Reference, aspect, and event completion in Mandarin sentence judgments

Abstract

This pilot study examines how grammatical aspect and referential form interact in Mandarin speakers' judgments of sentence–event matches. We test perfective le vs. progressive zai and definite (zhe+CL+N) vs. indefinite (yi+CL+N) objects in a naturalness judgment task with visually depicted events. Results show that perfective is preferred for complete events, while progressive is more acceptable for incomplete events. However, indefinite expressions are dispreferred with the progressive, suggesting that yi+CL+N can introduce a bounded or quantity-based construal that conflicts with ongoing interpretations. This contrasts with English, where indefinites do not show comparable effects. We argue that aspectual interpretation is shaped not only by verbal and aspectual structure, but also by the semantics of nominal expressions and their interaction with pragmatic inference.