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On fake nominal quantifiers in Chinese

Authors :
Peicui Zhang
Huibin Zhuang
Source :
Lingua. 198:73-88
Publication Year :
2017
Publisher :
Elsevier BV, 2017.

Abstract

This paper discusses the derivation of fake nominal quantifiers in Chinese, including both duration phrases and frequency phrases found in attributive positions. The paper argues that the appearance of fake nominal quantifiers is due to the demand for Case. Fake nominal quantifiers, semantically, are verbal quantifiers, which are to be assigned (oblique) θ-roles, but they first should be assigned Cases so as to be visible. In order to satisfy that, they either enter positions governed by verbs to grab the Cases that are assigned by the verbs to their objects (thus forcing the verbs’ objects to retreat or enter verb-copying constructions), or appear in the attributives of NPs, where they may get Cases, if necessary, through agreement. If the latter is chosen, fake nominal quantifiers are obtained. Therefore, fake nominal quantifiers involving duration phrases and frequency phrases are mainly the results of syntactic operations

Details

ISSN :
00243841
Volume :
198
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Lingua
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........edc2b76d8d6cecb574833455c02f8ca7