Semantics of Mandarin Demonstratives

Abstract

This paper presents novel data from Mandarin that can tease apart the two main analyses of demonstratives. Dayal and Jiang (2020) propose that demonstratives carry an anti-uniqueness presupposition, requiring there to be another entity meeting the NP description in the larger situation. The Hidden Argument Theory of demonstratives argue that demonstratives carry an additional restriction than a definite description. The Mandarin data I focus on involve demonstratives with restrictions that are so specific that anti-uniqueness cannot be met. By discussing this data, I show that an account of demonstratives based on situational anti-uniqueness is not sufficient. Then, I build an account of Mandarin demonstratives based on the main intuitions from the Hidden Argument Theory. Following Nowak (2021), I argue that the second restriction must be a syntactic constituent. In explaining the restricted distribution of demonstratives, I follow Blumberg (2020) and Ahn (2022) in arguing that there is a pragmatic competition. Finally, I extend Ahn’s analysis and argue that proper names should be added to the inventory of expressions that can occupy the second argument position.