Degree Modification and the Scalar Adjectives in Chinese
Pamela Hsiaowen Peng · Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) · 2018
Recent studies on the quantitative features of adjectives have agreed on the validity of the notion of scale. Adjectives of different scalar types are tested to be linguistically identifiable in many languages. In English, degree modifiers serve as a good test for scalarity, for they are typically only compatible with particular types of adjectives. In Chinese, by contrast, degree modifiers appear to reject or accept adjectives of all scalar types as a whole; thus, it is a widely accepted assumption that Chinese simple adjectives form a homogeneous group that denotes an unbounded property. This paper investigates three modifiers 很hen ‘very’, 點兒youdianr ‘slightly’, and 完全wanquan ‘completely’ and argues that through cross-comparing degree phrases in different syntactic structures, it is actually possible to identify the scalar properties of the modified adjectives; specifically, the bounded ones. Our findings provide support for the validity of analyzing adjectives in terms of scale structures and challenge the traditional view of grouping all simple adjectives as a unitary group.