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Workshop on Chinese Lexical Semantics

CLSW 2019: Chinese Lexical Semantics pp 234–242Cite as

Reduplicated Kind Classifier zhǒngzhǒng in Mandarin Chinese and the Associated Plurality Type

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 11831))

Abstract

The reduplicated kind classifier, zhǒngzhǒng, is related to a nominal plurality. Zhǒngzhǒng has to co-occur with abstract nouns only. This paper argues that without any kind-referring interpretation, zhǒngzhǒng groups entities into an approximative taxonomic category. This differentiates from another reduplicated kind classifier, yī-zhǒngzhǒng, which individualizes entities at the kind level and makes a taxonomic category. Zhǒngzhǒng-NP denotes a set of entities which can be inferred as sum, group atoms and individual atoms, which are terms to cover the distinction between distributive and collective interpretations of plural NPs. Some types of predicates will be served to attest the denotation of zhǒngzhǒng-NP and describe its representation of plurality.

I thank the Department of Education of Hunan Province, China for supporting this research (grant KZ13032).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Abbreviations: Acc: Accomplished aspect le (了); Cl: Classifiers; ClIND: Individual Classifiers; ClK: Kind Classifiers; de: relator de (的); Dur: Durative aspect zhe (着); neg: Negation marker bù (不) and méi (没).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Languages, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China

    Hua-Hung Yuan

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  1. Hua-Hung Yuan
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Correspondence to Hua-Hung Yuan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Jia-Fei Hong

  2. Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China

    Yangsen Zhang

  3. Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China

    Pengyuan Liu

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Yuan, HH. (2020). Reduplicated Kind Classifier zhǒngzhǒng in Mandarin Chinese and the Associated Plurality Type. In: Hong, JF., Zhang, Y., Liu, P. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11831. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38189-9_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38189-9_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-38188-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-38189-9

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