Mandarin demonstratives as strong definites

Ankana Saha (Harvard)
Yagmur Sag (Harvard)
Jian Cui (Harvard)
Kathryn Davidson (Harvard)

The goal of this work is to experimentally evaluate contrasting claims made in the theoretical literature about the acceptability of Mandarin demonstratives and definite bare nouns in anaphoric contexts. Jenks (2018) proposes that Mandarin, a determinerless language, differentiates between uniqueness-based (weak) and anaphoric (strong) definites through the use of bare nouns and demonstratives, respectively. In contrast, Dayal & Jiang (2022) claim that Mandarin bare nouns are felicitous in both uniqueness and anaphoric contexts, with demonstratives functioning in their conventional role. Our findings illustrate that Mandarin exhibits a strong preference for demonstratives in anaphoric contexts in line with Jenks, positioning them closer to the role of anaphoric definites as seen in languages such as English, Turkish (Saha et al. 2023), and Bangla (Saha 2023). Furthermore, consistent with Dayal & Jiang’s claim, we also observe that definite bare nouns are felicitous in anaphoric contexts, albeit as a less preferred option. We argue that this pattern stems from the ability of Mandarin sentences with bare nouns to also have (i) generic interpretations, possible due to lack of tense and aspectual marking, and (ii) indefinite interpretations for postverbal bare nouns (e.g. Cheng & Sybesma 1999). However, demonstratives are unambiguously anaphoric, driving their preference across the board.