A Comparison between Mandarin Chinese "Quan" and "Dou"

This study points out that the similarities and differences between ”quan” and ”dou” must be revealed from both the semantic and the syntactic perspectives. This study found that both ”quan” and ”dou” can co-occur with a situation where a spatially restricted meaning is converted into a spatially unrestricted meaning. As for the difference, this study pinpoints that ”dou” but not ”quan” can occur in the sentence referring to two situations: the first is the situation where a temporally restricted reading is converted into a temporally unrestricted reading; the second is the situation where the sentence imparts a spatially and temporally unrestricted reading. The results have some implications. First, this article has shown that the study of language cannot be complete without looking at semantic components. Second, the grinding of the temporal location indicates that eventualities are ontological entities like things.