On the Semantics of Comparative Correlatives in Mandarin Chinese--CC010207

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1、OntheSemanticsofComparativeCorrelativesinMandarinChineseJo-wangLinNationalChiaoTungUniversityAbstractThemaingoalofthisarticleistoprovideaformalsemanticsofcomparativecorrelativesoftheform“yuè…，(jiù)yuè…”inMandarinChinese.Anewanalysisisproposedwhichtreatsthecomparative

2、correlativesasinvolvingaquantificationaltripartitestructureandderivesallthemeaningsofthe“yuè…，(jiù)yuè…”constructionsthroughcomparisonofdegreesrelatedtodifferentorthesameindividual.Thecomparisonofthesameordifferentindividuals’degreesofagivenpropertyisshowntobeconsequ

3、encesofPartee’ssuggestedgeneralprocessingstrategyfornounphraseinterpretationaswellastheconstituentstructureofthesentence.ItisalsoshownthatthesamesemanticsforChineseyuècanbeextendedtothe–erinEnglish“theAdj-er…theAdj-er…”constructionsorsimilarconstructionsinotherlangua

4、ges,atthesametimederivingthesuperficialcross-linguisticvariationfromindependentfactors.1.IntroductionMandarinChinesehasaspecialconstructionconsistingoftwoclauseseachofwhichcontainsayue‘more’morpheme.Inadditiontoyuè‘more’,thesecondclauseofthisconstructionmayoptionally

5、containthemorphemejiù,whichissometimestranslatedastheninEnglish.Thisisillustratedin(1)-(3)below.(1)nǐyuèshēngqì，tā(jiù)yuègāoxìngyoumoreangryheJIUmorehappy‘Theangrieryouare,thehappierheis.’(2)wǒyuèzhuītā，tā(jiù)yuèpăoImorechasehimheJIUmorerun‘ThemoreIchasedhim,themor

6、eheran.’(3)tāyuèdà，(jiù)yuèpiàoliàngshemorebigJIUmorebeautiful‘Theoldershebecomes,themorebeautifulsheis.’1Themostspecialsemanticfeatureoftheaboveconstructionisthattheincreasingdegreechangeofthepropertydenotedbythefirstclausecausestheincreasingdegreechangeofthepropert

7、ydenotedbythesecondclause.Lü(1982:367-369)referstotheabovephenomenonasdependentchange[yǐbiànintermsofChinese]andXing(2001:378)dubssuchconstructionsasconstructionsofconditionaldependentchange[tiáojiànyǐbiànjùintermsofChinese].Intuitively,itseemstomakesensetorefertothe

8、“yuè…yuè…”constructionsasakindofconditional,becausetheirsemanticsarequiteclosetothoseofregularconditionals.Ontheonehand,themeaningo