On the Semantics of Comparative Correlatives in Mandarin Chinese

J.-W. Lin
2007 Journal of Semantics  
The main goal of this article is to provide a formal semantics of comparative correlatives of the form "yuè...,(jiù ) yuè... " in Mandarin Chinese. A new analysis is proposed which treats the comparative correlatives as involving a quantificational tripartite structure and derives all the meanings of the "yuè...,(jiù ) yuè... " constructions through comparison of degrees related to different or the same individual. The comparison of the same or different individuals' degrees of a given property
more » ... is shown to be consequences of Partee's suggested general processing strategy for noun phrase interpretation as well as the constituent structure of the sentence. It is also shown that the same semantics for Chinese yuè can be extended to the -er in English "the Adj-er...the Adj-er..." constructions or similar constructions in other languages, at the same time deriving the superficial cross-linguistic variation from independent factors.
doi:10.1093/jos/ffm001 fatcat:z5wdgsiq2zalbas3m5ykv6ztiu