Measurement Scales and Gradability: On the Semantics of the Possessive Property Concept Construction in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

In Mandarin Chinese, gradable predicates can be classified into two types based on their morphosyntactic features: one consisting of gradable lexemes like gradable adjectives (e.g., gao “tall”) and gradable verbs (e.g., xihuan “to like”), and the other consisting of verbal phrases made up of a possessive/existential morpheme, you, and a bare NP (“you + NP”; the Possessive Property Concept construction). The goal of this paper is to provide a formal account of the gradability of the “you + NP” construction. We show that the gradability of this construction is conditioned by the NP inside: when the NP inside denotes abstract substances (e.g., wisdom), “you + NP” is gradable; if NPs denote non-abstract substances (e.g., apples and water), “you + NP” is non-gradable. Abstract and non-abstract NPs differ in the types of measure scales they are associated with: abstract NPs are associated with a scale that lacks an absolute zero point (i.e., an ordinal or an interval scale), and non-abstract NPs are associated with a scale that contains such a point (i.e., a ratio scale). The semantics of the existential/possessive morpheme you is sensitive to this distinction and gives rise to variation in gradability.