Classification of Mandarin Chinese Simple Adjectives: A Scale-Based Analysis of Their Quantitative Denotations
- Authors
- Lin, Jingxia; Peck, Jeeyoung
- Issue Date
- Oct-2016
- Publisher
- JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING CO
- Keywords
- Mandarin Chinese; quantitative denotations; scale structure; simple adjectives
- Citation
- LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS, v.17, no.6, pp.827 - 855
- Indexed
- SSCI
AHCI
SCOPUS
- Journal Title
- LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
- Volume
- 17
- Number
- 6
- Start Page
- 827
- End Page
- 855
- URI
- https://scholarworks.bwise.kr/hanyang/handle/2021.sw.hanyang/153874
- DOI
- 10.1177/1606822X16649845
- ISSN
- 1606-822X
- Abstract
- This work provides an analysis of the quantitative denotations of simple adjectives (base adjectival forms) in Mandarin Chinese following recent analyses of the scale structure' associated with English adjectives. Against a widely accepted assumption that simple adjectives unitarily denote an unbounded property, we assume that the property of boundedness in adjectives is situated in the notion of gradability, and identify a group of simple adjectives that are actually bounded. We further provide a finer-grained classification of Chinese simple adjectives based on the different scale structures associated with individual adjectives: non-scale adjectives, open-scale adjectives, lower-closed-scale adjectives, upper-closed-scale adjectives and totally-closed-scale adjectives. Each type is linguistically distinguishable in natural Chinese data. Our classification provides a unified account of the distinctive syntactic and semantic characteristics of individual adjectives that cannot be explained by previous studies. This study also demonstrates a cross-linguistic and cross-categorical application of the scale-structure-based analysis.
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