The Other Pole of Degree Modification of Gradable Nouns by Size Adjectives: A Mandarin Chinese Perspective

Size adjectives can have degree readings when they modify gradable nouns. However, a cross-linguistic variation exists with respect to what type(s) of size adjectives in a particular language can have such readings. In English degree readings are available only for size adjectives that predicate bigness, and in Mandarin Chinese degree readings are available for all size adjectives irrespective of whether they predicate bigness or smallness. The observation is supported by results of web search as well as by diachronic considerations. The paper links this difference between English and Mandarin Chinese to the different ways measure phrases are interpreted in the two languages. Degree readings of size adjectives and measure phrases are interpreted through making reference to very similar licensing degree morphemes. In English, measure phrases have the ‘at least’ interpretation as the default reading, and in Mandarin Chinese they have the ‘exactly’ interpretation as default. The degree morpheme for English measure phrases involves a minimality operator and a comparison relation, and the one for Mandarin Chinese measure phrases involves an existential operator and an identity relation. The degree morpheme for degree readings of size adjectives in Mandarin Chinese differs in a parallel way from the one in English. Exactly this difference accounts for the restriction that in English only size adjectives that predicate bigness can have degree readings, as well as for the lack of such a restriction in Mandarin Chinese. In English, adjectives that predicate smallness do not have effect on the semantics of degree modification of gradable nouns, so they have to take an alternative interpretation other than degree readings. Mandarin Chinese adjectives that predicate smallness do have semantic effects on the interpretation of gradable nouns, so they can degree-modify gradable nouns. In both languages adjectives that predicate bigness are interpreted in a due manner and cause no problem. During the discussion, we primarily draw on data obtained and adapted from the Web. Thus the paper makes both empirical and theoretical contributions to the study of semantics of degree modification of gradable nouns.