ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how nominal phrases can be formed grammatically based on a quantifier and a noun in Chinese. It is argued that while [Q-N] is a quantitive construction, [N-de(的)-Q] is a partitive construction. To account for the derivation of the Chinese partitive construction, this chapter proposes a clausal approach within the framework of Predicate Inversion. Based on this, the word-order difference between Chinese and English-type partitives is explained in terms of the parameter in the (non-)involvement of a remnant-movement operation after Predicate Inversion.
This chapter will conduct a thorough examination of the semantic and syntactic properties of the Chinese partitive construction, and will present a formal proposal to account for the syntactic derivation thereof. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 7.1 is an overview of the defining characteristics of partitives. In Section 7.2, a close scrutiny of Chinese data will be conducted, and a claim regarding which configuration is the partitive construction in Chinese will be made. Section 7.3 will develop a formal analysis for the derivation of Chinese partitives, and a parameter will be proposed to explain the word-order difference between Chinese partitives and English-type partitives. Section 7.4 will conclude this chapter.
