Abstract
This paper aims to understand the function of the distributive quantifier měi 
in the [měi-Numeral-NP V Numeral-NP] construction. Měi is viewed as a marker of plurality over plural entities, seen as a set denoted by Numeral-NP, and marks the sorting key for a distributive dependency in the sense of Choe (1987). Without měi, the structure [Numeral-NP V Numeral-NP] can induce either a distributive dependency or a proportional relation between the two numeral NPs. We account for the implausibility of the sequence [*měi-yī-NP]. Měi involves the notion of unit, which is distinct from the notion of singular number expressed by the numeral yī ‘one’.
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Yuan, HH. (2018). Distributive Quantifier měi in Mandarin Chinese. In: Wu, Y., Hong, JF., Su, Q. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10709. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73573-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73573-3_8
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