Bundling telicity, verbal quantification, and perfective aspect: A study on lǝ in Yixing Chinese

Abstract

This paper investigates the properties of a particle, 1ǝ, in Yixing Chinese that invariably denotes telic reading, obligatorily fronts definite and bare NP objects to the topic position, and imposes past event reading in most situations. It is argued that 1ǝ is a functional item bearing a quantity feature in the sense of Borer (2005b) and is hence responsible for telicity. Following Partee et al. (1987), Partee (1990), Filip (1997) and Borer (2005b), we propose that 1ǝ functions as a verbal quantifier, and more specifically, as a verbal universal quantifier, which needs to bind a variable in its quantificational domain. The fronting of definite and bare NPs is compatible with this variable-binding requirement because a trace, and hence a variable, is left as a result of the movement. It is further argued, following the analysis in Lin (2000, 2003, 2007), that 1ǝ bears a perfective feature. When there is no specific reference time, speech time is taken as default reference time, resulting in the past event reading. 1ǝ, therefore, bears both an inner aspectual feature and an outer aspectual feature. This paper exhibits how telic items can behave differently across languages and shows the possibility of bundling two temporal features (inner and outer aspectual features) on a single functional item.