4. Precategoriality and argument structure in Late Archaic Chinese

2008 ◽  
pp. 55-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Bisang
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese

scholarly journals A semantic analysis of modal DE 得 in pre-modern Chinese

Lingua Sinica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Barbara Meisterernst
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Semantic Constraints ◽  
Auxiliary Verbs ◽  
Modal Verb ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
Auxiliary Verb ◽  
Sinitic Languages

Abstract In this paper, the lexical semantics of the pre-modal verb 得 dé and its development into a modal auxiliary will be discussed. Two different positions are available for the modal dé, the default preverbal position of modal auxiliary verbs and a post-verbal position. The analysis of the event and the argument structure of the lexical verb dé reveals that the different modal uses of dé originate from its functions as an achievement verb. In this regard, dé clearly differs from the other verbs of possibility in Late Archaic Chinese. The particular syntacto-semantic constraints of dé can account for its development into both a modal auxiliary verb, and for the particular functions it develops in the Modern Sinitic languages as a postverbal modal marker.

Precategoriality and syntax-based parts of speech

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 568-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Bisang
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Remarkable Property ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Universal Feature ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
Lexical Items

Late Archaic Chinese is a precategorial language, i.e., a language whose lexical items are not preclassified in the lexicon for the syntactic functions of N and V. This will be shown on the basis of structural-conceptual criteria as those developed by Croft (2000) and Sasse (1993b) as well as on the basis of methodological criteria as those suggested by Evans & Osada (2005). As is claimed in Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2005), the meaning of lexical items is derived by integrating their own lexical meaning with the meaning contributed by the construction. The construction analysed in this paper is the argument structure construction. Linking between lexicon and syntax is subject to stereotypical pragmatic implicatures (Levinson 2000) that follow a version of the animacy hierarchy. As it will turn out, Late Archaic Chinese does not strictly lack parts of speech. In fact, without the distinction of nouns and verbs at the level of syntax it would not be possible to analyse utterances in Late Archaic Chinese. The only thing that Late Archaic Chinese can do without is noun/verb distinction in the lexicon. This typologically remarkable property is due to a process of morphological change. If such a historical process can take place irrespective of parts-of-speech distinctions, precategoriality in the lexicon cannot be a robust universal feature even if most theoretical approaches take it for granted.

scholarly journals Wh-P and the Intervention Effect of negation

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-36
Author(s):  
Aiqing Wang
Keyword(s):  
Head Position ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Binding Theory ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Intervention Effect ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Inverted Order ◽  
Government And Binding Theory ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
The Government

Following the Government and Binding theory mainly developed by Chomsky (1981, 1982, 1986), I explore wh-P and the Intervention Effect of negation in Late Archaic Chinese (LAC). I propose that the inverted order of wh-P in LAC is generated via PP inversion followed by the separate preposing of wh and P. The wh-complement raises to [Spec, PP] and further moves to the specifier position of a functional projection. If the wh-PP is base-generated preverbally, the preposition moves to the head position of the functional projection directly; if the wh-PP is base-generated postverbally, the preposition must first incorporate to a V0 and then move to the head position of the functional projection through excorporation. In terms of the Intervention Effect, wh-arguments and adverbials that usually move to the Low focus position below negation are subject to a blocking effect caused by negation, so these wh-phrases have to land in the High focus position above negation which is expected to accommodate ‘high’ adverbials exclusively. I argue that the Intervention Effect in LAC is a consequence of Q-binding as feature movement of [wh], interacting with fronting into the hierarchy of clause-internal positions driven by [Focus] feature.

ANALYSE SYNTAXIQUE DES EXPRESSIONS QUANTITATIVES EN CHINOIS ARCHAIQUE

1993 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-237
Author(s):  
Drocourt Zhitang
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese

Based upon a systematic investigation of the data, this article demonstrates that the appearance of a new structure "numeral + measure + noun" in Late Archaic Chinese does not result from a change in word order as most syntactic studies propose, but rather from semantic restrictions that develop with the evolution of the language. In quantitative expressions, the prenominal or postnominal position of the numeral assumes a distinct function that one must analyze as modifier and predicate respectively.

Possibility and necessity and the scope of negation in Early Middle Chinese

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Barbara Meisterernst
Keyword(s):  
Functional Domain ◽  
Upward Movement ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
General Process ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
Archaic Chinese

Abstract This paper provides a classification of modal verbs of possibility and necessity in Late Archaic and Early Middle Chinese based on an analysis of their scopal features with respect to negation. It shows that circumstantial readings and deontic readings are interpreted in two different syntactic positions which can be determined by the scope of negation following the cartographic approach proposed in Tsai (2008, 2015) and the proposal of Cormack and Smith (2002) of a Polarity Head, which constitutes a syntactic divide of the domain of necessity modals from the domain of circumstantial modals. Our analysis of the scope of negation demonstrates that the deontic interpretation of possibility modals requires their upward movement from the lexical to the functional domain as part of the grammaticalization process from pre-modal lexical verbs to modal auxiliaries of different functions in Modern Mandarin. In Early Middle Chinese, negated modal verbs of possibility start to replace the synthetic modal negators of Archaic Chinese as part of the general process of analyticization of Chinese. We also show that the only true necessity modals in Late Archaic Chinese belong to the category of circumstantial modals due to their scopal features when they are negated.

Some Observations On a Grammar of Late Archaic Chinese

T oung Pao ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-286
Author(s):  
N.G.D. Malmqvist
Keyword(s):  
Late Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese

Object relative clauses in Archaic Chinese

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Aldridge
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Archaic Chinese ◽  
Genitive Case ◽  
Object Relative

AbstractThis article proposes that Late Archaic Chinese object relative clauses were reduced relative clauses consisting of a TP dominated by DP. They contained a functional morpheme suo, which attracted an operator to the edge of the vP before moving to T in order to provide T with an [N] feature that could be selected by D. The embedded subject moved to the specifier of the nominalized T, where it valued genitive case with D under Agree. The reduced nature of SUO relative clauses accounts for the fact that a unique strategy was required for relativization on VP-internal positions, as opposed to subject position, since the lack of a CP layer denied the clause a uniform landing site for operators originating internal and external to vP. This analysis also accounts for the loss of the relativization asymmetry by correlating it with the loss of nominalizing morphology such as genitive case.

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