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This paper discusses the syntax and semantics of -men and four types of phrases containing -men in Mandarin. I defend the view that -men should be analyzed as a plural morpheme as first argued in Li (1999) but argue against the analysis of positing -men in the D position or treating it as a definite determiner. It will be shown that definiteness is not inherent to -men and that -men is compatible with numerals and classifiers and should be in a position local to nouns. I propose an analysis of -men as an associative plural and explain the properties of the four types of expressions containing -men within a Neocarlsonian account of bare nominals. The formal account of the syntax and semantics of phrases containing -men advanced in this paper shows that it is not necessary to assume a functional category D that is always invisible in the grammar of Mandarin in order to account for the behaviors of its nominal arguments and argues for the lack of DP projections in Mandarin.
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