Nobody there? On the non-existence of nobody in Mandarin Chinese and related issues

Bibliographic Data

ID19038702
AuthorsWillow Paul (0000-0001-6154-4536, corresponding author), Waltraud Paul
Year2021
Volume66
Issue3
Pages279-316
Publication date2021-08-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Canadian Journal of Linguistics / La revue canadienne de linguistique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-4131 • E-ISSN: 1710-1115
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/cnj.2021.21
OpenAlexW3193441084
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited23

The present article demonstrates how the so far unchallenged misanalysis within Chinese linguistics of a few, but central, data points has led to a distorted picture biasing, inter alia , the general typology of wh -in-situ languages as well as the crosslinguistic study of Quantifier Phrases. This is the case for méi yǒu rén ‘not exist person’, hěnshǎo yǒu rén ‘rarely exist person’, and zhǐ yǒu DP ‘only exist DP’, which are not nominal projections equivalent of ‘nobody’, ‘only DP’, and ‘few people’ as currently assumed, but existential constructions: ‘there isn't anybody’, ‘there is only DP’, and ‘there are rarely people’. In addition, a subset of speakers has reanalyzed hěnshǎo (yǒu) rén with a covert yǒu ‘exist’ as a QP hěnshǎo rén ‘few people’. A corpus study highlights the limited distribution of hěnshǎo rén ‘few people’, which shows that it is not on a par with its antonym hěn duō rén ‘many people’

Combinatorics · Contradiction · Covert · Epistemology · Existentialism · Linguistics · Mandarin Chinese · nobody · Sociology · Typology · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Mathematics · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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