Referentiality and incompletive reading in Mandarin

Authors

  • Anqi Zhang University of Chicago

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v3i1.4338

Keywords:

referentiality, event completion, consumption verbs, incompletive reading, Mandarin,

Abstract

As an exception to Krifka’s (1989) famous generalization that a quantized incremental theme always induces an event-homomorphic completive reading, Singh (1991, 1998) observes that in Hindi only the quantized mass noun phrases as the incremental theme entails a completive reading, but unexpectedly quantized count nouns phrases can have an incompletive reading. She proposes that count nouns can introduce a partial thematic relation, whereas mass nouns introduce a total thematic relation. With new data in Mandarin, instead of the mass/count distinction, I argue that referentiality is the crucial factor because the non-culmination readings are only felicitous with the referential objects for consumption verbs in Mandarin.

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Published

2018-03-03

How to Cite

Zhang, Anqi. 2018. “Referentiality and Incompletive Reading in Mandarin”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 3 (1): 48:1–11. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v3i1.4338.