Domain Restrictions For Distributive Quantification in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

The topic of this paper is distributive quantification in Mandarin Chinese and how it is constrained. The starting point is the two adverbial expressions, dou and quan, both of which are often translated as ‘all’. Despite their syntactic and semantic similarities, closer examinations reveal that the occurrence of quan is more restricted than that of dou. While we concur with the view that dou can function as a distributive operator, we argue that quan itself is neither distributive nor quantificational. Its sole semantic function is to restrict the domain of distributive quantification. The incompatibility of quan in various environments is attributed to this single reason: quan is merely a domain regulator for distributivity.