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Logic Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar
Abstract
Two columns to the page. Vita. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982. Includes bibliographical references (columns 587-598). Typescript (photocopy).
... C.-T. J. Huang, 1982;Shi, 1989;2000;Ning, 1993;C.-T. J. Huang, Li, and Li, 2009, among others). ...
... Authors such as Xu and Langendoen (1985) and Xu (1986) claim that Chinese LDs are basegenerated, but there are good reasons for us to assume, in line with C.-T. J. Huang (1982;, Y. -H. A. Li (1990), Shi (1992), Qu (1994) and Shyu (1995), that this type of topics are derived by movement. Evidence for this may be found, according to Badan (2007) Lisi Zhangsan because she send-PFV one-CLF letter very not gaoxing. ...
... nt from the rest of the clause (the comment). The structural independence of DTs leads some linguists (e.g., C. N. Li and Thompson, 1976;Tang, 1990;Shyu, 1995) to conclude that they are base-generated left to the subject, and what allows the DT to be properly interpreted is simply a relation of aboutness (cf. Chao, 1968;C. N. Li and Thompson, 1976;C.-T. J. Huang, 1982;Tang, 1990;Qu, 1994), that is, the comment says something about the topic. ...
Taking as a starting point the discrepancy in the classification of Mandarin Chinese in different prominence typologies, the present paper deals with the nature of linguistic prominence. Assuming a correlation between feature inheritance and prominence in grammatical or discursive relations, it is noted that Spanish, a language with discourse-prominent features, may not always appeal to discoursefeature inheritance, which suggests that linguistic prominence, instead of being discrete, may be characterized by a continuous nature. This leads the present paper to propose the hypothesis of the Prominence Continuum, and to argue that Mandarin Chinese has an intermediate level of discourse prominence, which may provide a natural and straightforward explanation for the aforementioned discrepancy in the classification of Mandarin Chinese. To confirm the validity of this hypothesis, this paper analyses the positions of different types of topics in Mandarin Chinese, and it is shown that while some of them occupy [Spec,CP], the others undergo A-movement to [Spec,TP]; this implies the coexistence of inheritance from C to T and retainment in C of the discourse features in this language, as expected for a language claimed to have an intermediate level of discourse prominence.
... Unlike in the case of center-embeddeding sentences, it is less clear how an ideal speaker-hearer with infinite time and cognitive resources would react to these island-violating sentences. The degraded acceptability of island-violating sentences has been variably attributed to constraints on syntactic structures or derivations (Bresnan, 1976;Chomsky, 1964Chomsky, , 1973Chomsky, , 1977Chomsky, , 1986Huang, 1982;Rizzi, 1990;Ross, 1967;Sag, 1976), semantics (Abrusán, 2011(Abrusán, , 2014Szabolcsi, 2006;Szabolcsi & Zwarts, 1993), discourse information structure (Chaves & Putnam, 2020;Comorovski, 1989;Erteschik-Shir, 1973;Goldberg, 2013;Kroch, 1989;Kuno & Takami, 1997), or processing (Culicover et al., 2022;Grosu, 1973;Hofmeister et al., 2013;Hofmeister & Sag, 2010;Keshev & Meltzer-Asscher, 2019;Kluender & Kutas, 1993). ...
... In syntactic theories, among the various types of island effects, adjunct islands and subject islands are traditionally considered to form a natural class. For example, Huang (1982) attributes both adjunct and subject island effects to a single syntactic principle: the Condition on Extraction Domains (CED), which states that constituents that are not properly governed restrict extraction from within. Subject ...
... In contrast, the LBC does not satiate, and therefore should be considered ungrammatical. These implications about the grammaticality of islandviolating sentences go against the mainstream syntactic theories, including the Government and Binding (GB) theory, which attributes island effects to grammatical constraints like the Subjacency Condition and the Empty Category Principle (Chomsky, 1986;Huang, 1982), and more recent theories under the minimalist program that attribute island effects to the cyclic nature of spell-out and linearization (Fox & Pesetsky, 2005;Nunes & Uriagereka, 2000). On the grounds that these aforementioned accounts of island effects are widely adopted in mainstream generative syntax and well supported by independent evidence, one may conclude that the satiation probes grammaticality linking hypothesis is implausible. ...
Speakers display considerable variability in language use and representations: they may have different pronunciations of the same word, different intended meanings for the same phrases, and different sets of syntactic constraints in their internalized grammars. Comprehenders adapt to such variability by constantly updating their expectations for variants, a process termed "linguistic adaptation". Linguistic adaptation has been demonstrated at different levels of linguistic representation. In this dissertation, I propose an account of the widely attested yet poorly understood phenomenon of "syntactic satiation" as linguistic adaptation to unacceptable sentences. Syntactic satiation refers to the phenomenon whereby comprehenders find initially unacceptable sentence types increasingly acceptable after repeated exposure. Using island-violating sentences as a test bed (e.g., *What did John think a bottle of fell on the floor?), I show that satiation demonstrates speaker-specificity, a signature property of linguistic adaptation. I further address a number of issues raised by the initial findings, including pin-pointing the representational target of adaptation during satiation, explaining the systematically varying rates of satiation across different sentence types, and examining the link between surprisal and acceptability using large language models. The findings of this dissertation are valuable in multiple ways. First, they expand our understanding of whether and how language users engage in linguistic adaptation when they face degraded inputs, a rarely studied domain in the literature on adaptation. Furthermore, by uncovering the underlying mechanism for satiation, we can relate satiation to other psycholinguistic phenomena with shared mechanisms, and evaluate the validity of past claims made on linguistic theories that drew evidence from satiation. Finally, this study constitutes a step towards a full account of what sentence acceptability judgments represent, a crucial methodological concern for linguists.
... Island-violating sentences (Snyder, 2000, p The nature of these island effects has been a long-standing source of debate in the linguistic literature. The degraded acceptability of island-violating sentences like (1a-g) has been variably attributed to constraints in grammar (Bresnan, 1976;Chomsky, 1964Chomsky, , 1973Chomsky, , 1977Chomsky, , 1986Huang, 1982;Rizzi, 1990;Ross, 1967;Sag, 1976) or processing (Culicover et al., 2022;Hofmeister et al., 2013;Hofmeister & Sag, 2010;Kluender, 1991;Kluender & Kutas, 1993). 2 Grammar-based approaches to island effects claim that the sentences in (1) are ungrammatical because they violate certain grammatical constraints (e.g., the Subjacency Condition, the Phase Impenetrability 1 In the current study, we use the terms islands and island effects purely descriptively, and do not intend them to entail that the various sentence types labeled as such share the same underlying violation. 2 Cf. ...
... In addition to the debate over whether island effects are best explained as the result of grammatical or processing factors, there is a lack of consensus regarding whether certain islands form natural classes. For example, some have grouped subject and adjunct islands together as a natural class in opposition to the other island types, and have attributed the two distinct classes of islands to two different constraints in the grammar (Chomsky, 1986;Huang, 1982;Nunes & Uriagereka, 2000). Others, however, reject this grouping, either proposing that subject and adjunct island effects involve different grammatical constraints (Haegeman et al., 2014;Hiramatsu, 2001;Stepanov, 2007), or arguing for a unifying (syntactic, information structural, or processing-based) account of a larger set of island effects, including but not limited to subject and adjunct island effects (Abeillé et al., 2020;Bošković, 2016;Erteschik-Shir, 1973;Goldberg, 2013). ...
... If two island types show different patterns of satiation (e.g., one satiates, while the other does not), they are assumed to have different underlying sources of unacceptability and should not be grouped together as a natural class. This linking hypothesis underlies the argument against Huang's (1982) proposal that subject and adjunct islands form a natural class (Hiramatsu, 2001;Stepanov, 2007). ...
Sentence acceptability judgments are often affected by a pervasive phenomenon called satiation: native speakers give increasingly higher ratings to initially degraded sentences after repeated exposure. Various studies have investigated the satiation effect experimentally, the vast majority of which focused on different types of island-violating sentences in English (sentences with illicit long-distance syntactic movements). However, mixed findings are reported regarding which types of island violations are affected by satiation and which ones are not. This article presents a meta-analysis of past experimental studies on the satiation of island effects in English, with the aim of providing accurate estimates of the rate of satiation for each type of island, testing whether different island effects show different rates of satiation, exploring potential factors that contributed to the heterogeneity in past results, and spotting possible publication bias. The meta-analysis shows that adjunct islands, the Complex NP Constraint (CNPC), subject islands, the that-trace effect, the want-for construction, and whether-islands reliably exhibit satiation, albeit at different rates. No evidence for satiation is found for the Left Branch Condition (LBC). Whether context sentences were presented in the original acceptability judgment experiments predicts the differences in the rates of satiation reported across studies. Potential publication bias is found among studies testing the CNPC and whether-islands. These meta-analytic results can be used to inform debates regarding the nature of island effects and serve as a proof of concept that meta-analysis can be a valuable tool for linguistic research.
... Borer (1986Borer ( , 1989 argues that infinitival Agr and gerundive Agr in nonfinite T are anaphoric. Huang (1982) proposes that Chinese allows pro-drop because it has no agreement/Agr. Similarly, Saito (2007) suggests that in Japanese there is a covert operation allowing for pro-drop, which involves covert copying of elements from discourse-given entities to null argument positions. ...
... Based on the previous research, particularly Huang (1982) and Saito (2007), we can develop Chomsky's (2015) assumption by defining the weak T as (7). The definition presupposes that if the head T is weak, it must have inflectional features. ...
... In (61a), the wh-word where is similar to the preposition phrase in function (Huang, 1982). Since the head P is never realized at PF in (61a), it should be a strong head, providing a label for its mother node. ...
Labeling is required by the interpretive system. When a head merges with a phrase, the head provides the label. However, lexical heads and T with poor inflectional features are too weak to be labels. Although insightful, this theory leaves at least one problem that needs prompt solutions: are there other kinds of weak heads? In this paper, we address this issue by proposing that phonological features play a crucial role in the labeling algorithm and by putting forward an additional version of weak heads. That is, a head that loses phonological features in the syntax is also weak. This approach to weak heads, together with the constraint that a structure must be labeled for interpretation, can capture the distribution of empty categories in topicalization, relativization, ellipsis, and other phenomena, some of which have not received enough scholarly attention. Therefore, our syntactic-phonological approach to labeling can open up new possibilities to account for the distribution of empty categories in a principled manner.
... Despite this superficial difference, research in syntax and semantics has suggested that these structures share many representational features. Languages like Mandarin Chinese, for instance, are often analyzed as containing a relation between the wh-phrase and the left edge of the clause ('Spec,CP ' Huang 1982;Beck 2006;Cheng 2009; Kotek 2019, among many others), which is motivated by the semantic scope of the wh-phrase. In (2-3), this 'gap' is marked with ___ . ...
... Mandarin Chinese uses a dedicated question marker 吗 ma to indicate a polar question, represented as Q in (13). Finally, as represented in (14), post-verbal wh-questions are ambiguous between a wh-interpretation and an indefinite variable interpretation ('anyone' / 'someone ', Huang 1982;Dong 2009), demonstrating an ambiguity in the mapping between surface form and semantic structure. This interpretation is restricted to certain syntactic contexts. ...
... The position of kyā as a polar question marker is variable, but it typically occurs at the beginning of the clause, represented as Q in (18) The details of the syntactic analysis of wh-constructions in English, Urdu and Mandarin Chinese remain controversial. The systematic positioning of wh-questions in their canonical position in Mandarin Chinese has motivated theories of 'covert movement,' analogizing the interpretation of moved and in-situ wh-phrases between English and Mandarin Chinese (Huang 1982;Cheng 2009). Other analyses instead argue for a more flexible mapping between wh-syntax and semantics (e.g., Tsai 1999;Erlewine 2024). ...
A fundamental question in the cognitive neuroscience of language is how grammatical representations are reflected in the organization and activity of the brain. This is challenging in part because superficial differences between languages, e.g., word order, exert different demands on the memory systems that process these structures. Here, we present an electroencephalography (EEG) study to investigate the brain's responses to wh-constructions in English, Urdu, and Mandarin Chinese. In addition to the different word orders, writing systems, and morphological typologies of the 3 languages, these languages diverge with regard to how wh-constructions are formed: English requires filler-gap dependencies for wh-objects, whereas Urdu and Mandarin Chinese do not. We use a rapid parallel reading task, in which short sentences are displayed in parallel for 200ms to mitigate the different demands placed on memory systems. We show that neural responses distinguish wh-object constructions from their controls in midline anterior (Urdu, Mandarin Chinese) and right posterior sensors (English, Mandarin Chinese), from 200-400ms (English, Mandarin Chinese) and 500-800ms (English, Urdu). Although there is no detectable uniform, language-invariant response to wh-constructions across languages, there are a number of shared features in the evoked response between any pair of languages, i.e., wh-in-situ constructions generate an evoked response in midline anterior sensors. Moreover, behavioral evidence shows a robust cross-language cost of processing wh-object constructions, regardless of their surface form. This demonstrates that readers of diverse languages can process some grammatical information in a short 200ms fixation, and that the RPVP methodology may enable new ways of linking cognitive neuroscience of language to comparative syntax, i.e., the systematic description of similarities and differences between grammatical structures.
... (Xu 2006: 146) The second group adopts a mixed approach to the derivation of topic constructions. Specifically, the gapped topic construction is derived by the movement of a topic, whereas the gapless topic construction is derived by base-generation of a topic in Spec-CP (Huang 1982(Huang , 1984Huang and Li 1996;Huang et al. 2009;Li 1990). This is empirically supported. ...
... Therefore, this sentence is expected to be natural, contrary to fact. Huang (1982Huang ( , 1984 and Huang et al. (2009), among others, propose that while gaped topic constructions are derived by movement, gapless topic constructions are derived by base-generation. In other words, like Xu and Langendoen (1985), Xu (2006), and Pan and Hu (2008), this approach also asserts that the topics in the gapless topic constructions are base-generated in Spec-CP. ...
... Our experimental results reveal that the rating scores for sentences such as (19d) are very low, suggesting that they are unacceptable. Since Huang (1982Huang ( , 1984 and Huang et al. (2009) claim that the topics in gapless topic sentences are base-generated in Spec-CP, to account for our experimental results, they would have needed to contend that the low acceptability of (19d) is because of the presence of a pro in the RC (as in (25)), which is incorrectly coindexed with the subject Fenghu under the requirement of GCR. However, along this line, we must claim that there is a pro in (26). ...
Chinese, a topic-prominent language, abounds with gapped and gapless topic constructions. Several explanations of how topics are derived have been proposed, which fall into three categories: the base-generation approach, the mixed approach and the movement approach. In this study, we conducted two experiments to examine the island sensitivity of topic constructions in Chinese, bringing novel evidence to adjudicate the different approaches to topicalization in this language. The results indicate that island effects can be detected in both gapped and gapless topic constructions, which supports the movement approach to topic constructions in Chinese, making influential hypotheses such as the topic licensing condition and the topic interpretation condition dubious. Our findings also provide new evidence for the influential proposal that Merge is applied freely (Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz & Ken Hale (eds.), A life in language , 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Chomsky, Noam. 2004. Beyond explanatory adequacy. In Adriana Belletti (ed.), Structures and beyond: The cartography of syntactic structures , 104–131. New York: Oxford University Press, Chomsky, Noam. 2008. On phases. In Robert Freidin, Carlos Otero & Maria Luisa Zubizarreta (eds.), Foundational issues in linguistic theory: Essays in honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud , 133–166. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Chomsky, Noam. 2013. Problems of projection. Lingua 130. 33–49).
... The number of studies that analyze the structures with rang can be divided into two main groups: those that propose a mono-clausal analysis (Fan X. 1991, 1996, 2002, Yang Daran 2003, Hu 2017 and those that suggest a bi-clausal structure (Xing X. 1984, Cheng Z. 2003). These proposals deal with different issues in the linguistic literature on Chinese about the existence or not of Inflection (see for instance Huang 1982;Li A.H. 1985, 1990, Sun 2014versus Xu 1994, of the ECM structures, and small clauses (Huang 1982, Paul 2021. ...
... The number of studies that analyze the structures with rang can be divided into two main groups: those that propose a mono-clausal analysis (Fan X. 1991, 1996, 2002, Yang Daran 2003, Hu 2017 and those that suggest a bi-clausal structure (Xing X. 1984, Cheng Z. 2003). These proposals deal with different issues in the linguistic literature on Chinese about the existence or not of Inflection (see for instance Huang 1982;Li A.H. 1985, 1990, Sun 2014versus Xu 1994, of the ECM structures, and small clauses (Huang 1982, Paul 2021. ...
... Firstly, as Paul (2021) points out, ren jinbu 'people advance' cannot be considered a small clause, because taken in isolation it is a perfectly well-formed independent sentence; secondly, we will show below that the VP2 in causative constructions is endowed with a rich functional structure that excludes the small clause analysis. 9 This is in line with Paul (2021) who argues against the existence of small clauses and in particular ECM in Chinese (Huang 1982, Paul 2021, due to the controversial status of finitness and tense in this language (Paul 2018, Zhang 2019, Sun 2014, among many others). Hu (2017Hu ( , 2020 also defends the mono-clausal analysis due to an adjacency effect between VP1 and VP2 as in (31). ...
In Italian, causatives are expressed through a periphrasis make + infinitival V. When the embedded verb is transitive, the embedded subject is generally introduced by a to/by preposition. For this reason, some scholars have analyzed causatives as a verbal complex with a single argument structure, involving a complex functional layer. In this paper, we offer a cross-linguistic comparison of causative clausal embedding. First, we compare Italian causatives with perception verbs, where no prepositions introduce the embedded subject. Then, we compare Italian causatives to those in Balkan languages and Southern Italian varieties which allow finite embedding. We account for the variation in terms of differences in the (+/-) defective status of the embedded clause and in the availability of AGREE operation (inspired by Manzini 2022). We conclude the comparison with Chinese, where no AGREE operation is available and a θ-feature checking operation is at work: embedded subjects check the θ-feature of both verbs as in the control construction (à la Manzini & Roussou2000). We argue that language variation in clausal embeddings relates to the phasal/non phasal status of embedded clauses and to the available syntactic operations.
... It has been claimed that rightward dislocations are generally unacceptable in Chinese sentences (Huang 1982). Therefore, we should not expect to find the right noderaising construction (RNR) in Chinese. ...
... 5 Notice that although the duration and frequency phrases are in the rightmost position in the examples below, they are not real counterexamples to what is observed here: Unlike in (13), the verbs in (i) and (ii) are not reduplicated to take the duration and frequency phrases as their complements in the coordinated structures. Since there is no verb copying in the coordinated structures, I assume that the duration and frequency phrases are not the structural complements of the verbs (cf. the Phrase Structural Condition in Huang 1982Huang , 1984a Lisi also read book read-Asp. san ci. ...
... three-time What sets the sentences in (13) apart from the grammatical RNR sentences is the status of argumenthood. These postverbal elements, despite occupying the typical complement position (as they trigger verb copying due to the Phrase Structural Condition, Huang 1982Huang , 1984a, are not the canonical argument that is s-selected by structures of (i) and (ii) in the coordinated structures are fully saturated, and there are no gaps in the coordinated structures. To be more specific, the duration and frequency phrases here should be regarded as modifiers of the aspectual heads (see Liao 2004). ...
This article discusses the right node raising construction in Chinese (henceforth the RNR). It aims to provide a novel analysis that can deal with two new observations made in the Chinese RNR construction, including the tone sandhi phenomenon, which provides clues to the syntax of RNR from syntax-prosody mapping, and a syntactic constraint that only arguments, but not adjuncts, may qualify as an RNR target. Based on these new observations, I show that none of the previous analyses of the RNR (mainly in English) are fully adequate in accounting for the RNR in Chinese. An alternative analysis is pursued here. Given the syntactic and syntax-prosodic properties, I propose to analyze the gaps within the coordinated structure in Chinese Right-Node Raising (RNR) by exploring the notion of an empty noun, along with the concept of the True Empty Category. In the RNR construction, the coordinated structure undergoes leftward movement over the RNR target, which is driven by considerations of information structure. As a result, this induces an illusion of rightward movement on the surface.
... These phenomena include the potential occurrence of two modals hui/yao (e.g., C.-T. James Huang 1989;1982;Y.-H. A. Li 1990;Grano 2015;Zhang 2019;He 2020), interpretation of two aspectual markers -le/-guo (e.g., Grano 2015; He 2020; C.-T. J. Huang 1982Huang ,1989N. Huang 2018;Y.-H. A. Li 1990), occurrence of speaker-oriented adverbs (e.g., Zhang 2019), sentence-final aspect particles (e.g., Grano 2015Grano , 2017T.-H. ...
... Past studies have suggested that the embedded clause of some complementation verbs allows hui, while other verbs do not, contributing to the purported division between finite and non-finite classes (e.g., C.-T. J. Huang 1982;1989;2022;Y.-H. A. Li 1990;Grano 2015;Zhang 2019;He 2020). Control verbs are said to prohibit hui in their complement clause, while non-control verbs do not impose this systematic restriction, allowing the occurrence of hui; thus, a correlation is claimed between control properties and the distribution of hui. ...
... We side with the view that the data do evidence two distinct complement types -finite vs non-finite; however, we disagree that non-finiteness should be characterised as prohibition of the modals, contradicting the general position adopted by prior studies, particularly towards hui (e.g., C.-T. J. Huang 1982;1989;2022;Y.-H. A. Li 1990;Grano 2015;Zhang 2019;He 2020). Instead, we propose that a non-finite complement clause should be characterised as being susceptible to semantic influence from the matrix clause and thus permeable to the interaction between the lexical semantics of the complementation verb and that of an embedded modal. ...
The literature has debated whether Mandarin Chinese exhibits a finiteness distinction despite the absence of overt tense and agreement marking. C.-T. J. Huang (2022), along with other Generative studies, have re-affirmed this distinction and repeatedly rejected Hu et al. (2001), which presents opposing views. If the finiteness distinction exists, it should be a detectable empirical fact, transcending theoretical perspectives. To empirically test this, we first formulate finiteness as a relative concept using a methodological criterion, which is inspired by Lowe (2019) and potentially cross-linguistically applicable. We devise two testable hypotheses to investigate the distributions of modals (hui/yao) and aspectual markers (le/ guo), which have been seen as having implications for finiteness distinction. After conducting tests on diverse complementation verbs, we have identified empirical deficiencies in past studies. We have shown that it is possible to synthesise insights from apparently opposite camps to form integrated perspectives which can account for a wider range of new empirical data. Under a broader concept of finiteness, the distributions of hui/yao and le/ guo reveal Chinese finiteness as semantic dependency where non-finite complements are more semantically dependent on the matrix clause than finite complements. Overall, we employ a descriptive, evidence-based approach to address the Chinese finiteness conundrum.
... as discussed by Chao (1968), Huang (1982), and Sybesma (1999), pertains to 111 the marked tendency in a Chinese sentence to limit the occurrence of more 112 than one constituent after the verb. Li (1990) ...
... Chinese sentence (Chao, 1968;Huang, 1982). To satisfy this constraint, the 633 three main constituents of EQC, i.e., the verb (V), the object (O), and the 634 quantifier (Q), must be combined in some way. ...
In modern Chinese, an object can precede or follow a quantifier (numeral + verbal classifier) when they co-occur after a verb, which is supposedly affected by multiple factors. Within a usage-based probabilistic variationist framework, this study defines the above ordering as the alternation of the Event-quantifying Construction and examines ten potential variables that probabilistically constrain the construction alternation, using three multivariate methods. Results indicated that six variables significantly affect the selection of the two variants, i.e., “Quantifier-first construction” and “Object-first construction”, including the animacy, definiteness, givenness, and pronominality of objects, as well as the length difference between objects and quantifiers and the type of verbal classifiers. The two variants differ in the values of these variables, which may result from the postverbal constraint, the end-focus principle, and the end-weight principle in Chinese. However, these distinctions in the formal or semantic aspects will be neutralized in natural communication, thereby allowing the alternation of this construction.
... (2) a. *How did John ask [who behaved __ ]? [1] b. *Who does Phineas know a girl [who is working with __ ]? [2] c. *Who did Mary cry [after John hit __]? [3] Ross [2] calls such constructions syntactic 'islands' as they are difficult or impossible to leave (cf. the story of Robinson Crusoe). ...
... (2c). The ungrammaticality of such constructions has been assumed to be due to one or more universal constraints [3][4][5], and as such, we would expect low acceptability of sentences violating it, as well as little or no variation across constructions and languages. However, in previous experimental studies, we have found that extraction from wh-clauses [6,7] and from relative clauses [8] appears to be grammatical in Danish, contra generative theoretical syntax. ...
... However, in the case of wh-in-situ languages such as Korean and Mandarin Chinese, wh-phrases in main and embedded questions do not move in overt syntax and stay in their base-generated positions. Nevertheless, it is argued that covert movement takes place at the semantic interpretation or logical form (LF) level in these wh-in-situ languages [2][3][4][5][6]. ...
... In summary, based on the results of our functional MRI study of wh-question comprehension, we argue that covert wh-movement in the LF level reported in the previous literature [2][3][4][5][6] may be associated with syntactic and semantic salience, syntactic processing for wh-dependency and prioritization by moving the crucial words to the beginning of a sentence in the semantic interpretation level. For this process, a wh-element functions as a salient stimulus for the listener or reader to immediately capture what the speaker intended. ...
In this research, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neurological basis for understanding wh-questions in wh-in-situ languages such as Korean, where wh-elements maintain their original positions instead of moving explicitly within the sentence. Our hypothesis centered on the role of the salience and attention network in comprehending wh-questions in wh-in-situ languages, such as the discernment of wh-elements, the demarcation between interrogative types, and the allocation of cognitive resources towards essential constituents vis-à-vis subordinate elements in order to capture the speaker’s communicative intent. We explored subject and object wh-questions and scrambled wh-questions, contrasting them with yes/no questions in Korean. Increased activation was observed in the left anterior insula and bilateral frontal operculum, irrespective of the wh-position or scrambling of wh-element. These results suggest the interaction between the salience and attentional system and the syntactic linguistic system, particularly the left anterior insula and bilateral frontal operculum, in comprehending wh-questions in wh-in-situ languages.
... One such structure is that of weak crossover, as mentioned above. Other well-known arguments for covert movement capitalize on the similarity between observed constraints on the interpretation of focus, quantifier scope and wh-in-situ phrases, and well-established constraints on overt movement processes and the distribution of the empty categories created-such as the c-command requirement, various locality constraints on movement (Subjacency and CED), and the distribution of empty categories (i.e., the ECP) (See May 1977May , 1985Huang 1982;Saito 1984, 1992; among others.) 2 2 Although the original formulations of the generalizations and arguments in support of the movement approach have been subjected to criticisms and revisions, some versions of the covert movement hypothesis continue to play a role in current research. See Wagner (2006), Erlewine and Kotek (2014), Lu et al. (2020), among others, though it is fair to say that the debate still goes on continually. ...
... Furthermore, if the complex NP object is fronted to a position before the subject, extraction becomes acceptable again, as in (14c). Extraction from an adjunct is normally excluded by the Condition on Extraction Domain (Huang 1982), but again the CED appears to be violable if the adjunct is preposed before the main clause subject: 'The boy whose father I met before goes to college now.' ...
This paper offers new evidence for covert focus movement in two areas of Chinese syntax, concerning A’-extraction and the distribution of anaphoric definite bare nouns. A left-right asymmetry in Mandarin topic and relative structures has long been observed (since Huang in Linguistic Inquiry 15: 531–574, 1984) whereby apparent extraction from an island is possible if the island occurs as a subject or fronted object, but not if it occurs postverbally. The definite interpretation of a bare noun exhibits a similar asymmetry (Jenks in Linguistic Inquiry 49:501–536, 2018): a bare noun may have anaphoric definite interpretation if occurring as a subject or topic, but not as a postverbal object. In both patterns, the occurrence of focus may exceptionally cancel the asymmetry, allowing extraction from a postverbal island and the anaphoric definite interpretation of a postverbal bare noun. We argue that these patterns of exception are explained if the phrases associated with focus undergo covert movement in LF.
... As for Chinese, it is generally assumed that the counterpart of an it-cleft is the '是 … 的 (shi … de)'-structure as in the following example (see e.g. Huang 1982Huang , 1988 Note that in our experiment, we will investigate the projection of presuppositions out of the scope of a question operator. Now it happens that, embedded under a question operator, 的 (de) is typically omitted in '是 … 的 (shi … de)'-structures or, more precisely, '的 (de)' is omitted if the sentence ends with a question particle like '吗 (ma)', amongst others (Zhan and Sun 2013). ...
... Note that in contrast to English and German, Chinese 是 … 的 (shi … de) is suitable for marking pre-verbal elements like the subject and adverbial modifiers but not for marking post-verbal phrases, such as the object (for more discussion, see e.g.Huang 1982;Liu and Kempson 2018). In our experiment, it is the subject which is marked with clefts, so that this difference does not effect our results. ...
Presuppositions are typically considered as projective inferences that are triggered by certain expressions and taken for granted. Whereas Simons (Simons, Mandy. 2001. On the conversational basis of some presuppositions. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 11. 431–448) observes that expressions with a similar semantic content belonging to the same language give rise to the same presupposition, this has not been investigated in a systematic way for semantically equivalent expressions from different languages. Furthermore, more recent research has shown that different presupposition triggers are characterized by differing projective strength, therefore, a distinction of highly projective hard triggers and less projective soft triggers has been proposed (Abusch, Dorit. 2002. Lexical alternatives as a source of pragmatic presuppositions. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 12. 1–19, Abusch, Dorit. 2010. Presupposition triggering from alternatives. Journal of Semantics 27(1). 37–80). Here, we present an experiment comparing four classical presupposition triggers from German and their counterparts in Chinese (cleft sentences, win, factive predicates regret and discover) in order to a) investigate the cross-linguistic stability of their projective strength and b) to verify the heterogeneity of these triggers in both languages. Our results show that the projective behavior and the heterogeneity of presuppositions can be considered cross-linguistically stable, at least when suitable equivalences for both languages can be found. Furthermore, our data suggest that the group of soft triggers has to be more heterogeneous than previously assumed. More precisely, whereas hard triggers behave the same way, it is possible that each soft trigger might be soft in its own way. In sum, our experimental investigation aims to improve the understanding of presuppositions, the underlying triggering process and their projective behavior across different languages.
... Prior comparative work shows that cataphora in Chinese is more restricted in its syntactic environments than in English (e.g., Huang, 1982;Huang & Lin, 2021;C. Wang, 2000). ...
... 1 In Chinese, the null subject could be a pro or PRO, but there are no interpretive differences between pro and PRO (Huang, 1982). We also highlight the findings of prior work showing that null subjects in fronted adverbial clauses strongly corefer with matrix subjects in cataphoric constructions (e.g., Sun & Dennison, 2015;C. ...
Language processing studies show that native speakers anticipate linguistic elements before their occurrence. However, it is debated to what extent second language (L2) learners do the same. To address this question, this study examines the processing of cataphora by Chinese-speaking L2 English learners. Additionally, we query whether L2 learners’ expectations of upcoming antecedents are modulated by first language (L1) influence and constrained by Principle B of the Binding Theory (Chomsky, 1981). Two self-paced reading studies show that L1 English speakers’ anticipation of upcoming referents is active and strictly constrained by Principle B. Crucially, L2 English learners also actively predict upcoming referents and are sensitive to Principle B. However, L2 processing patterns suggest that Principle B competes with semantics at later processing stages. Together with data from L1 Chinese and English control participants, these results support the view that anticipatory processing in English is not fundamentally different between monolinguals and bilinguals.
... Japanese and Chinese are widely known for their scope rigidity, where the scope assignment of quantificational expressions is solely determined by their surface structural relations (e.g., Hoji 1985;Huang 1982;Kuno 1973;Kuroda 1979). This study focuses on Quantifier-Negation (Q-Neg) sentences such as all teachers did not use Sandy's car, which are negative sentences involving a universal quantified expression as a modifier in the subject position. ...
... The scope rigidity observed in Japanese was also extensively discussed in Chinese. Huang (1982) stated that Chinese doubly quantified sentences, as in (6), are unambiguous: meige xuesheng ('every student') should always take a wider scope over yiben shu ('one book'). 3 (6) mei-ge xuesheng dou mai-le yi-ben shu. ...
Quantifier-Negation sentences such as all teachers did not use Sandy’s car are known to allow an inverse scope interpretation in English. However, there is a lack of experimental evidence to determine whether this interpretation is allowed in equivalent sentences in Japanese and Chinese. To address this issue, this study conducted a sentence–picture matching truth value judgment experiment in both Japanese and Chinese. The data suggested that Japanese Quantifier-Negation sentences do allow inverse scope readings, which suggests that the subject may be interpreted within the scope of negation. In contrast, Chinese Quantifier-Negation sentences prohibit inverse scope readings, which is in accordance with the strong scope rigidity consistently observed in this language. This paper also discussed how to develop a valid experiment for investigating scope ambiguities.
... This account, which can be traced to discussions in C.-T. J. Huang (1982Huang ( , 1989 and Y.-H. A. Li (1985Li ( , 1990, claims that Mandarin makes a finiteness distinction, such that nonfinite clauses cannot license overt subjects, as expected under classical generative theories about finiteness. A key piece of evidence cited in this account is the contrast in (1). ...
... C.-T. J. Huang 1982Huang , 1989Y.-H. A. Li 1985Y.-H. A. Li , 1990, in which control verbs in Mandarin subcategorize for nonfinite clauses and nonfinite clauses cannot host overt subjects. This account straightforwardly explains why sentences like (15) are relatively unacceptable and have an acceptability profile that differs from grammatical control verb baselines with null subjects, while resembling ungrammatical control verb baselines (Experiment 1). ...
A theme in research on finiteness suggests that finiteness is an abstract formal property of clauses that can be found across languages, even though languages might differ in how finiteness is realized morphosyntactically. This article considers these issues from the perspective of Mandarin Chinese, where there are competing claims over whether the language makes a finiteness distinction, and if it does, whether the complement clauses of control verbs, which are hypothesized to be nonfinite, can exceptionally license overt controlee subjects. In order to evaluate these competing claims, two acceptability judgment experiments were conducted to validate previously-reported examples of overt controlee subjects felicitously appearing inside control complements in Mandarin.
The experiments reveal that these examples are not as acceptable as they are sometimes claimed to be, corroborating concerns occasionally raised about these examples. First, native speakers agree that null subjects can appear inside control complements, but show substantially more variability over whether overt controlee subjects can do so. Second, at an aggregate level, the presence of overt subjects reduced acceptability to a greater extent in control complements than in the complement clauses of belief verbs, like ‘think’ and ‘say.’ These results suggest that control and belief verbs have different subcategorization properties, and also bear on these competing accounts about finiteness. In particular, I note that these results can be understood rather straightforwardly under accounts in which Mandarin has a “classical” finiteness distinction like many languages with richer morphology, where control verbs take nonfinite complement clauses that do not license overt subjects.
... [ As for a wh-in situ language such as Korean, it is traditionally understood, following Huang (1982), that an in situ wh-phrase undergoes covert movement at LF even though there is no overt movement. However, it is controversial whether the covert wh-movements are also susceptible to the wh-island constraints. ...
The prosodic marking of the wh-scope has been a good testing ground to shed light on syntax-prosody mapping. Many accounts have been proposed based on various theoretical models, including the E-feature agreement system, the Multiple Spell-Out Model, Contiguity Theory, and the Wrap-XP Model. However, most previous studies focused on the constructions with a single wh-phrase, and few studies paid attention to multiple wh-questions. This paper presents novel data from production experiments to show the prosodic patterns of multiple wh-questions in Korean, for which none of the previous accounts makes correct predictions. This study proposes a new alignment constraint considering the scope relations between wh-words. The necessity of such a constraint suggests that the prosodic structures for wh-scope interpretations are not the direct outcome of syntax and phonology but the aggregation of syntax, phonology, and semantics.
... Omission Omission is a prevalent phenomenon observed in Chinese (Huang, 1998), particularly in informal written contexts such as recipes. As shown in Figure 1, the action stir fry well (翻炒均 匀) in recipe marinated beef brisket omits its object. ...
Most of the existing compositional generalization datasets are synthetically-generated, resulting in a lack of natural language variation. While there have been recent attempts to introduce non-synthetic datasets for compositional generalization, they suffer from either limited data scale or a lack of diversity in the forms of combinations. To better investigate compositional generalization with more linguistic phenomena and compositional diversity, we propose the DIsh NamE Recognition (DiNeR) task and create a large realistic Chinese dataset. Given a recipe instruction, models are required to recognize the dish name composed of diverse combinations of food, actions, and flavors. Our dataset consists of 3,811 dishes and 228,114 recipes, and involves plenty of linguistic phenomena such as anaphora, omission and ambiguity. We provide two strong baselines based on T5 and large language models (LLMs). This work contributes a challenging task, baseline methods to tackle the task, and insights into compositional generalization in the context of dish name recognition. Code and data are available at https://github.com/Jumpy-pku/DiNeR.
... It is a well-known fact that adjuncts are strong islands that do not allow extraction out of them due to the Adjunct Condition (Cattell, 1976;Huang, 1982; among others). The adjunct status of the non-finite 'serial verb clause' in Bangla can be attested by the restricted extraction of the wh-words from the adjunct island. ...
... Third, for the prenominal adjective construction, the [DEF] feature on the head D should be strong, triggering the AdjP to move to the specifier of DP. However, the AdjP is left adjoined to the NP and cannot be subject to extraction from the adjunction site due to a violation of Condition on Extraction Domain CED in Huang (1982). Even though it is parametrically possible, it is not clear why the whole NP is not subject to the movement to the specifier of DP. ...
The internal structure of the DP has long been a topic of debate in the study of Modern Standard Arabic. This is due not only to the comprehensive agreement in ϕ-features, Case, and definiteness between the adjective and its head noun, but also to the difference in meaning depending on the relative placement of the adjective in relation to the noun within the DP. Previous studies have proposed two distinct basic structures for Arabic DPs, employing the notions of Agree or Feature Checking.
However, these operations do not necessarily trigger the displacement of syntactic objects in the derivation, nor do they adequately capture the correlation of semantic patterns with
their relevant syntactic derivations. This paper argues instead that both patterns of the Arabic DP can be derived from a unified syntactic structure and treats the agreement in definiteness differently from that of ϕ-features and Case. The presence or absence of agreement in definiteness, considering two possible positions of the adjective and their interpretations of the DP, are
accounted for in terms of the parametric variations of the feature on the head D within the framework of the Minimalist Program.
... Syntax-based theories define special syntactic domains that are opaque to the syntactic operation (e.g., movement) that creates the long-distance dependency. There are different approaches to this in the syntax literature that could potentially explain subject island violations, such as Subjacency (e.g., Chomsky, 1986), the Condition on Extraction Domains (e.g., Huang, 1982), Phase Impenetrability (see Boeckx, 2013 andCitko, 2014 for reviews), and Multiple Spell-Out (Uriagereka et al., 1999). Information-structure-based approaches analyze island effects as a clash between the focus created by wh-movement and the backgroundedness of the island constituents that the wh-word is extracted from (Abeillé et al., 2020;Erteschik-Shir, 1973;Goldberg, 2006). ...
In principle, functional neuroimaging provides uniquely informative data in addressing linguistic questions, because it can indicate distinct processes that are not apparent from behavioral data alone. This could involve adjudicating the source of unacceptability via the different patterns of elicited brain responses to different ungrammatical sentence types. However, it is difficult to interpret brain activations to syntactic violations. Such responses could reflect processes that have nothing intrinsically related to linguistic representations, such as domain-general executive function abilities. In order to facilitate the potential use of functional neuroimaging methods to identify the source of different syntactic violations, we conducted an fMRI experiment to identify the brain activation maps associated with two distinct syntactic violation types: phrase structure (created by inverting the order of two adjacent words within a sentence) and subject islands (created by extracting a wh-phrase out of an embedded subject). The comparison of these violations to control sentences surprisingly showed no indication of a generalized violation response, with almost completely divergent activation patterns. Phrase structure violations seemingly activated regions previously implicated in verbal working memory and structural complexity in sentence processing, whereas the subject islands appeared to activate regions previously implicated in conceptual-semantic processing, broadly defined. We review our findings in the context of previous research on syntactic and semantic violations using event-related potentials. We suggest that functional neuroimaging is a potentially fruitful technique in unpacking the distinct sets of cognitive processes elicited by theoretically-relevant syntactic violations, when interpreted with care and paired with appropriate control conditions.
... Although Chinese is a wh-in-situ language (Huang 1982), wh-phrases could be fronted to the left periphery of a sentence in order to check other features rather than the [+WH] feature. ...
This article investigates the syntax of sluicing in Mandarin Chinese, including the syntactic constraints on predicates that might appear in sluicing, the reclassification of wh-phrases, the syntactic status of shi ‘be’ and you ‘have,’ and the syntactic derivation of typical sluicing and pseudo-sluicing. This article argues that there are both pseudo-sluicing and typical sluicing in Chinese, with each involving different structures and derivations and requiring different analysis.
... A core finding in the syntactic literature is that extraction from constituents that stand in a close structural relation to the verb is more acceptable than extraction from elements that are more distant. This insight is expressed in Huang's (1982) Condition on Extraction Domains and has been incorporated in a variety of subsequent proposals. We already illustrated the effect for subjects and objects in 19: objects are attached VP-internally and allow certain types of extraction that subjects, which are attached VP-externally, inhibit. ...
Ross (1967) observed that the coordinate structure constraint can be violated in certain semantically asymmetric structures. In this article we consider one of these structures, namely type A coordination, in detail (the terminology is from Lakoff 1986; an example is Here's the whisky I went to the store and bought ). We present experimental evidence showing that the pattern of argument and adjunct extraction from type A coordinate structures matches the pattern of argument and adjunct extraction from structures containing rationale clauses in all crucial respects. This near-perfect parallel behavior suggests that, like rationale clauses, the second conjunct in a type A coordination is an adjunct (see also Brown 2017). We explore the consequences of this finding for both interpretive and syntactic analyses of asymmetric coordination.
... In subject and direct object pseudoclefts as in (11a) Huang (1998), we maintain that the presupposition in a pseudocleft corresponds to a relative clause, given their identical behaviors. 9 Besides, as Cheng (2008) observed, MC pseudoclefts also exhibit connectivity effects. ...
This study explored the trajectory of L3 acquisition (L3A) of three structurally different clefts in European Portuguese (EP) by L1-Mandarin Chinese (MC) L2-English learners, within the framework of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2008, 2009). This study also considers the predictions of L3A models that differ with respect to the role of the previously acquired languages on the acquisition of a target L3. Regarding the analyzed structures, L1 factor models (e.g., Na Ranong & Leung, 2009) would predict an early acquisition of pseudoclefts, and a delay in acquiring é-que clefts and standard clefts. Models such as the Cumulative-Enhancement Model (Flynn et al., 2004), the Typological Primacy Model (Rothman, 2011), the Scalpel Model (Slabakova, 2017) and the Linguistic Proximity Model (Westergaard et al., 2017) would predict a facilitating L2 effect on the acquisition of standard clefts and pseudoclefts. 60 MC speakers across three proficiency levels and 21 EP speakers completed an acceptability judgment task (AJT) centered on EP clefts. The learners also performed an AJT of English clefts at a later time. The results suggested a scale of difficulty (standard cleft > pseudocleft > é-que cleft) in development up to advanced stages. The syntactic structure of standard clefts, essentially the left peripheral focus, could be mapped from the L2 onto the L3 lexical items before L3ers reach low-intermediate (B1), 1 while the association of a [+ focus] feature on specific L3 items appears to cause difficulty in acquiring é-que clefts until the learners reach a more advanced (C1) 2 level. The results supported a facilitating L2 effect on the acquisition of standard clefts, which contradicts predictions that would be made by L1 factor models.
... 12 Adapted from the link https://www.ebaomonthly.com/window/reading/philwest/philw_27.htm 13 As pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, "aspectual verbs and deontic modals are often considered as raising-to-subject verbs." Due to the ongoing debate on whether modals in Chinese are verbs (Lin 2011;Lin and Tang 1995;among others) or Infl categories (Hsu and Ting 2016;Huang 1982;Tang 1990;Tsai 2015), we maintain an agnostic stance on using deontic modals as raising-to-subject verbs. Regardless, aspectual and deontic verbs (in (i) and (ii) respectively) with inanimate subjects do not encounter issues with the occurrence of suo in upstairs positions. ...
X ⁰ -dependencies are known to be highly local. It has been argued that syntactic head movement can affect locality constraints. While some recent studies have revealed that verbal heads can undergo long-distance movement similar to phrasal movement, nominal categories still appear to adhere to strict locality constraints on head movement. In this context, we examine an exception, the particle suo in Mandarin Chinese, and explore its theoretical implications. We begin by showing that the X ⁰ -element suo exhibits a long dependency across every type of clausal boundary in Chinese, including finite ones. By placing suo in a typology that accommodates resumptive pronouns and Romance-type clitics, we highlight the significance of suo ’s long dependency. Next, we argue that suo forms a big-DP with the relative operator; since movement of the relative operator has satisfied the locality constraint, according to Richards’ (1998. The Principle of Minimal Compliance. Linguistic Inquiry 29. 599–629) Principle of Minimal Compliance, suo can have a long dependency on its underlying position. This discussion leads us to conclude that the original formulation of the Principle of Minimal Compliance needs reexamination regarding the true meaning of exemption. Once exemption from a locality condition is separated from movement itself, both the initial data for the PMC and the behaviors of suo are accounted for.
... In other words, fronting of the wh-element is not required for reasons of scope. We therefore reject the main alternative accounts of scope construal in wh-in situ, such as covert LF movement (e.g., Huang 1982) or covert syntactic movement with the spell-out of the lower copy at S-M (e.g., Brody 1995;Tsoulas and Yeo 2017;Seguin 2023) (cf. Bayer andCheng 2017 for an overview of analyses of scope construal in wh-in situ). ...
This paper analyzes the syntactic derivation of so-called ‘wh-doubling’, a single-constituent question-formation strategy that features the overt occurrence of two wh-phrases (e.g. kuza fa la ku’zε (lit.) ‘what does she do what?’) in North Italo-Romance. We argue that the wh-phrases involved in the construction are best treated as being generated independently by External Merge (EM), rather than being bona fide syntactic copies constructed by Internal Merge (IM). This raises the theoretical issue why IM to scope position cannot take place in wh-doubling, despite IM being more economical than EM. We propose that the wh-element merged in argumental position undergoes partial movement to the edge of the v-phase, where it becomes ‘frozen’ upon entering into a Focus configuration. This makes the derivation of wh-doubling identical to the derivation of wh-in situ up to the v-phase as recently proposed for different wh-in situ languages. The derivation of wh-doubling then proceeds by EM of an additional wh-phrase that gives phonological content to the scope Q position in the left periphery. The single-constituent reading is obtained at Conceptual-Intentional (C-I) via the operation FormCopy (FC), which connects the independently generated wh-elements in the syntactic workspace. We moreover discuss issues pertaining to parametric variation.
... And thirdly, the extractability patterns present some intricacies that are not easily compatible with the hypothesis that movement locality constraints are primarily motivated to reduce ambiguity. For instance, as noted originally by Huang (1982), complements are easier to extract from embedded interrogatives than subjects or adjuncts: However, this asymmetry does not seem to be related to ambiguity reduction. If extractability patterns were related to chain ambiguity reduction, it would be expected that subjects whPs patterned like object whPs and not like adjunct whPs. ...
This article investigates what structural ambiguity reveals about the architecture of language. It analyzes two basic types of structural ambiguity, constituent ambiguity and chain formation ambiguity, and illustrates with a small class of selected case studies how they interweave. It observes that several movement locality constraints have the effect of reducing chain formation ambiguities; however, it argues that movement locality constraints are not primarily motivated to reduce ambiguity. Finally, it defends that structural ambiguity is due to a loss of resolution at the PF branch of the language faculty.
... Its values are maximal projections (also XP) as in German die Professorin 'the professor', pronominal heads as in sie 'she' or in certain languages null when certain requirements are satisfied (e.g. Rizzi 1982, Huang 1982, Haegeman 2013 and related works). ...
In this paper, we explore quantitative and computational methods to compare two theories of locality effects in non-subject fronting in V2 environments. We test the predictions in locality effects in grammatical clauses of (i) a "bottleneck effect" model and (ii) a "standard" featural Relativized Minimality effect model. By using theory-driven frequencies, we aim to observe the generalisation ability of the two models. We explored ten morpho-syntactically annotated treebanks for seven Germanic languages and one treebank for Old French. Our results support the predictions of a model stipulating standard featural Relativized Minimality effects in non-subject fronting.
... Omission Omission is a prevalent phenomenon observed in Chinese (Huang, 1998), particularly in informal written contexts such as recipes. As shown in Figure 1, the action stir fry well (翻炒均 匀) in recipe marinated beef brisket omits its object. ...
... Zhu (1961), based on the syntactic distribution of De, proposed three kinds of De in Chinese: De 1 , a post-adverb marker, presents in the phrases such as fēicháng De 'very De'; De 2 is a post-adjective marker, such as De in tǐnghǎo De 'pretty good De'; De 3 is a nominalizer, such as chī De 'eat De' (something eatable). Further, Huang (1982) and Si (2002) regarded De C as a complementizer (similar to that in English) introducing a clause, and then a unified scheme for the four types of De above was put forward by Si (2004) Within the framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995 et seq.), Merge is the only structure building device that combines two syntactic objects at a time. ...
While children's acquisition of recursion has drawn extensive attention in the field, there is less research offering proper evidence for the uniform developmental path of linguistic recursion. To address this issue cross-linguistically, this study examines how 84 Mandarin-speaking children aged between three and six comprehend two to four-level DeP recursion through a pointing task. The results reveal that two and three-level DeP recursion is successfully generated by four-year-old children first, and then five-year-old children fully master four-level DeP recursion. The findings are consistent with the developmental route-map of Japanese children's acquisition of recursive possessives. Meanwhile, the analysis shows that the biological maturation of the recursive mechanism and the enhancement of computational efficiency of the linguistic mechanism mainly account for the step-by-step development.
... Multiple modifiers may occur preverbally, but at most one modifier may occur post-verbally. This is captured byHuang's (1982Huang's ( , 1984 constraint that "a verb in Chinese may be followed by at most one constituent, though it may be preceded by an indefinite number of constituents (including subject and adverbial modifiers)." ...
A coordinate construction is built by two basic levels of combination: a categoryless functional head is combined with a conjunct, and the result is combined with a categorizer, which is the other conjunct. The first combination is seen in all structures headed by a functional element, and the latter is seen in the categorization of a root. The same two levels of combination are also seen in a modification construction. A categoryless functional head is realized by a coordinator or a modification marker. The positions of the low and high conjunct are also those of a modifier and the modified element, respectively. Thus, neither a coordinate construction nor a modification construction has a construction-specific structural representation or functional head. This means that no coordinate construction is built by any construction-specific operation and there is no stipulated Adjunction operation. The categoryless functional head can also be found in compounds, which can also be categoryless, like single roots. 1. Introduction This paper is first about the syntactic relations between conjuncts of coordinate construction, the ways to build the construction, and the syntactic status of the components of the construction: coordinators and conjuncts. 1 Likewise, it shows the parallel syntax of modification constructions. The paper argues that coordinators and modification markers are functional elements; however, they are different from other functional elements because they have no syntactic category features. This paper also argues that in a coordinate construction, one conjunct is the complement of the coordinator, and the formed cluster must be merged with another conjunct, and the whole coordinate complex is categorized by the latter conjunct. The latter merger is also found in the categorization of roots. Therefore, there are two basic layers of merger in building a coordinate construction: complementation and categorization. This paper further argues that the same two layers of merger are seen in a modification construction, where the structural position of a coordinator can be taken by a modification marker, which is visible in languages such as Mandarin but not in languages such as English. An overt or covert modification marker is merged with a modifier, the formed cluster is merged with the modified element, and the whole construction is categorized by the modified element. Therefore, neither a coordinate construction nor a modification construction is built by any construction-specific operation, and neither has a construction-specific syntactic representation. The paper is also about the occurrence of coordinators and modification markers in compounds, extending my analysis of these two kinds of functional elements to the organization of roots in compounds. In §2, I discuss the asymmetrical relation between conjuncts, and in §3, I show the parallel syntactic relation between a modifier and the modified element. In §4, I explore the shared properties of coordinators and modification markers, proposing a unified syntactic analysis. In §5, I discuss compound-internal coordinators and modification markers. §6 concludes the paper.
This paper discusses differences between each and every with regard to (a) pair-list readings; (b) subject/object asymmetries seen with every but not with each; and (c) the long-held intuition that each is more individualistic whereas every is friendlier to groups. We propose that these phenomena can be captured by prior accounts of the Mandarin Chinese distributive universal quantifier mei. In particular, we consider the Double Variable Hypothesis (the idea that in DUQ, for every x, there must be a y) (S.-Z. Huang 1995; 1996), and the Skolemized Topicality Hypothesis (the idea that topical quantifiers are Skolemized, resulting in the required x-y pairings) (S.-Z. Huang 2022b). We argue that (a’) pair-list answers to questions with quantifiers are derivable from the Double Variable Hypothesis; (b’) the subject/object asymmetry seen in every is due to its positionally-varied association with the Double Variable Hypothesis, while each is always subject to Skolemized Topicality due to its inherent topicality; and (c’) the individualistic interpretation of each can be described as stemming from its intrinsically Skolemized topicality as well. Results from experimental works will be brought to bear on the theoretical proposals.
This paper proposes two major modifications to previous analyses of the resultative V -de construction in Mandarin Chinese. First, while -de is argued to be prepositional in nature, it is shown at the same time that -de is different from other regular prepositions in that the former, but not the latter, undergoes head movement in a resultative. To reconcile these apparently conflicting observations, we propose to treat -de as the exponent of a prepositional categorizer. Second, we argue that a small clause analysis of the resultative V -de construction is not only conceptually motivated by the Direct Object Restriction but also empirically supported by the fact that it can participate in the bǎ alternation, as with constructions that are canonically assumed to contain a small clause.
The generativist approach follows the idea that languages across the world share a common set of core abstract properties that has been named Universal Grammar (UG). Its main goal is to find generalizations among different languages, while at the same time attempting to decode the parameters that make one language differ from another. This paper seeks to add to this generativist idea by analyzing the syntactic representation of relative clauses (RC) in Cantonese, Chaoshan, Jordanian Arabic, Turkish and Spanish. By doing so, it establishes the syntactic processes and mechanisms active in the derivation of the RC construction that UG allows. More concretely, it shows that UG provides languages with two syntactic strategies to construct RCs: the head raising strategy and the head external strategy with operator move-ment or in situ. Additionally, the paper concludes that UG can offer both strategies to the same language.
This research focusing on Chinese inter-clausal subject-subject anaphora in causal relation utilizes a self-constructed corpus to test the validity of five hypotheses proposed in Chen [1]. Results demonstrate support for hypothesis 1, declaring that pronoun and zero coreference and NP and zero coreference are more common than NP and pronoun coreference and hypothesis 3 proposing that NP and zero are more common than pronoun and zero in Subject-Conjunction structure. However, hypothesis 2, which states that pronoun and zero coreference are more common than NP and zero coreference in Conjunction-Subject structure, alongside hypothesis 4, which posits that pronoun and zero would be more in Conjunction-Subject structure than in Subject-Conjunction structure and hypothesis 5, which theorizes that NP and zero would be more in Subject-Conjunction structure than in Conjunction-Subject Structure, currently lack unambiguous substantiation. For instance, zhisuoyi and ji mainly use fronted structure, while yinwei and youyu favor unfronted structure.
This paper discusses the concept of weak head in Chomsky’s (2015. Problems of projection: Extensions. In Elisa Di Domenico, Cornelia Hamann & Simona Matteini (eds.), Structures, strategies and beyond: Studies in honour of Adriana Belletti , 3–16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins) sense from a typological perspective. This paper first establishes a novel generalization that large-scale pied-piping is available in a language only if the language has indeterminate pronouns in Kuroda’s (1965. Generative grammatical studies in the Japanese language . Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology dissertation) sense and the clause to be pied-piped is head-final. To deduce this generalization, this paper first offers a labeling theoretic account of large-scale pied-piping. It then proposes that weak heads are (i) heads that have unvalued features and (ii) morpho-phonologically weak. It is shown that the generalization is deduced from this conception of weak heads, given Inaba’s (2011. The morphosyntax of constituent ordering patterns. The Hiroshima University Studies, Graduate School of Letters 71. 43–72) generalization that head-final complementizers are generally affixal. This paper further argues that the proposed conception of weak heads also allows us to deduce Agree from Minimal Search, which is a third factor principle according to Chomsky (2013. Problems of projection. Lingua 130. 33–49), hence minimizes UG.
Mandarin Chinese, along with Japanese, Yorùbá, Mòoré, and Samoan, has been argued to lack ‘degree abstraction’, a configuration at LF involving lambda abstraction over a degree variable. These languages are claimed to have a negative setting for a hypothesized ‘Degree Abstraction Parameter’. Recent work, however, has argued for degree abstraction in Japanese and Yorùbá, and degree abstraction has been detected in a number of additional languages. Could it in fact be universal? Here, we focus on the case of Mandarin, and argue that Mandarin has degree abstraction too. We offer three arguments in favor of degree abstraction in Mandarin, based on attributive comparatives, comparatives with embedded predicates, and scope interactions with modals. We also rebut prior arguments for the lack of degree abstraction in Mandarin, considering degree questions, measure phrases, and negative island effects. Taken together, these results show that degree abstraction is not a parameter along which Mandarin and English vary, and suggest rather that degree abstraction may be universally available.
O intuito com esta obra é duplo: divulgar parte dos resultados das pesquisas realizadas pelo PRELIN nesses últimos 30 anos, congregando antigos e novos pesquisadores que integram o Programa, bem como pesquisadores parceiros e colaboradores, e contribuir para o avanço do debate linguístico acerca dos fenômenos tratados nos textos aqui reunidos. A obra se destina a pesquisadores, estudantes de pós-graduação, estudantes de graduação e professor das Educação Básica interessados na descrição e explicação de fenômenos linguísticos relacionados à gramática e à aquisição das línguas naturais.
O intuito com esta obra é duplo: divulgar parte dos resultados das pesquisas realizadas pelo PRELIN nesses últimos 30 anos, congregando antigos e novos pesquisadores que integram o Programa, bem como pesquisadores parceiros e colaboradores, e contribuir para o avanço do debate linguístico acerca dos fenômenos tratados nos textos aqui reunidos. A obra se destina a pesquisadores, estudantes de pós-graduação, estudantes de graduação e professor das Educação Básica interessados na descrição e explicação de fenômenos linguísticos relacionados à gramática e à aquisição das línguas naturais.
This paper investigates the L2 acquisition of Spanish object drop by advanced learners whose L1s are English and Brazilian Portuguese, in order to assess effects on their knowledge of the interpretable and uninterpretable features conditioning the realization of object drop in their L2 Spanish. Object drop in Spanish is subject to semantic restrictions related to definiteness and specificity, as well as syntactic restrictions related to subjacency. Current debates about second language acquisition (SLA) have led to different hypotheses. On the one hand, the Interpretability Hypothesis /IH (Hawkins, Roger & Hajime Hattori. 2006. Interpretation of English multiple wh -questions by Japanese speakers: A missing uninterpretable feature account. Second Language Research 22. 269–301) claims that uninterpretable features will not be completely acquired. On the other hand, the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis /FRH (Hwang, Sun Hee & Donna Lardiere. 2013. Plural-marking in L2 Korean: A feature-based approach. Second Language Research 29. 57–86; Lardiere, Donna. 2009. Some thoughts on the contrastive analysis of features in second language acquisition. Second Language Research 25. 173–227) does not distinguish between interpretable and uninterpretable features for the purposes of SLA, arguing that the difficulty of the acquisition task hinges on the required amount of feature reassembly from the L1 to the L2 lexicon. Finally, the Full Transfer/Full Access (FT/FA) (Schwartz, Bonnie & Rex Sprouse. 1996. L2 cognitive states and the Full Transfer/Full Access model. Second Language Research 12. 40–72; Schwartz, Bonnie & Rex Sprouse. 2000. When syntactic theories evolve: Consequences for L2 acquisition research. In John Archibald (ed.), Second language acquisition and linguistic theory , 156–186. Malden, MA: Blackwell; White, Lydia. 2003. Second language acquisition and universal grammar . New York: Cambridge University Press) hypothesis treats SLA as equivalent to first-language acquisition, in terms of the potential for ultimate attainment. Both the FT/FA and the FRH are in principle compatible with full attainment in L2 acquisition. To assess these hypotheses, this study tests the L2 acquisition of the semantic and syntactic restrictions on Spanish object drop by learners whose L1 either lacks widespread object drop (English), or has regular object drop but realizes it differently from Spanish (Brazilian Portuguese). The Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis seems to best explain the results of the two experiments.
Despite extensive research on the ba -construction in Chinese, the diachronic change in the alternation between the ba and jiang constructions has received little attention. The present study takes a multifactorial approach to examine the factors that probabilistically condition the alternation based on diachronic data across twelve centuries. The results suggest two general trends. First, the odds of the ba -construction have increased over time at the expense of the jiang -construction. Second, over time, the effect size of the significant preference for the jiang -construction in informal genres has reduced from the 10th to the 19th century, and this preference has disappeared in modern times; accordingly, both informal and formal genres have converged to favor the ba -construction in modern times. Regression modeling also shows that there are both stable linguistic constraints (parallelism/syntactic priming, verb type, NP2 animacy, and NP2 length) and fluid constraints (adjunct semantics, and genre). This study advances our knowledge of the two disposal constructions and their evolution, sheds light on the Principle of No Synonymy (Bolinger, Dwight. 1977. Meaning and form . New York: Longman; Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Goldberg, Adele E. 2002. Surface generalizations: An alternative to alternations. Cognitive Linguistics 13(4). 327–356), and makes a methodological contribution to the empirical testing of hypotheses. It can also provide insight into grammatical alternations in Mandarin.
The aim of this paper is to highlight certain similarities between Polish and Bulgarian with respect to the selected NP/DP criteria compiled by Bošković (2012. On NPs and clauses. In Günther Grewendorf & Thomas Ede Zimmermann (eds.), Discourse and grammar: From sentence types to lexical categories , 179–242. Berlin: De Gruyter). In the course of the discussion, Negative Raising with idioms and quantifier – negation interaction, definite/indefinite contrasts in the context of sub-extraction, as well as exhaustive presupposition are taken into consideration. On the basis of the data, I put forward an analysis of the Polish facts which draws upon Tasseva-Kurktchieva and Dubinsky’s (2018. On the NP/DP frontier: Bulgarian as a transitional case. In Steven Franks, Virinda Chidambaram, Brian Joseph & Ilyana Krapova (eds.), Studies in Bulgarian Morphosyntax in Honor of Catherine Rudin , 287–312. Bloomington, IN: Slavica) account of the DEF(initeness) feature on the D head (which they use to argue for Bulgarian as a ‘weak’ DP language). Despite certain similarities between the two languages, Polish actually seems to resemble English in terms of the specific coding of this feature. The analysis suggests that (unlike in Bulgarian) DEF on D in Polish is not intrinsically valued (+int, +val), but rather receives a specific value in the course of the syntactic derivation.
This thesis presents an empirically oriented investigation into Mandarin-Chinese control and complementation. It provides an in-depth systematic classification of Chinese matrix predicates based on their control and complementation properties. The classification draws on a range of diagnostics, including cross-linguistically valid ones and language-specific ones. Besides incorporating corpus data, the study has adopted sentence-acceptability experiments followed by mixed-effects statistical analyses to test a subset of linguistic generalisations. The obtained empirical patterns are modelled within the parallel constraint-based architecture of Lexical-Functional Grammar, which is augmented by Glue Semantics and Partial Compositional Discourse Representation Theory to address issues at syntax-semantics-discourse interfaces. The empirical chapters (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) focus on the control and complementation properties of the following lexical-semantic verb classes: aspectual, attitudinal, comitative, commissive, communication, desiderative, directive/permissive, factive, implicative, interrogative, and situational. Chapter 2 focuses on developing five types of linguistic diagnostics: (i) complementation diagnostics, which reveal phrasal structures, grammatical relations, and predicate-argument relations; (ii) coreferentiality diagnostics, which distinguish various control properties (e.g., obligatory, non-obligatory, exhaustive, partial, split, implicit, unconstrained); (iii) clausehood diagnostics; (iv) diagnostics for identifying the distribution of future modals (hui and yao) and aspectual markers (-le and -guo) in the complement clause, which has implications for a finiteness distinction for the complement clause; (v) diagnostics for revealing correlational relationships between control properties and two displacement phenomena -- inner topicalisation and focus fronting. Chapter 3 applies these five types of diagnostics systematically to every verb in the data set, resulting in detailed empirical classifications. The chapter also addresses issues related to finiteness, which is approached as a relative notion of semantic dependency in Chinese. Sentence-acceptability experiments, followed by cumulative link mixed-effects statistical analyses, have been adopted to test the generalisations related to inner topicalisation and focus fronting. The theoretical chapters (Chapter 4 and Chapter 5) focus on formal-language modelling. Chapter 4 addresses control relations at syntax-semantics-discourse interfaces by integrating Lexical-Functional Grammar with Glue Semantics and Partial Compositional Discourse Representation Theory. The discussion leads to a refined typology of model-theoretic control mechanisms, adding novel sub-types to the existing literature. Furthermore, the chapter addresses modelling complexities related to different classes of equi, partial-control variants, and (partial) copy control. Chapter 5 provides a formally explicit analysis for inner topicalisation and focus fronting, capturing their correlation with control and complementation properties. It also contributes to the modelling of restructuring effects and shows how restructuring constraints interact with other constraints in the formal grammar.
The main goal of this work is to offer an analysis concerning the distribution of Sentential final particles (SFP) in Mandarin Chinese in terms of the Symmetric Syntax formulated by Narita and Fukui (2022). We propose two alternatives of deriving the linear order of SFP that can satisfy the requirement of constructing Feature-Equilibrium (F-Equi), which is argued to play a significant role in narrow syntax computation by Narita and Fukui: (i) to construct {proposition}-equilibrium; (ii) to construct {k, R}-equilibrium.
The object of inquiry in linguistics is the human ability to acquire and use a natural language, and the goal of linguistic theory is an explicit characterization of that ability. Looking at the communicative abilities of other species, it becomes clear that our linguistic ability is specific to our species, undoubtedly a product of our biology. But how do we go about determining the specifics of this Language faculty? There are two primary ways in which we infer the nature of Language from the properties of individual languages: arguments from the POVERTY OF THE STIMULUS, and the search for universals that characterize every natural language. Arguments of the first sort are not easy to construct (though not as difficult as sometimes suggested), and apply only to a tiny part of Language as a whole. Arguments from universals or typological generalizations are also quite problematic. In phonology, morphology, and syntax, factors of historical development, functional underpinnings, and limitations of the learning situation, among others, conspire to compromise the explanatory value of arguments from observed crosslinguistic regularities. Confounding the situation is the likelihood that properties found across languages as a consequence of such external forces have been incorporated into the Language faculty evolutionarily through the BALDWIN EFFECT. The conflict between the biologically based specificity of the human Language faculty and the difficulty of establishing most of its properties in a secure way cannot, however, be avoided by ignoring or denying the reality of either of its poles.*
Rodman (1976) makes the extremely interesting and attractive proposal that quantifier scope relationships are governed by the constraints that Ross (1967) proposed for certain movement and other syntactic transformations. Similar proposals have been made by Postal (1974) and Fauconnier (1975). Such claims are of great interest to linguists since potentially they not only identify semantic properties of natural languages which distinguish them from formal languages (thereby helping to characterize that subset of all possible languages which is the set of possible natural languages) but they also point the way towards a unified account of certain characteristics of both the syntax and semantics of natural languages. In this paper I shall examine Rodman’s proposal in the light of a Montague approach to the interpretation of transformational syntaxes. I shall restrict my attention mainly to the complex NP constraint with respect to relative clauses, but I believe that my remarks will generalize to other types of complex NP and also to cases involving the sentential subject constraint. I shall suggest that some rather obvious apparent counterexamples can, in fact, be explained away and I shall point out some examples where it seems extremely difficult to tell whether there is a reading associated with the sentence which would provide a counterexample.
This article explores the ramifications of an analysis of disjoint reference for the theory of core grammar.1 The analysis we will adopt accounts for coreference possibilities between pronouns and Wh-traces and, following May (1981), also provides an explanation for the COMP-to-COMP condition on Wh-Movement of Chomsky (1973). The central assumption of the analysis — that Wh-trace binding is exempt from the Propositional Island Condition (PIC) and the Specified Subject Condition (SSC) — allows for a simplification of the theories of binding and indexing, and also provides an argument that the Subjacency Condition is properly interpreted as a condition on representations rather than a condition on derivations.2
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In 1957, the Polish logician Andrej Mostowski pointed out that there are many mathematically interesting quantifiers that are not definable in terms of the first-order ∀, ∃ and initiated study of so-called generalized quantifiers (cf. Mostowski, 1957). Since then logicians have discovered and studied a large number of generalized quantifiers. At last count there were well over 200 research papers in this area. Most of this work has been directed toward cardinality quantifiers (e.g. Keisler, 1969) and topological quantifiers (e.g. Sgro, 1977) which are not particularly relevant to natural language, but even so, it has forced logicians to rethink the traditional theory of quantification.
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On extractability from quasi-NPs
- R Cattell
Cattell, R. (1979) On extractability from quasi-NPs, Linguistic 'Inquiry 10.1
Linguistic Inquiry 10.1. The category AUX in uni-Aoun On government, Case-marking, and clitic placement
- A Akmajian
- S Steele
- T Wasow
Akmajian, A., S. Steele and T. Wasow (1979) versa1grammar, Linguistic Inquiry 10.1. The category AUX in uni-Aoun, J. (1979) On government, Case-marking, and clitic placement, mimeographed, MIT
~ o l a r i t y ' a n y is existentialA Grammar 6f Spoken Chinese
- G Carlson
Carlson, G. 11.4. (1980) ~ o l a r i t y ' a n y is existential, Linguistic Inquiry Chao, Y. R. (1968) 'A Grammar 6f Spoken Chinese, University of California Press, Berkeley, California