Referential properties of [Num-Cl-N] in Chinese

Having argued that [Num-Cl-N] in Chinese is born as a property-denoting expression, this chapter hypothesizes that the argumental [Num-Cl-N] in Chinese underlyingly correlates with a DP projection headed by a phonetically null D, with D serving to turn the property-denoting [Num-Cl-N] into a variable with an undetermined interpretation. Based on this, the fact that [Num-Cl-N] may exhibit definite, existential, or non-referential/quantity-denoting readings in Chinese is explained in that the DP variable could be bound contextually by the ι-operator, the ∃-operator, or the ∩-operator. It is proposed that such a property of [Num-Cl-N] is another instantiation of the analytical nature of Chinese.

This chapter will address the referential properties of the [Num-Cl-N] construction in Chinese. The organization of the chapter is as follows. Section 6.1 will provide a critical review of an influential prior analysis of the argumental [Num-Cl-N], namely the numeral-as-quantifier analysis (Cheng and Sybesma, 1999, 2005). Section 6.2 will revisit the issue concerning the determining of the referentiality of [Num-Cl-N] in detail. In Section 6.3, empirical evidence to argue for an inherently property-denoting semantics of [Num-Cl-N] will be presented, based on which an operator-variable analysis will be developed for the argumental [Num-Cl-N] in Section 6.4. Section 6.5 will conclude the entire chapter.