Issues in the Argument Structure of Mandarin Chinese

163 Pages·2015·0.74 MB·English

by  Zenghong Jia

ISSUES IN THEARGUMENTSTRUCTURE OFMANDARINCHINESE
by
ZenghongJia
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial
fulfillmentoftherequirementsforthedegreeofDoctorofPhilosophyinLinguistics
Fall 2015
(cid:13)c 2015 ZenghongJia
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ISSUES IN THEARGUMENTSTRUCTURE OFMANDARINCHINESE
by
ZenghongJia
Approved:
BenjaminBruening, Ph.D.
ChairoftheDepartmentofLinguisticsandCognitiveScience
Approved:
GeorgeH. Watson,Ph.D.
Dean oftheCollegeofArtsand Science
Approved:
AnnL. Ardis,Ph.D.
InterimViceProvostforGraduateand ProfessionalEducation
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the aca-
demicand professionalstandard required bytheUniversityas adissertationforthe
degreeofDoctorofPhilosophy.
Signed:
Benjamin Bruening,Ph.D.
Professorin chargeofdissertation
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the aca-
demicand professionalstandard required bytheUniversityas adissertationforthe
degreeofDoctorofPhilosophy.
Signed:
Satoshi Tomioka,Ph.D.
Memberofdissertationcommittee
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the aca-
demicand professionalstandard required bytheUniversityas adissertationforthe
degreeofDoctorofPhilosophy.
Signed:
Peter Cole, Ph.D.
Memberofdissertationcommittee
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the aca-
demicand professionalstandard required bytheUniversityas adissertationforthe
degreeofDoctorofPhilosophy.
Signed:
HaihuaPan, Ph.D.
Memberofdissertationcommittee
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Iam immenselyindebtedto all fourmembers ofmy dissertationcommittee,without
whosekindhelpthisdissertationwouldnothavebeenpossible. BenjaminBruening,myad-
visorand chairofthecommittee,has read each draft ofthisdissertationand givenmemany
insightfulsuggestionsforimprovement. Ithankhimforalwaysfindingtimetomeetanden-
couragingmeto digdeeper intotheissues. SatoshiTomiokahas givenmealotofhelp with
the semantic analyses and generously shared with me his thoughts on the Inalienable Pos-
sessionConstructionsinKoreanwhichisadirectinspirationformyanalysisoftheExternal
Possession Constructions in Mandarin. Peter Cole gaveme many invaluablecomments that
helped me clarify the cross-linguistic significance of my theory, especially my analysis of
the A-not-A questions. Haihua Pan raised important questions and brought to my attention
Mandarinexamplesthatare directlyrelevantforimprovingmyanalysis.
I also want to thank the Delaware linguisticcommunity. I am especially indebted to
Renee Dong, Yuqian Ding, Huan Luo, Xiaole Sun and Jiao Wang for always being avail-
able to discuss the Mandarin sentences with me. For discussions on languages other than
Mandarin (although some did not make it to this dissertation), I thank David Rubio, Manex
Agirrezabal,JustinRill,YugyeongParkandJooyoungKim. IamalsoindebtedtoMaryEllen
Cathcart for comments on an early draft of the chapter on A-not-A questions and Amanda
Payneforproofreading.
I am also grateful to Jane Creswell for her administrative work and kind help since
thedayIarrived inNewark.
Last but not least, my thanks go to my family. I thank my husband Ontario Lau for
his patience, love and unfailing support. I thank my parents, Zhenhua Jia and Xiuqin Dai,
foralways havingconfidencein meand allowingmetobeas ambitiousas Iwant.
iv
TABLE OFCONTENTS
ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Chapter
1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 TheoriesofArgumentStructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 A-not-AQuestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 TheBei-Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 TheExternal PossessionConstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 TheStructure ofThisDissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 A-NOT-A QUESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Factsand PreviousAnalyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.1 Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.2 DistributionofAdjuncts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.3 IndefiniteObjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2.4 Quantified NPs as Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 TheAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.1 Reduplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.2 TheNegativeMorpheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.3.3 CompositionalSemantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4 EvidenceForand AgainstMovement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.5 ExplainingtheFacts thatSeem toImplicateMovement . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.5.1 DistributionofAdjuncts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
v
2.5.2 IndefiniteNPs as Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
2.5.3 Quantifiers as Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.5.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
2.6 Cross-LinguisticVariationinA-not-A Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3 THE BEI-CONSTRUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.2 A-MovementAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.3 EvidenceforA-Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.3.1 A-MovementAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.3.2 AccountingfortheFacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.3.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.4 PreviousAnalyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.4.1 Long Bei-Constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.4.2 Short Bei-Constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.4.3 TheSubject ofBei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
3.4.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.5 AnalysisofBei-ConstructionswithPronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.5.1 TheAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
3.5.2 AccountingfortheFacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.5.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4 THE EXTERNAL POSSESSION CONSTRUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.2 TwoTypes ofExternal Possession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.3 TheAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
4.3.1 EPCs inBei-Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.3.2 Part-WholeEPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.3.3 Losing-EventEPC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.3.4 ExtendingtheAnalysisto OtherLanguages . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
vi
4.3.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.4 OtherExternal PossessionConstructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4.4.1 ThePossessiveUnaccusativeConstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4.4.2 ThePossessiveBa-Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.4.3 TheSource DoubleObjectConstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.4.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
5 CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
vii
ABSTRACT
In this dissertation, I investigate the argument structure of Mandarin Chinese with a
focus on the syntactic heads that introduce non-core arguments of the sentence. Three con-
structionsinvolvingsuch syntacticheads are examined in detail: the A-not-A questions,the
Bei-Constructions and the External Possession Constructions. I show that three syntactic
argument-introducing heads are involved. The beneficiary/locative/instrumental adjunct in-
volvesasyntactichead belowVoicePand aboveVP, whichcan bepronounced;theExternal
Possession Construction also involves a syntactic head below VoiceP and aboveVP, but the
syntactic head does not have any phonological content. The Bei-Construction differs from
theprevioustwoconstructionsinthat ithasan argument-introducinghead (aboveVoicePor
PassP)and ispronouncedas bei.
viii
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Theories ofArgument Structure
Argument structure refers to how lexical items realize their arguments. The lexical
item is typically a verb, but can also be an adjective or a preposition. In the English phrase
ate an apple, for instance, the verb ate takes an apple as an internal argument. In the theo-
reticalframeworkofGovernmentandBinding,theinternalargument,anapple,issaidtobe
selected as acomplementby ate. Thisis formallyrepresented bythetreestructurein(1).
(1) VP
V NP
ate
an apple
NativespeakersofEnglishknowthattheinformationinateanappleisnotcomplete
because it is unknown who ate the apple. In traditional grammar, (1) is said to be lacking
a subject, or ”external argument” in the terminology of generative grammar. The external
argument was once believed to be associated with the verb. And the sentence John ate an
appletakes theformin (2).
(2) VP
NP V
John V NP
ate
an apple
Recent linguistics theories have made a lot of advancements in the understanding of
the argument structure in the world’s languages. For instance, many linguists observe that
1