This dissertation investigates how Mandarin Chinese encodes definiteness and indefiniteness in the absence of a dedicated article system. It addresses the “alternation challenge,” a tension between the functionalist observation that Mandarin bare nouns alternate with overt markers (numeral-yi and demonstratives) and the formal semantic generalization that Mandarin bare nouns do not require determiners to function as arguments. Adopting a data-driven translation corpus methodology based on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and its Mandarin translation, this study uses translations of English articles (the and a/an) as semantic proxies for “regular” definite and indefinite contexts. We triangulate Mandarin patterns through crosslinguistic comparison with Russian and Hindi, and we conduct a series of targeted translation corpus studies to assess theoretical explanations of the division of labor among forms.
The results reveal a hybrid system in the Mandarin encoding of (in)definiteness. In the indefinite domain, numeral-yi functions as a grammaticalized indefinite article, blocking bare nouns in regular argument position. Indefinite bare nouns are restricted to pseudo-incorporation governed by typicality relations in verb-noun combinations. Meanwhile, in the definite domain, demonstratives function as regular anaphoric demonstratives, while bare nouns are the default strategy for expressing both weak and strong definiteness. These empirical findings support an adapted version of Krifka’s Properties Approach and resolve the alternation challenge. Methodologically, the study validates translation corpus research as a useful tool for cross-linguistic semantic research in the referential domain.
