Abstract

In Mandarin Chinese, gradable predicates can be classified into two types based on their morphosyntactic features: one consisting of gradable lexemes like gradable adjectives and gradable verbs, and the other consisting of verbal phrases made up of a possessive/existential morpheme, you, and a bare NP. The goal of this paper is to provide a formal account of the gradability of the “you + NP” construction. We show that the gradability of this construction is conditioned by the NP inside: when the NP inside denotes abstract substances, “you + NP” is gradable; if NPs denote non-abstract substances, “you + NP” is non-gradable.and non-abstract NPs differ in the types of measure scales they are associated with: abstract NPs are associated with a scale that lacks an absolute zero point, and non-abstract NPs are associated with a scale that contains such a point. The semantics of the existential/possessive morpheme you is sensitive to this distinction and gives rise to variation in gradability.