Lecture | CHiLL series
Equative Interpretation in Mandarin Copular Clauses: The Syntax and Semantics of jiù shì 就是
- Date
- Wednesday 29 April 2026
- Time
- Serie
- Chinese Linguistics in Leiden (ChiLL)
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 2.24
Abstract
Building on the typology of copular clauses traced in a number of previous studies (Higgins 1979; Longobardi 1983; Heycock 1995; Moro 1997, 2010; Mikkelsen 2005; Den Dikken 2017 a.o.), I analyse copular clauses in Mandarin that are identified as true equatives by Cheng (2021), where both the pre- and post-copular DPs are interpreted referentially and they assert identity.
In canonical (predicational) copular clauses, the pre-copular DP is referential whereas the post-copular DP is generally analysed as predicative, denoting a property (Longobardi 1983, 1985; Moro 1997, 2017). In inverse (specificational) copular clauses, the two DPs exchange their interpretive roles, with the pre-copular DP functioning as a predicate and the post-copular one as referential. For Mandarin, Cheng (2021) suggests that in sentences such as (1), the post-copular DP may act as an argument or as a predicate and they are ambiguous between a predicational and an equative interpretation, depending on the referential status of the post-copular DP; in copular clauses such as in (2) the presence of jiù ‘really’ systematically yields a true equative interpretation, where the two DPs denote the same individual and no predicative relation is involved.
1) Zhāngsān shì Shèngdàn Lǎorén
Zhangsan be Christmas old men
‘Zhangsan is Santa Claus’
2) Zhāngsān jiù shì Shèngdàn Lǎorén
Zhangsan really be Christmas old men
‘Zhangsan is really / exactly Santa Claus.
Building on Cheng’s observations, the present paper investigates the properties of clauses with jiù shì as (2) in order to formalize their syntactic structure and semantic interpretation. More specifically, I examine the nature and syntax of jiù and shì and I apply Delfitto and Fiorin’s (2024, 2025) analysis of copular clauses as expressing asymmetric, property-based identification and demonstrate how that the equative interpretation is obtained in Chinese by means of focus with jiù.
Contra Cheng (2021) that analyses shì as occupying a dedicated syntactic position shìP above FocusP and PredP, I will show that, on the one hand, shì ‘be’ is a light verb (Huang 1997) occupying a vP position lower than FocP which, on the other hand, is occupied by jiù in the Low Perphery (à la Belletti 2004). On the interpretive side, copular clauses with jiù shì need a presupposition of non-identity. To interpret and explain these properties of copular clauses with jiù shì, I adopt Delfitto & Fiorin’s (2024, 2025) notion of “asymmetric identification”, according to which copular clauses express a transitive relation between two arguments such that the properties of the referent of the post-copular DP entail those of the referent of the pre-copular DP. Equative interpretations arise when this asymmetric relation undergoes Pragmatic Strengthening, whereby the entailment becomes bidirectional: The constrained pragmatic conditions relativize identity to a restricted domain of interpretation, and, as a consequence, a contextually restricted set of relevant properties. In Mandarin copular clauses with jiù shì, the equative interpretation does not follow from the 是 shì itself endowed with focus features (as proposed for predicational copular clauses by Cheng 2021) but arises through Pragmatic Strengthening. This strengthening is overtly realized by focus with 就 jiù, which expresses information focus activating a set of contextually relevant alternatives, excluding weaker or non-identical alternatives. The resulting restriction on the domain of relevant properties yields a strict symmetric identity between the two DPs, thus the equative reading.
Biography
Linda Badan is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in Linguistics at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies at the University of Padua. Her research focuses on different areas of theoretical and applied linguistics in both Chinese and Italian, with particular attention to syntax and the interfaces between syntax and pragmatics, and between syntax and prosody. A central aspect of her work concerns information structure in Mandarin Chinese and its interaction with syntactic structure. She is also interested in comparative linguistics, especially in the comparison between Romance and Sinitic languages. In addition, her research addresses issues in language acquisition, including the acquisition of Chinese as a second language and heritage Chinese, as well as heritage Italian.