On verbal similative plurality of <i>shenme de</i> in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract In comparison to the extensive body of research on canonical expressions of homogeneous plurality, such as Mandarin bare nouns and the English plural morpheme - s , the study of similative plurality in natural language has received relatively little attention in the current literature (with notable exceptions such as Smith 2020a , 2020b ). This study addresses this gap by contributing to a typological understanding of similative plurality through an analysis of the Mandarin expression shenme de , which conveys verbal similative plurality. Notably, in contrast to Japanese - tari, shenme de gives rise to two intriguing puzzles: it consistently yields an inclusive interpretation in both upward-entailing and downward-entailing contexts (the monotonicity puzzle) and resists overt contextual restriction (the domain restriction puzzle). Drawing on insights from Smith ( 2020a , 2020b ), we propose a fully inclusive mixture analysis of shenme de and demonstrate how this framework accounts for both puzzles. Finally, based on empirical observations of shenme de , we propose three parameters to typologically characterize similative plurality in natural language: (a) the Category Parameter, (b) the Host Parameter, and (c) the Domain Argument Parameter.