Dōu 都 is most commonly considered to be a universal or a distributive operator. Discussions on dōu generally center upon its association with expressions preceding it as in (1) (See Focus for discussion on the lián… dōu 連...都 construction).
| 1. | a. | 那三個學生都來了。 |
|
|
| Nà sān ge xuéshēng dōu lái-le. |
|
|
| that three clf student dou come-prf |
|
|
| ‘Those three students all came.’ |
|
| b. | 他天天都遲到。 |
|
|
| Tā tiāntiān dōu chí-dào. |
|
|
| 3sg day.day dou late-arrive |
|
|
| ‘He… |