Subjective standard-setting in gradable predicates: On the Mandarin hen structure

Abstract

Canonical positive degree sentences in Mandarin Chinese are formed with a morpheme hen. In the literature, this morpheme is regarded as the positive degree morpheme pos (Kennedy, 1999; Liu, 2010; Grano, 2012; Zhang, 2015) that introduces a contextually given norm, as well as binding the degree argument. However, the traditional pos analysis cannot fully account for some behaviors of hen. First, hen sentences share several characteristics of subjective predicates like Predicates of Personal Tastes (PPTs). These features include the triggering of faultless disagreement