现代汉语界限词、“只”类词共现句的语义和句法

Semantics and Syntax of the Co-occurrence of Bound Words and Zhi(only)-type Words in Mandarin Chinese

界限词是指“最多、最少、超过、不到”等词,“只”类词是指“只、才、就”等词。在界限词和“只”类词研究中,极少提到某些界限词之间或者和“只”类词同句共现的事实。本文在对两类词共现描写基础上探索四个问题:1)两类词共现的制约条件;2)两类词共现时和与其相关联的数词的语义组合方式;3)两类词共现句和独现句的语义蕴含关系;4)两类词共现制约条件的句法属性及其实现机制。

A bound word is a word the meaning of which involves an upper or lower bound of some interval of quantity,such as zuiduo‘at most’,zuishao‘at least’,chaoguo‘more than’and budao‘fewer/less than’.Zhi-type words are those words the meaning of which is similar,if not identical to,that of zhi‘only’,including zhi,jiu,cai,among others.A common situation is that a single bound word or zhi-type word associates semantically with a numeral.A situation,which abounds in Mandarin Chinese but is little mentioned in the literature on bound expressions across languages,is that some bound words/zhi-type words co-occur in a sentence,jointly associating in meaning with a numeral.It is proposed in this paper that the cooccurrence of bound words/zhi-type words follow the constraint principle of identical evaluation.Regarding semantic composition,an open bound word combines first with a numeral and the obtained result,which is an numerical value in essence,or a degree constant theoretically(Hackl 2001;Nouwen 2010),combines with the meaning of a closed bound word to yield another numerical value,which can be theoretically treated as a degree quantifier.In the case where an open bound word alone modifies a numeral,it is assumed that there is a silent quantifier operator which,though semantically vacuous,has the same function as a closed bound word does.This assumption provides a theoretical accommodation for the presence of a closed bound word before an open bound word and also updates the existing account of the scope effect of the combination of a bound word and a numeral.In addition,by drawing upon the way in which two cooccurring bound words and a numeral combine,this paper is able to explain the semantic inference between a sentence that involves two co-occurring bound words/zhi-type words and a sentence that involves one of the two bound words or just a zhi-type word.Furthermore,it is argued that the constraint on the cooccurrence at issue,though formulated with semantic notions,has syntactic essence.Drawing upon Hole's(2017)generalization on the syntax of scalar evaluation and Zeijlstra's(2012)definition and implementation of multiple Agree in the framework of the Minimalist Program(Chomsky 1995,2001),this paper proposes a syntactic account of the constraint on the cooccurrence of bound words/zhi-type words,where it is assumed that there is a functional projection of scalar evaluation above the VP domain of a sentence and the constraint on the cooccurrence of bound words is realized in the form of multiple Agree among the same type interface feature with different(un)interpretability and valuation.This study,though focusing on data in Chinese,paves a way to studies of similar phenomena across languages.