Abstract:
“V-
ta/ge-Quant” Construction is a special construction in Chinese. The two particles
ta and
ge are expressives, which belong to the domain of pragmatic elements, functioning to denote subjective quantity and express attitudes and emotions. Syntactically, they both take quantity expressions as their target at the stage of first merge, but their place and manner of merge are not the same. Specifically,
ta is a Person head, which projects after merging with the NumP, while
ge is an adjunct, which does not project after merging.