A Plausible Account: A diminutive marker

The trivial reading of V ge NP can be related to the diminutive analysis by Lin (2001 ). However, Lin's definition of diminutiveness is unclear and thus needs further examination.

On the other hand, Jurafsky (1996) provides a precise semantic account for the diminutive from the cross-linguistic data. He uses different mechanisms to explain diminutives with widely varying senses such as small size, affection, approximation, intensification, imitation and female gender. Within the analysis, he also introduces the lambda abstraction specification to account for the quantificational meaning and second-order predicates in the diminutive.

The logical form of second-order predicates is presented as (87).

(87) dim (point x, scale y) = lower than x on y (Jurafsky1996: 555 )

For the diminutive, the concept is 'small (x)' is lambda-abstracted to 'lambda(y),' meaning smaller than the prototypical exemplar x on the scale y (Jurafsky1996: 557). Each diminutive sense has additional constraints of the type of the scale of y. Therefore, the lambda abstraction is followed by the respecification of the type of predicates, illustrated in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Second-order diminutives ⁸

ARGUMENT EXAMPLE IMPLICIT SCALE SENSE

Mass nouns/Plurals Snow→grain of snow Scale of amount partitive

Gradable Predicates Red→ reddish Scale of redness approximation

Count nouns Horse→ main part of horse

Scale of size resemblance

Deitics Here→ soon Scale of deictic extent exactness

Durative Verbs see→glance Scale of temporal extent briefness

Propositions Scale of illocutionary force hedging

(Adopted from Jurafsky1996: 559) The interpretation of ge in V ge XP is similar to some types of diminutive senses mentioned by Jurafsky (1996).

First, consider the exactness sense. Mexican Spanish ahora 'now' has the diminutive form ahorita, meaning 'just now, right now' (Jurafsky 1996: 550). In the example Here+DIM→

soon, via the metaphor time is space, diminution converts the extended regions of time to points, producing expressions such 'right now.' Therefore, in the semantic stipulation, the second-order predicate 'exactly (p(x))' modifies predicates such as 'at-time(x)' or 'at-place(x)'

8 In the original version of the table, the examples only include arguments such as snow, I add the sense marked with diminutive such as 'grain of snow' for clearer understanding.

on the scale of deictic extent.

The exactness sense may be associated with V ge AP. For example, the meaning of chi ge guoyin is to reach the certain point of being gouyin 'satisfied'. This can be illustrated by the example (88) as follows. In (88a), here can be presented as an extended region of time.

Then, the diminutive converts the region to certain points, which is presented as the square of (88b). That is the meaning of soon 'right now'.

(88) a. here

b. soon

In the same way, guoyin 'satisfied' can be presented as a state as in (89a). Then, ge converts the extended scale of that state to a certain range as in (89b). More specifically, ge denotes that the minimal point of 'satisfied' must be achieved. This idea will be further explored in Chapter 4.

(89) a. gouyin 'satisfied'

b. chi ge gouyin 'eat to the point of being satisfied'

One type of pragmatic diminutive is called “hedging” (pp 556-557). For example, the diminutive sense 'only' is used not to modify the number itself, but to express a metalinguistic

comment. Thus, just five fish includes the two speech acts: (i) an act of asserting 'five fish,' and (ii) an act of asserting that 'five' is a small or insignificant number.

By contrast, in the case of V ge NumP, the forward and backward denotation of cai 'just' can denote relatively small as in (90a) or big as in (90b) in the subjunctive mood. Thus, it is not clear whether NumP denotes a small or insignificant number. Rather, intuitively V ge NumP denotes senses such as approximation or exactness, which will be also discussed in Chapter 4.

(90) a. Ni　 cai　chi　ge　yi　liang　kou　 hui　bao ma?

you just eat GE one two morsel will full Q?

'You just eat one or two morsels. Will you feel full?'

b. Wo　dei　 xie　 ge　qi ba　 shi　ye　 cai　neng biye.　

I must write GE seven eight ten page just can graduate 'I have to write seventy and eighty pages, and then I can graduate.'

Another type of diminutives of propositions is called pragmatic diminutive, used in softening a request, such as Japanese chotto 'a little'. It can be also used when speakers desire to minimize the impact of a statement. The usages are summed as follows:

(91) The pragmatic diminutive

a. to soften a command, such as Japanese chotto b. to make the request less important or obligatory

Since V ge NP also denotes triviality, it may correspond to 'small' on the scale of importance.

Consider the examples discussed above, is it possible to treat ge as a diminutive marker? The

properties of ge can be examined from the morphological, phonological and semantic perspectives.

Based on morphology and phonology, according to Jurafsky's definition, the prototypical meaning for DIMINUTIVE is (at least) small. The diminutive is realized in various kinds of forms in morphological devices: affixes; shifts in consonant, vowel, or lexical tone; and changes in noun-class or gender. (Jurafsky 1996: 534)

Consider Chinese diminutive markers. In most northern dialects of Chinese, the well known diminutive suffix is -er 'son' ( e.g. Chao 1968: 229-243). The -er can be suffixed to a noun to mean 'small,' such as tuo-er 'rabbit' and mao-er 'hat' (Lü 1980 :191). In addition, adding the diminutive marker -er to word finals can create a phonological process known as erhua 'rhotacization' (c.f. Sun 2006).

However, compared with the diminutive marker -er, there is no concrete evidence either in morphology or phonology to claim that ge is a diminutive marker. For example, ge is not a suffix to verbs since the insertion of le and ta is allowed as in die le ge si jiao choa tian 'fall one one's back,' and he ta ge bu zui bu gui 'drink to be totally drunk.' In addition, there is no phonological change in the insertion of ge.

The second piece of evidence comes from the semantic interpretation. Jurafsy's (1996) approach that the lambda-abstraction is in the secondary predicate of the diminutive marker may apply to V ge NP, denoting the trivial meaning, as in (92).

(92) Women yichi qu chi ge fan, liao ge tian ba!

We together go eat GE rice, chat GE chat SFP 'Let's go to have a meal and have a chat together!'

In addition, ge can also be combined with other categories such as adjectives, as in the

examples in (93).

(93) he ge guoyin drink GE satisfied 'drink satisfactorily'

At this point, one can interpret the example (93) in one of two ways. A first possibility is to assume that there are two different forms of ge. One of these is a diminutive marker and is interpreted through lambda-abstraction of verbal argument in scale of illocutionary force, and the other is a quantifier or some marker which is interpreted by a different mechanism.

Alternatively, one can assume that there is only one ge in V ge XP constructions, which is always interpreted in the same way in that ge always selects one type of phrase or always lambda-abstracts an argument on a scale.

The second approach is more general, and therefore must be preferred to the first. In later discussion, it will become clear that a unified approach is even more desirable.

It is concluded that, though V ge NP denotes trivial meaning, ge is not clearly a diminutive marker from the morphological and phonological evidence, but is plausible from the semantic interpretation. An additional question concerns how to account for other types of phrases under the diminutive analysis.

On the other hand, the diminutive in secondary predicates can be considered as marking

“small.” Such an idea may relate to quantification, in which a quantifier quantifies nouns in limiting the quantity of nouns. Therefore, quantification should be considered.