Space and Quantification in Languages of China

This volume provides general linguists with new data and analysis on languages spoken in China regarding various aspects of space and quantification, using different approaches. Contributions by researchers from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Europe, the United States and Australia offer insights on aspects of language ranging from phonology and morphology to syntax and semantics, while the approaches vary from formal, historical, areal, typological, and cognitive linguistics to second language acquisition. After separate volumes on space and quantification in languages of China, the studies in this volume combine space and quantification to allow readers a view of the intersection of the two topics.

Each article contributes to general linguistic knowledge while discussing a particular aspect of space or quantification in a particular language/dialect, offering new data and analysis from languages that are spoken in the same geographical area, and that belong to various language families that exist and evolve in close contact with one another.

Contenu

Acknowledgments.- Introduction.- Part I Impact of Space and Quantification on Language Universals and Typology.- 1 Space, Time and Asymmetry in Chinese.- 2 Prosodically Constrained Localizers in Classical and Modern Chinese.- 3 The Status of Classifiers in Tibeto-Burman Languages.- Part II Geographical Space.- 4 The Role of Geography in the Northwest China Linguistic Area.- 5 A Gradual Path to the Loss of Entering tone Syllables: Case studies of Jin dialects in the Lingshi Highlands Shanxi.- Part III Evolution of Quantificational Expressions.- 6 Semantic Change and Grammaticalization of the Universal Quantifier mei in Chinese.- 7 Chinese Names for Integers.- Part IV Perception and Expressions of Space.- 8 Quantification and Modality: Intransitive ba Sentences.- 9 How French learners of Chinese L2 Express Motion Events in Narratives.- 10 Expression of the Inclusion Relationship in Contemporary Chinese.- Part V Verbal Quantification.- 11 On the Semantic Functions of Three Different Types of Classifier Reduplication in Mandarin Chinese.- 12 Chinese Semelfactives.