A Note on Wide Scope Effects of Universal Quantification in Chinese
Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai
March 2025
 

There are two generalizations that can be drawn from our studies of Chinese wide scope quantification over universal and polarity expressions: Firstly, Scope Isomorphism can be correlated with the robust analyticity of Chinese in both formal and typological terms: The design of a composite quantifier is essentially the product of unselective binding among discrete quantificational “parts” such as operators-in-situ (e.g., Q, dou, existential closure, etc.) and variables-in-situ (e.g. indefinite wh’s, indefinite NPs, polarity items, etc.). Secondly, unselective binding with the scope marker dou and a variety of implicit operators is subject to strong intervention effects, but not strong island effects. The former is an instance of feature-based relativized minimality, while the latter is defined by dominating barriers in relation to subjacency (or the notion of phases in minimalist terms). Hopefully, this study will present a clearer picture of the core typological features of Chinese quantificational constructions, which have been under constant scrutiny since Huang's (1982) seminal work on the LF construals of wh’s-in-situ. It seems that Chinese implements the pairing of operators and variable in a true minimalist way, namely, merging them where they should be without resorting to syntactic movement or pied-piping. If our line of thinking is on the right track, then it may well be the case that the scope isomorphism and the wide scope universal/polarity construals are two facets of one phenomenon: That is, an operator-variable pair is constructed on a sentential scale thanks to the positive setting of the analyticity parameter in Huang’s (2015) sense.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/008855
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Nanzan Linguistics
keywords: universal quantification, dou-constructions, wide scope, scope isomorphism, chinese syntax, syntax-semantics interface, semantics, syntax
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