Semant 6:201–243, 1998) that Mandarin does not have genuine distributive universal quantifiers, and mei-NPs are disguised plural definites, which thus need dou—a distributive operator (or an adverbial universal quantifier in Lee (Studies on Quantification in Chinese. Ph. D. thesis, UCLA), Pan (in: Yufa Yanjiu Yu Tansuo [Grammatical Study and Research], vol 13, pp 163-184. The Commercial Press)—to form a universal statement. This paper defends the opposite view that mei-NPs are true universal quantifiers while dou is not. Dou is truth-conditionally vacuous but carries a presupposition that its prejacent is the strongest among its alternatives (Liu in Linguist Philos 40(1):61–95, 2017b). The extra presupposition triggers Maximize Presupposition (Heim in: Semantik: Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenssischen Forschung, pp 487-535. de Gruyter, Berlin, 1991), which requires [douS] block [S] whenever dou's presupposition is satisfied. This explains the mei-dou co-occurrence, if mei-NPs are universal quantifiers normally triggering individual alternatives (thus stronger than all the other alternatives). The proposal predicts a more nuanced distribution of obligatory-dou, not limited to universals and sensitive to discourse contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| ISSN: | 09258558 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10831-021-09227-x |
