Chinese relative clauses: restrictive, descriptive or appositive? - Lear

3.1. Deictic and generic modifiers
FRANCESCA DEL GOBBO
Bolinger (1967) observes that the pairs in (15) show a meaning difference:
(15) a. the stars visible (include Capella, Betelguese, and Sirius)
the visible stars
b. the rivers navigable (include the Nile, the Amazon and the Ganges)
the navigable rivers
c. the individual responsible (were contacted)
the responsible individuals
d. the jewels stolen (were on the table)
the stolen jewels
Postnominal adjectives attribute a property temporally or episodically, while
prenominal adjectives can attribute a property characteristically or
intrinsically. According to Svenonius (1994), this is the s-level/i-level
distinction (respectively):
(16) a. The stars visible include Capella. False, when the sky is overcast.
b. The visible stars include Capella. True, even when the sky is
overcast.
The interesting observation made by Larson and Takahashi (2002) is that the
i-level/s-level distinction does not have a one-to-one correspondance with
the prenominal or postnominal position of the adjective:
(17) a. The visible stars visible include Capella.
b. The visible visible stars include Capella.
(18) a. The nonvisible visible stars include Capella.
b.# The visible nonvisible stars include Capella.
The postnominal adjective visible in (17a) has an s-level reading, but this is
also the case for the first of the prenominal adjectives in (17b). That this slot
is dedicated to s-level modification is made clear by the pair in (18): while
the example in (18a) is coherent, the one in (18b) is odd, as it is awkward to
assign the temporary property of being visible to stars that are intrinsically
nonvisible.
Larson and Takahashi (2002) also observe that time modifiers in
prenominal positions are ambiguous. They can have both a deictic and a
generic reading. When they are doubled in prenominal position, generic
modifiers occur closer to N than deictic ones:
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