类型学视角下汉语的双系式结构

抽象 类型学发现，典型的双系式（applicative）结构将宾语（直接宾语或间接宾语）这个句法角色指派给一个本来不能作宾语的项，见于很多语言。本文证明汉语中以下结构都是类型学中所谓的“双系式”：在共时层面，有普通话中的“吃食堂”结构，自陆俭明、郭锐（1998）提出以来，有诸多学者从不同角度对其进行了研究；在历时层面，上古汉语中有名词（性结构）直接作补语和介词短语作补语交替的现象。汉语虽然是典型的孤立语，（几乎）没有判断双系式的形态依据，但这些结构在语义-句法层面表现出了双系式结构的基本特点，是完全可以归类为双系式结构的。这一结论也为类型学的动词配价（valency）研究打开了新思路，即在以往对于动词配价研究更侧重形态标准的基础上，也应参考句法行为特征（syntactic behavior），这对于研究汉语类的孤立语的动词配价操作尤其重要。

On Middle applicatives

The Mandarin bǎ-construction has been one of the most well studied subjects in Chinese grammar. Although the previous studies have achieved some exciting results, the exact nature of bǎ and the syntactic derivation of the bǎ-construction remain largely controversial. The current paper constitutes an attempt to clarify the two issues under the minimalist framework. In particular, while keeping in line with the little v analysis of bǎ proposed by Sybesma 1999; Lin 2001 among others, I argue that there is a Middle applicative projection (an affected applicative) between V and v; the bǎ-NP is formed by a movement of VP-internal arguments to Spec.ApplPmid, which can optionally be occupied by gěi, and it gets an accusative Case from bǎ in v. With this analysis, we can better account for the core syntactic and semantic properties of bǎ-constructions. Furthermore, I will show that the proposed applicative approach has some interesting consequences for Taiwanese ka-constructions, a near counterpart of Mandarin bǎ-constructions. Finally, I will compare bǎ-constructions to languages with differential object marking in arguing that Mandarin uses a special strategy – light verb marking to mark the specific/affected objects.

On indefinite subjects in Mandarin

This study investigates the licensing conditions and interpretational variability of indefinite subjects in Mandarin. Against the ‘definiteness’ constraint of subject in Mandarin (Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981), three types of indefinite subjects are identified in the subject position, but they exhibit different scope behaviors: (i) you-nominals are ambiguous between a wide scope and a narrow scope, and (ii) thetic subjects are narrow-scope taking, and (iii) ‘cardinal’ subjects are scopeless. Following Cohen and Erteschik-Shir (2002), we propose that the former two types of indefinite subjects are focus elements and they fall into the position of nuclear scope, where they receive an existential interpretation, and cardinal subjects are topics and they serve as restrictor to some generic operator. Moreover, the wide/narrow scope readings of you-nominals are distinguished from each other in terms of whether a topic domain is available or not, which may serve a domain restrictor to the existential quantifier bound to you-nominals (Portner 2002).

A cartographic approach to sentence production in aphasia

There is much evidence that individuals with aphasia (IWA) are impaired in tense or aspectual inflections and the production of non-canonical sentences like passives. On the Cartographic Approach (CA), passives are represented at the lower node in the syntactic tree, with tense or aspectual elements at the higher node. This hierarchical structure can be used to account for the selective impairments in aphasic production. The present study reports the empirical findings from Chinese agrammatism using the theory of cartography. It is found that the performance of IWA with different degrees of severity is associated with different nodes (CP, TP, and vP) in the syntactic tree. Notably, the Chinese-speaking IWA are severely impaired in vP-related elements. Finally, the present study highlights the significance of adopting a cartographic approach to aphasia studies.

On Sino-Turkic verbal functional expressions

Turkic conquest and rule of China since 386 CE for nearly two hundred years had exerted its profound and long-lasting influence on many levels of Chinese society. Turkic sinification policy had induced the Xianbei National Language (XNL), which was Turkic language with selected set of Chinese characters for phonetic spelling. XNL, being spelt in Chinese characters, managed to function in Turkic-Chinese code-mixing in the bilingual communities as evidenced in bianwen 變文. Because of the Turkic politico-socio-economical dominance, some the Turkic elements in the code-mixing eventually gained prominance and have become permanent part of the northern vernacular, predecessor of modern Mandarin. This paper discusses twelve such Turkic-rooted verbal functional expressions: (1). The causative-passive qu 取; (2). Transitive passive sha 殺, sha 煞, si 死; (3). Causative dou 鬥, dou 逗; (4). Continuative hai 還, que 卻; (5). Resultative que 卻; (6). Reflexive nə 呢 (7). Positive indirective mo shi 莫是; (8). Negative indirective bu dao 不道; (9). Future participle cai 才, cai 纔; (10). Conditional yao shi 要是, yao 要, yao bu shi 要不是; (11). INDUCE-base nong 弄; (12). The speech quote verb dao 道.

Acquisition of null objects in Mandarin Chinese by heritage speakers

The acquisition of the grammatical knowledge related to inflectional morphology and syntax-pragmatics interface have both been shown to be challenging for heritage speakers (e.g., Montrul et al. 2008; Polinsky 2006, 2008; Sorace et al. 2009; Montrul 2009; Benmamoun et al. 2013a; Laleko & Polinsky 2016). In these previous work on heritage language acquisition, the acquisition of inflectional morphology (e.g. either agreement morphology or topic marking) is also a relevant acquisition task associated with the syntax-discourse phenomena under investigation. In this paper we focus on the acquisition of discourse-conditioned structures by heritage speakers when inflectional morphology is not part of the learning task. Specifically, we report results of a picture-verification experiment focusing on English-dominant heritage Chinese speakers’ grammatical knowledge of null objects. As a topic-prominent language lacking verbal tense/agreement morphology, the licensing and identification of null arguments in Chinese has nothing to do with agreement morphology. In addition, unlike other topic-prominent pro-drop languages, Chinese has no inflectional morphology associated with grammatical subjects/objects and topic phrases. Without the interference of co-occurring inflectional morphology, we found that there is no significant difference between heritage Chinese speakers and the monolingual baseline in their acceptance of null objects in contextually appropriate contexts. The results of our study cast doubt on the thesis that heritage speakers are unable to acquire discourse-related knowledge (cf. Sorace & Serratrice 2009; Laleko 2010; Laleko & Polinsky 2016) and support Yuan’s (2010) claim that interface categories should not be considered holistically.

The syntax of Mandarin dative alternation

This paper investigates the syntax of dative constructions (DCs) in Mandarin from the perspective of quantifier scope interpretation. In the literature, doubly quantified DCs such as Xiaoming ji-le yi-zhang mingxinpian gei mei-yi-wei laoshi ‘Xiaoming mailed one postcard to every teacher’ have been claimed to be scopally ambiguous, and different syntactic analyses have been proposed based on this observation. Crucially, however, DCs with the universal direct object (DO) preceding the existential indirect object (IO), e.g., Xiaoming ji-le mei-yi-zhang mingxinpian gei yi-wei laoshi ‘Xiaoming mailed every postcard to one teacher’, appear to be not ambiguous, where only the existential IO seems to take wide scope. This problem, which we call the dative puzzle, has not been systematically explored, either theoretically or experimentally. To fill this gap, we conducted an experiment on the scope interpretation of dative sentences in Mandarin, which confirms the above observation. A syntactic analysis for Mandarin DCs is proposed accordingly, where it is argued that (i) DCs share the same underlying structure with shift constructions (SCs) of the form [Subj V-gei IO DO], both containing a causative vP embedded under an action verb (cf. Cheng et al. 1999); (ii) the surface form of a DC is derived by an optional, vP-internal scrambling of the DO from the lowest complement position to an adjunct position; and (iii) such scrambling does not affect scope interpretation. Our proposal suggests that, insofar as inherently ditransitive verbs are concerned, Mandarin DCs and SCs are derivationally related, and the observed dative puzzle is shown to follow from the structural hierarchy of the advocated base syntax of DCs.

Revisiting donkey anaphora in Mandarin Chinese

In their article published in this journal, Pan and Jiang (2015) challenge the claims and proposals made in Cheng and Huang (1996) concerning both the distributional patterns and interpretive strategies for donkey anaphora in Mandarin conditional. They claim that all three types of conditionals (rúguǒ-, dōu- and bare conditionals) allow either a wh-phrase or a pronoun in the consequent clause, and that both the wh-phrase and the pronoun may be either unselectively bound or interpreted by the E-type strategy. We show that, except for an observation already mentioned and accommodated in Cheng and Huang’s (1996) analysis of rúguǒ-conditionals, their distributional claims are incorrect. It is also shown that the interpretative flexibility they propose is untenable, as it leaves a number of otherwise well-predicted properties unaccounted for.

Aspectual particles and event types in TSM

The paper investigates the syntactic behavior and semantic constraints of four types of aspectual particles (1) 夭 iau2 / 夭故 iau2koh4 ‘still’, (2) 已經 i2king1 ‘already’, (3) 夭未 iau2be7 ‘not…yet’, and (4) 毋 m7 /無 bo5 /勿 mai3 /免 bien2 故 koh4 ‘not…any more’ in Taiwanese Southern Min (TSM). In line with Löbner (1989) it examines the interaction between aspectual particles and event types. The four types of aspectual particles can be better captured in terms of the notion of two consecutive event types: event 1 (Ev1) and event 2 (Ev2) coupled with the value of existence and non-existence of a situation symbolized by [+] and [−]. Type 1 and 3 share the common element 夭 iau2 and Type 1 and 4, the common element 故 koh4 . Whereas not…yet and still in English show no lexical relationship, such a relationship is tangible in TSM and German, as in 夭未 iau2be7 still not ‘not…yet’ and 夭 iau2 ‘still’, on the one hand, and noch nicht still not ‘not…yet’ and noch ‘still’, on the other. Parametric variation matters in dealing with language universal. Like still in English, 夭 iau2 or its compound kin 夭故 iau2koh4 ‘still’ develops the non-aspectual additive and even concessive sense.