Abstract
This chapter answers the question of how the syntax of the sentences involving these affixal quantifiers is mapped to their semantic representations. I will argue that affixal quantifiers give a mapping mechanism distinct from that of A-quantifiers and that of D-quantifiers: while the selection of items for association is determined by the QAH as derived in Chap. 3, there is no unified mapping for affixal quantifiers. When there is no focus in the sentence, their mapping is determined by the lexical semantics of individual affixal quantifiers: for -saai, the item selected from the QAH is mapped to the restrictor, with everything else within its scope to the nuclear scope; on the other hand, for -maai and -hoi, the item selected from the QAH is mapped to the nuclear scope, with everything else within its scope to the restrictor.
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- 1.
The mapping of -hoi will be discussed in more detail later. In the meantime, simply assume such a representation.
- 2.
The mapping of -maai will be fully articulated in Sect. 4.2.2. In the meantime, to highlight the scopal interaction between -maai and other logical operators, a simplified version is adopted here.
- 3.
Again, the mapping of -saai will be discussed later in this chapter. In the meantime, simply assume such a representation.
- 4.
- 5.
For the sake of simplicity, the presuppositional meaning of -maai is omitted in (34), which focuses on its mapping mechanism. It is simply assumed that the item X, which is selected by the Quantification Accessibility Hierarchy, is added to a presupposed set N. The set N is determined linguistically or contextually, with the details omitted in (34).
- 6.
It is not my position here to give a thorough analysis of co-occurrences of verbal suffixes and other particles. My focus will be on the co-occurrence of -maai and -saai, and -saai and -gwo, of which their co-occurrence has been mentioned widely in previous studies of Cantonese verbal particles. In fact, as will be illustrated later, their co-occurrence naturally follows if one considers their quantificational nature.
- 7.
To simplify the representation here, the existential presuppositions are omitted in the representations given in (56′)–(59′), as our focus here is on the interaction between -saai and -maai.
- 8.
I will use QUEST to represent question operators to differentiate it from quantifiers Qs.
- 9.
Readers are referred to Sect. 3.5.5 for the blocking effect of subject quantification by the negator m and the postverbal modal dak.
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Lee, P.Pl. (2012). The Syntax-Semantics Mappings of Affixal Quantifiers and Tripartite Structures. In: Cantonese Particles and Affixal Quantification. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 87. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4387-8_4
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