Mandarin demonstratives as strong definites [poster]

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. Similarly, Bremmers et al. (2023) find bare nouns felicitous in both contexts but argue that Mandarin demonstratives indeed mark strong definiteness. Our findings illustrate that Mandarin demonstratives are strongly preferred in anaphoric contexts, lacking sensitivity to discourse contexts in anaphora, which positions 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 and Bremmers et al.’s claim, we also observe that definite bare nouns are felicitous in anaphoric contexts, albeit as a less preferred option. We argue that the across-the-board preference for demonstratives in anaphoric contexts in Mandarin 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.