Context Dependency of Bare Gradable Adjective Predicates in Mandarin Chinese
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Date
2018-10
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Ohio State University. Libraries
Abstract
This paper provides an empirical description of the context dependency of bare gradable adjective predicates' interpretation in simple gradable adjective predications, polar questions, the contrastive focus construction, and gen…xiangbi comparisons in Mandarin Chinese. It presents empirical data and tests to argue that a bare gradable adjective predicate such as gao in the above four structures can either mean 'tall' (a positive reading) or 'taller' (a comparative reading) in appropriate contexts. The presented data set challenges the widespread assumption in prior literature that a bare gradable adjective predicate in the above four structures can only have the positive reading in all contexts.
Description
Keywords
context dependency, bare gradable adjective predicate, positive/comparative readings
Citation
Wang, Qian. "Context Dependency of Bare Gradable Adjective Predicates in Mandarin Chinese." Buckeye East Asian Linguistics, vol. 3 (October 2018), p. 75-84.