Wh-variable Licensing in Mandarin Chinese

As is well-known, wh-phrases in Mandarin Chinese can be used as interrogative pronouns, existential indefinites, or universal quantifiers, and regardless of which interpretation they receive, they remain in-situ at S-Structure. In addition, it is not the case that these different usages are freely available in all contexts, as illustrated by the following examples. (1)ta mai sheme shu she buy what book “What book will she buy?” (2)ta mai-le sheme shu she buy-ASP what book “What book did she buy?” “She bought some book.” (3)ta sheme shu dou mai she what book DOU buy “She buys all kinds of books.” The wh-phrase sheme shu ‘what book’ in example (1) receives an interrogative reading (and, in fact, this is the only reading available), whereas the same wh-phrase in example (2) are ambiguous between the interrogative and the existential indefinite reading.1 Note that examples (1) and (2) differ minimally, with the latter taking the perfective aspect marker -le. In example (3), the same wh-phrase gets the universal reading when associated with the particle dou, which is commonly taken as a universal or distributive operator (cf. [18]; [3]; [22]; [20]).