This paper studies prenominal reduplicative classifier in Cantonese, which has been argued to be a distributive quantifier on a par with English every/each and Mandarin mei ‘every’, and a plural classifier giving the ‘many’ reading. The analysis I propose draws heavily on ideas introduced in the cover theory proposed by Schwarzschild (1996) and Brisson (1998, 2003), and ideas introduced by Partee (2004) and others on quantifying determiner many. I argue that prenominal reduplicative classifier is a quantifying determiner which is ambiguous between a quantifier type and a modifier type. When it occurs with the distributive quantifier dou1 ‘all’, it serves as a modifier, regulating the domain of dou1-quantification by imposing a maximizing effect on the nominal it modifies (see e.g. Link 1983; Gillon 1987; Schwarzschild 1996; Brisson 1998, 2003). Without the presence of a distributive quantifier, prenominal reduplicative classifier serves either as a modifier or as a quantifier, giving its NP a weak cardinal reading or a strong proportional reading, respectively. The proposed analysis implies that domain restriction in Chinese is overtly realized in grammatical form by means of the reduplicative classifier (when combined with a distributive quantifier) and that Chinese may have determiners, which is at least true in Cantonese.

Robert Chapman's article on the to-Poss in English (Chapman, 1975) brings out some interesting points about constructions with the preposition to. Chapman concludes by suggesting the need for more data. As I shall try to demonstrate, more data reveal that the uses of to-Poss are more pervasive in English than his article implies.

Chapman restricts to-Poss to three categories: (a) kinship and other personal relations; (b) parts or qualities — both (a) and (b) are elements of what has long been singled out as ‘inalienable possession’ — and (c) serving adjuncts (64).

These categories seem to be simultaneously too limited and too general; all instances of the so-called to-Poss can apparently be included under one category, but a category with very special properties.

In cognitive linguistics, motion metaphors of time (e.g. Christmas is approaching, We left the crisis behind) have been actively studied during the last decades. In addition to motion verbs, prepositional expressions are an important element in such metaphors. This work combines insights from Cognitive Grammar and Conceptual Metaphor Theory to account for uses of English path prepositions in motion metaphors of time. It is argued that such expressions conceptualize time as a path where a mover is advancing. The nature of the mover varies: it can be an individual entity metaphorically in motion (e.g. We wentTHROUGHa hard winter), an extended period of time (e.g. The period of Daylight Saving Time goes onPASTSeptember), or the temporal profile of a process (e.g. I sleptTHROUGHthe afternoon). The nature of the mover correlates with the grammatical function of the path expression, which alternates between a complement of a motion verb and a free modifier. Accordingly, the time path can relate with figurative (motion-related) or veridical (duration-related) conceptualizations of time. While a spatial path is direction-neutral, a time path can, with few exceptions, only be scrutinized in the earlier $\rightarrow$ later direction.

A serious and widely recognized problem of the standard Binding Theory is that it has no non-circular definition of the crucial notions ‘anaphor’, ‘pronoun’ and ‘R-expression’. Burzio (1991) proposes a significant new characterization of these notions, based on their absolute and relative morphological content. Specifically, he proposes that different NP types can be distinguished by their Θ-feature content: anaphors lack Θ-features altogether, pronouns have Θ-features and no other features, and R-expressions have Θ-features plus referential information, as in (1). The Binding Theory can then be regarded as a single principle, stated in (2).

I. In recent years, considerable attention has been paid to stylistic variation in linguistic description. Variation which used to be described as ‘free’ has lately been described as fitting within identifiable linguistic and/or social parameters. I discern three trends. In the first, variation that was previously ignored is incorporated into description in a fairly systematic way. An example of this is Harris' (1969: 7) claim that variation among the Spanish forms [esbjuðo], [ezbjuðo] and [ezβuðo] es viudo ‘he is a widower’‘not only CAN but MUST be described in terms of stylistic levels… it will be shown that careful examination of the kinds of alternation under discussion leads to some interesting questions about the form and organization of phonological rules’ (emphasis original).