How universal is the Universal Grinder?

Cheng, Lisa Lai‐Shen; Doetjes, Jenny; Sybesma, Rint

doi:10.1075/avt.25.08che

Cited by 83 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 8 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…Similarly, Cheng et al (2008) show that English and Dutch differ from Mandarin Chinese and Gungbe (a Kwa language spoken in Benin) in terms of the possibilities they offer for assigning a mass meaning to a typical count noun (e.g., dog). Similarly, the use of a typical mass noun with a count type reading, as in two different golds for two types of gold, is much more limited in Dutch than in English (Doetjes 1997) (*twee gouden 'two golds' is impossible under the intended reading) and has been claimed to be absent in Ojibwe (Algonquian, Mathieu 2012).…”

Section: Available Count Meanings and Cross-linguistic Variationmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Quantity Systems and the Count/Mass Distinction

Doetjes¹

2021

Countability in Natural Language

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Section: Available Count Meanings and Cross-linguistic Variationmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Both a bit and more are found not only in the context of nouns, but also in the context of verbs, and they can even be used with adjectives, in which case they indicate a degree rather than a quantity (cf. Doetjes 1997Doetjes , 2008: a bit/more complicated/to complain a bit/more.…”

Section: Count Non-count and Anti-count Quantity Expressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantity Systems and the Count/Mass Distinction

Doetjes¹

2021

Countability in Natural Language

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“…However, it is controversial with regard to the encoding of individuation. While some scholars contend that individuation is encoded in nouns ( Chao, 1968 ; Fung, 1993 ; Doetjes, 1997 ; Cheng and Sybesma, 1998 , 1999 , 2005 ; Cheng et al, 2008 ; Liu, 2014 ), others argue that individuation is encoded and specified by Mandarin individual classifiers ( Hansen, 1983 ; Bach, 1989 ; Graham, 1989 ; Krifka, 1995 ; Chierchia, 1998 ; Borer, 2005 ; Huang, 2009 ; Huang and Lee, 2009 ; Rothstein, 2010 ; Pelletier, 2012 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The encoding of individuation in Mandarin is a controversial topic in the literature. Some scholars argue that individuation is encoded in nouns, and Mandarin nouns are divided into count nouns and mass nouns based on their denotation ( Doetjes, 1997 ; Cheng and Sybesma, 1998 , 1999 , 2005 ; Cheng et al, 2008 ; Liu, 2014 ). Count nouns refer to nouns that denote entities that “present themselves naturally in discrete, countable units” ( Cheng and Sybesma, 1998 , p. 385), such as ping-guo ‘apple.’ On the other hand, mass nouns refer to nouns like shui ‘water’ whose denotation does not present itself naturally in discrete entities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Portioning-Out and Individuation in Mandarin Non-interrogative wh-Pronominal Phrases: Experimental Evidence From Child Mandarin

2021

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Portioning-out and individuation are two important semantic properties for the characterization of countability. In Mandarin, nouns are not marked with count-mass syntax, and it is controversial whether individuation is encoded in classifiers or in nouns. In the present study, we investigates the interpretation of a minimal pair of non-interrogative wh-pronominal phrases, including duo-shao-N and duo-shao-ge-N. Due to the presence/absence of the individual classifier ge, these two wh-pronominal phrases differ in how they encode portioning-out and individuation. In two experiments, we used a Truth Value Judgment Task to examine the interpretation of these two wh-pronominal phrases by Mandarin-speaking adults and 4-to-6-year-old children. We found that both adults and children are sensitive to their interpretative differences with respect to the portioning-out and individuation properties. They assign either count or mass readings to the bare wh-pronominal phrase duo-shao-N depending on specific contexts, but only count readings to the classifier-bearing wh-pronominal phrase duo-shao-ge-N. Moreover, the portioning-out and individuation properties associated with the individual classifier ge emerge independently in the course of language development, with the portioning-out property taking precedence over the individuation property. Taken together, the present study provides new evidence for the view that the portioning-out and individuation properties in Mandarin are encoded in classifiers rather than in nouns, and these two semantic properties are two distinct components in our grammar.

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“…For discussion of these diagnostics, seeTang 2005 andLi 2011. For more on the question of mass and count in Chinese languages, seeCheng, Doetjes, and Sybesma 2008and Li, Dunham, and Carey 2009, among others. 4 Sybesma (2007 presents a detailed comparison of the use of the classifier in Mandarin and Cantonese and concludes that classifiers in Mandarin are only used in counting.…”

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confidence: 99%

Classifiers and DP

Cheng

Sybesma

2012

Linguistic Inquiry

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Wu and Bodomo (2009) argue against claims made in Cheng and Sybesma 1999 . Gebhardt (2011) has contested their arguments related to the status of classifiers and the question whether all nouns in Chinese are mass. In this reply, we discuss some of the points Wu and Bodomo raise, arguing that (a) sortal classifiers are not lexical elements; (b) generic interpretation is not the same as kind interpretation; (c) demonstrative noun phrases do not have the same distribution and interpretation as definite noun phrases in Mandarin and Cantonese; and (d) the DP structure that Wu and Bodomo propose runs into serious problems with phrasal possessors. Finally, we discuss an alternative approach to the structure of the nominal domain in Chinese languages.

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How universal is the Universal Grinder?

Cited by 83 publications

References 8 publications

Quantity Systems and the Count/Mass Distinction

Quantity Systems and the Count/Mass Distinction

Portioning-Out and Individuation in Mandarin Non-interrogative wh-Pronominal Phrases: Experimental Evidence From Child Mandarin

Classifiers and DP

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