Semantics of Mandarin Demonstratives
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This paper presents novel data from Mandarin that can tease apart the two main analyses of demonstratives. Dayal and Jiang (2020) propose that demonstratives carry an anti- uniqueness presupposition, requiring there to be another entity meeting the NP description in the larger situation. The Hidden Argument Theory of demonstratives argue that demonstratives carry an additional restriction than a definite description. The Mandarin data I focus on involve demonstratives with restrictions that are so specific that anti-uniqueness cannot be met. By discussing this data, I show that an account of demonstratives based on situational anti- uniqueness is not sufficient. Then, I build an account of Mandarin demonstratives based on the main intuitions from the Hidden Argument Theory. Following Nowak (2021), I argue that the second restriction must be a syntactic constituent. In explaining the restricted distribution of demonstratives, I follow Blumberg (2020) and Ahn (2022) in arguing that there is a pragmatic competition. Finally, I extend Ahn’s analysis and argue that proper names should be added to the inventory of expressions that can occupy the second argument position.
Author: Yu, Jiaxing
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W6925367270
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: