TY - GEN
T1 - An Empirical Study on Approximators jǐ and duō in Mandarin
AU - Huang, Yu Jui
AU - Wang, Yun Han
AU - Hsiao, Huichen S.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - This empirical study investigates Mandarin approximators that convey uncertain quantities, focusing on jǐ and duō, which both suggest “a few.” We analyze the values—exact numbers given by participants in fill-in tasks—and the interval, which refers to the spans between the most commonly selected upper and lower boundaries by participants. Forty-nine native speakers completed fill-in tasks. The results suggest that duō has significantly higher upper and lower boundaries than jǐ. Hǎo duō “quite a few” has a higher upper boundary than hǎo jǐ (all ps < .05) since the meaning of duō initially implies “excess.” By exploring the interval based on the mode, we discovered that the jǐ interval is 3 to 5, whereas duō ranges from 3 to 10. Additionally, the preferred values are 3, 5, and 10, corresponding to round numbers and the cultural implication in Chinese. Overall, findings on jǐ and hǎo jǐ partially support previous research, while the results suggest an alternative interval for duō and hǎo duō.
AB - This empirical study investigates Mandarin approximators that convey uncertain quantities, focusing on jǐ and duō, which both suggest “a few.” We analyze the values—exact numbers given by participants in fill-in tasks—and the interval, which refers to the spans between the most commonly selected upper and lower boundaries by participants. Forty-nine native speakers completed fill-in tasks. The results suggest that duō has significantly higher upper and lower boundaries than jǐ. Hǎo duō “quite a few” has a higher upper boundary than hǎo jǐ (all ps < .05) since the meaning of duō initially implies “excess.” By exploring the interval based on the mode, we discovered that the jǐ interval is 3 to 5, whereas duō ranges from 3 to 10. Additionally, the preferred values are 3, 5, and 10, corresponding to round numbers and the cultural implication in Chinese. Overall, findings on jǐ and hǎo jǐ partially support previous research, while the results suggest an alternative interval for duō and hǎo duō.
KW - Approximate interval
KW - Approximator
KW - Granularity
KW - jǐ & duō “a few”
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105002148449
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105002148449#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1007/978-981-96-3509-2_34
DO - 10.1007/978-981-96-3509-2_34
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105002148449
SN - 9789819635085
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science
SP - 470
EP - 480
BT - Chinese Lexical Semantics - 25th Workshop, CLSW 2024, Revised Selected Papers
A2 - Jin, Peng
A2 - Su, Qi
A2 - Hong, Jia-Fei
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
T2 - 25th Workshop on Chinese Lexical Semantics, CLSW 2024
Y2 - 31 May 2024 through 2 June 2024
ER -