The Definiteness Of Bare Nouns And "Num-Classifier-Noun" Phrases In Mandarin

The Definiteness of Chinese NPs has always been an important and controversial issue. "Definite in subject position, Indefinite in object position" is the most classic generalization of Chinese NPs'definiteness performance. However, Language facts show that there is no direct correspondence between NP's definiteness performance and syntactic position; instead, the definiteness of NPs is impacted by several factors comprehensively.On the basis of redefining the "definiteness" with a more practical view, this paper carries out a comprehensive study on the definiteness of Bare Nouns and "Num-Classifier-Noun" Phrases in subject positions and object positions. The investigation is divided into three main parts:Firstly, the language facts show that both Bare Nouns and "Num-Classifier-Noun" Phrases contain three kinds of definiteness performances:"definite only", "indefinite only" and "either definite or indefinite". The paper generalizes such a multiple definiteness phenomenon as "Differentiated Referentiality", and analyzed the syntactic and semantic environments of each definiteness performance.Secondly, the investigation also shows that Bare Nouns and "Num-Classifier-Noun" Phrases could behave the same in terms of definiteness in the same positions. Such phenomenon is generalized as "Cross-Referentiality" in this paper. With comparison and replacement tests, the paper points out that for definite Bare Nouns and "Num-Classifier-Noun" Phrases, both denote specific individual objects; for indefinite Bare Nouns, the referentiality is "concept-oriented" while for indefinite "Num-Classifier-Noun" Phrases, the referentiality is "individual-oriented". At last, the paper preliminarily explores the source of the multiple definiteness performances of Chinese Bare Nouns and "Num-Classifier-Noun" Phrases. From the perspective of "individualization", we conclude that the individualized Bare Nouns can check the definite feature in DP's D-position which result in the definite meaning. On the other hand, if bare nouns get individualized by means of "classifier", then both definite and indefinite meanings are obtainable because of the influence of quantity meaning caused by "Num". This proposition can also effectively explain the semantic and syntactic differences between Chinese "yi-Classifier-Noun" Phrases and "Num-Classifier-Noun" Phrases.