The syntax of Mandarin Num-Cl P Num-Cl constructions

Authors

  • Yan Wang The Chinese University of Hong Kong

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v9i1.5665

Keywords:

reduplication, classifier, adverbial, concord, scope

Abstract

Num(eral) P Num(eral) constructions in Indo-European languages have attracted much attention in the generative literature: they are argued to semantically function as a distributive phrase that targets plural participants and syntactically involve a reduplicative head Q bearing a quantity feature. This paper examines their understudied Mandarin counterpart, the adverbial Num-Cl P Num-Cl structure. Having discovered a fine-grained four-way ambiguity of this Mandarin construction, I argue that it is base-generated in the V-complement position, where de behaves like a functional head (“concordializer”) and forces it to move to its surface pre-VP position to receive Case through Agreement (cf. Larson 2018).

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Published

2024-05-15

How to Cite

Wang, Yan. 2024. “The Syntax of Mandarin Num-Cl P Num-Cl Constructions”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 9 (1): 5665. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v9i1.5665.