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International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Vol. 1:2 (2014) ► pp.163–191

The adjective of quantity duo ‘many/much’ and differential comparatives in Mandarin Chinese

 | Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica
This article discusses differential comparatives involving the adjective of quantity duo ‘many/much’ in Mandarin Chinese. We show that the obligatory construal of a post-adjectival duo-phrase as a differential phrase rather than a degree modifier is due to the interaction of four factors: (i) gradable adjectives denote measure functions rather than relations between degrees and individuals, (ii) post-adjectival duo-phrases are generalized quantifiers over degrees, (iii) the null positive degree morpheme is an independent functional head that takes AP as its complement and (iv) the null differential comparative morpheme is an affixal element adjoined to the adjective. In addition, this article also shows that the quantificational/attributive, predicative and differential duo can all be unified under the same semantics by analyzing duo as a function from degrees to sets of degrees, thus lending support to Solt’s (2014) analysis of adjectives of quantity.
Keywords: differential comparatives, yi dian ‘a bit/a little’, duo ‘many’, measure phrases, adjectives of quantity, vague quantity, low degree modifiers
Published online: 22 December 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.1.2.01lin
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