Part of the Institute for Chinese Studies "Understanding China -- Its Roots and New Frontiers" Lecture Series
“The Count-mass Distinction among Non-concrete Nouns in Chinese”
Abstract:
In this talk Feng-hsi Liu examines the count-mass distinction of non-concrete nouns in Chinese, including abstract nouns and nouns that denote events. In an earlier study, she proposed that the count-mass distinction among concrete nouns in Chinese is not entirely syntactically encoded on classifiers, but depends on semantics, in particular, how quantity is interpreted. Here Liu extends her inquiry to non-concrete nouns. Assuming that the distinction applies to nouns in general, she will look into how the count-mass distinction is made among abstract nouns and event nominals. She will show that non-concrete nouns present a similar yet different picture. She will also consider whether the distinction plays a role in grammar. Liu will show that the distinction has syntactic consequences. It accounts for certain patterns of argument realization that are observed in nominalization.
Biography:
Feng-hsi Liu is Associate Professor of Chinese linguistics in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona. Her research interests are primarily in syntax-semantics interface and word order variation. She has worked on aspect and event structure, unaccusativity and quantification, and in the area of word order, she has examined the ba construction, the bei passive construction and dative constructions.
Co-sponsors: Graduate Association of Chinese Linguistics (GACL) and Department of Linguistics
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