Scalarity and the Cantonese post-verbal particle can1

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of the Cantonese post-verbal particle can1. We argue that can1 is a resultative particle encoding the meaning of ‘a small degree’. It is only compatible with (i) verbs that entail a specific resulted state of the theme argument and (ii) verbs that encode a potential change of the theme argument (Beavers, 2011, 2013). Assuming that change of state verbs involve a property scale (Hay et al., 1999), we propose that can1 makes the property scale bounded by providing an end-point. This endpoint, however, is not precise. It consists of a range of values on the lower end of the scale.