Event Counting with Chinese Ci

漢語『次』的事件計數

廖秀真(Hsiu-Chen Daphne Liao)

《Concentric： Studies in Linguistics》 44卷2期 (2018/11) Pp. 31-68

https://doi.org/10.6241/concentric.ling.201811_44(2).0002

摘要

This paper studies the uses of Chinese ci, the most general verbal classifier in Chinese, in order to understand the ontology of events and how they may be counted. In the literature, a verb may be viewed as mass, as in Moltmann (1997), and so event counting must rely on time to get discrete event units based on temporal separation. Alternatively, it may be assumed that a verb denotes a set of events, and so time counts events directly, as in Landman (2004). To understand how events are divided and counted, the paper explores the uses of ci, the Chinese counterpart of English time, because this item displays two ways of counting. Through this study, I argue that instances of an event type at different temporal spans are discrete event units by default; and among these event units, ci may select the minimal or maximal ones for the counting, and the choice is determined by whether the speaker should specify the number of individual events or the number of distinct temporal intervals for the realization of the event type described. If the analysis is on the right track, its precise semantic analysis can be the basis for us to understand further how events can be divided and counted in various ways and how other verbal classifiers work.

關鍵字

event counting ； verbal classifier ； event type ； event token ； minimal events

並列摘要

無資料

並列關鍵字

事件計數 ； 動量詞 ； 事件類型 ； 事件個體 ； 最小事件

參考文獻

Chao, Yuen Ren. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Cusic, David. 1981. Verbal Plurality and Aspect. Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

Zhang, Niina Ning. 2013. Classifier Structures in Mandarin Chinese. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Zhang, Niina Ning. 2017. The syntax of event-internal and event-external verbal classifiers. Studia Linguistica 71.3:266-300

Zhu, Dexi. 1982. Yufa Jiangyi [Lectures of Grammar]. Beijing: Shangwu Yinshuguan