Syntactic Sources of Adjectives in Mandarin Chinese
Cinque (2010, 2014) shows that in English and Italian, adjectives have two syntactic sources, each with different interpretive properties; one source corresponding to predicative adjectives; the other to non-predicative adjectives. This study examines adjectives in Mandarin Chinese with the goal of...
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| Format: | article |
| Language: | EN |
| Published: |
Sciendo
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doaj.org/article/ee9f90fd98954b98a070a79071144a08 |
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| Summary: | Cinque (2010, 2014) shows that in English and Italian, adjectives have two
syntactic sources, each with different interpretive properties; one source
corresponding to predicative adjectives; the other to non-predicative adjectives.
This study examines adjectives in Mandarin Chinese with the goal of finding out
whether Chinese displays the same pattern. The data shows that Chinese behaves
similarly to English and Italian; adjectives that are derived from relative clauses
are semantically different from those that directly modify nouns. In addition,
Chinese displays the correspondence that predicative adjectives are derived from
reduced RC, while nonpredicative adjectives participate in direct modification.
However, this parallelism is only possible if we modify the line drawn between
“predicative” and “nonpredicative” assumed by Chinese grammarians. |
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