How can you have a degree? The degree use of the possessive verb yǒu in Mandarin Chinese
The semantic interpretation of possessive verbs has received several analyses in the literature. Almost all the analyses were developed based on English have and intended to apply cross-linguistically. In this talk, I discuss the rather peculiar degree use of the possessive verb yǒu in Mandarin Chinese, in the “X+ yǒu + Y + G(radable phrase)” construction. I argue that yǒu in this construction takes a covert small clause as the underlying object, which specifies a sub-interval relation between X’s and Y’s degrees on the dimension specified by G. Like other uses of yǒu, the degree use makes formal, but not content, contributions. No other analysis of possessive verbs than the “small clause” analysis can capture the degree use of yǒu. Thus, through examining a language-specific phenomenon, the research locates among several competing analyses of possessive verbs the most explanatorily adequate one.