On verbal similative plurality of

shenme de

in Mandarin Chinese

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.