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How things become red in Mandarin Chinese? A case study of deadjectival change of state predicates
(2023)
This paper provides an HPSG analysis for the morphosyntax and the semantics of deadjectival change of state (CoS) verbs in Mandarin Chinese. We first show that adjectives are a distinct word class from verbs in Mandarin Chinese and argue for the derivation of CoS verbs from property concept adjectives. We then model this derivation with a lexical rule. Finally, since CoS verbs can be combined with another verb to form a resultative verb compound (RVC) to express caused CoS, we also propose a lexical rule to account for RVCs.
This paper considers Chinese quantifier scope, an important, outstanding area of Chinese linguistics. In particular, there are two open questions on the subject: (1) the guiding principles that determine (a) the scopal readings of quantifiers and (b) the sometimes mandatory co-occurrence of the universal quantifier mei (every) and the universal adverb dou, and (2) the semantic functions of mei and dou and their connection to the co-occurrence of these words.
We reappraise three prior accounts of these subjects, reason through their consequences on some exemplary data, offer a new explanation based upon concord, a mechanism that is commonplace in many languages, and formulate it in lexical resource semantics (LRS). We use two principles adapted from Richter and Sailer's (2004) analysis of negative concord, expanded with a new quantifier order constraint to generate a coherent answer to the two aforementioned questions.
Computational Grammars can be adapted to detect ungrammatical sentences, effectively transforming them into error detection (or correction) systems. In this paper we provide a theoretical account of how to adapt implemented HPSG grammars for grammatical error detection. We discuss how a single ungrammatical input can be reconstructed in multiple ways and, in turn, be used to provide specific, high-quality feedback to language learners. We then move on to exemplify this with a few of the most common error classes made by learners of Mandarin Chinese. We conclude with some notes concerning the adaptation and implementation of the methods described here in ZHONG, an open-source HPSG grammar for Mandarin Chinese.
Resultative phrases are generally believed to conform to the Direct Object Restriction: that is, they describe the direct object if verbs are transitive. However, some exceptions have occasionally been reported, and this paper investigates the problem by focusing on resultative phrases that occur with the valency alternation verbs in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Verbs that license the locative alternation and locatum-subject alternation describe events that involve two arguments, the location and the locatum, which are perceived to concurrently undergo a change of state. It will be shown that resultative phrases with a valency alternation verb can be predicated of either argument regardless of whether it is expressed as direct object. Furthermore, resultative verbal suffixes in Mandarin, interpreted as description of either the location or the locatum, give rise to the locative alternation while their interpretation remains the same. Thus, it is claimed that in Japanese and Mandarin, the predication relation of resultative phrases is not determined by the grammatical function of arguments as generally believed, but rather by the lexical semantics of the verbs.
The current study presents an HPSG analysis for verbal reduplication in Mandarin Chinese. After discussing its interaction with Aktionsarten and aspect markers, we argue that it is a morphological rather than syntactic process. We put forward a lexical rule for verbal reduplication in Mandarin Chinese and the different forms of reduplication are captured in an inheritance hierarchy. The interaction between verbal reduplication and aspect marking is handled by multiple inheritance. This analysis covers all forms of verbal reduplication in Mandarin Chinese and has none of the shortcomings of the previous analyses.
The A-NOT-A structure is one way to express polar questions in Mandarin Chinese. The present study provides a constraint-based analysis of A-NOT-A questions in Mandarin Chinese within the framework of HPSG (Pollard & Sag, 1994) and MRS (Copestake et al., 2005). We propose two possible approaches to analysing the A-NOT-A structure — a morphological/lexical approach as well as a syntactic approach — and illustrate their implementation, as well as their respective strengths and weaknesses.
This paper describes some of our attempts in extending Zhong, a Chinese HPSG shared-grammar. New analyses for two Chinese specific phenomena, reduplication and the SUO-DE structure, are introduced. The analysis of reduplication uses lexical rules to capture both the syntactic and semantic properties (amplification in adjectives and diminishing in verbs). Words showing non-productive reduplication are entered in the lexicon, and the semantic relations will be captured in an external resource (the Chinese Open Wordnet). The SUO-DE structure constrains the meanings of relative clauses to a gapped-object interpretation.
This paper presents an analysis of the complex NP island effects in Chinese. I follow Ginzburg & Sag (2000)'s analysis of in situ wh-interrogative construction and propose that feature percolation from the non-head clause daughter to the head daughter is required for a proper treatment of in situ wh-relative. A semantic analysis of the idiosyncrasy of weishenme 'why' reveals that a definite reading is forced for a wh-relative when weishenme stays in situ. This requirement causes feature percolation into relative head to fail. In this way I show that island effects in Chinese can be independently ruled out in the grammar as a case of contradiction.
Reanalysis of semantically required dependents as complements in the Chinese "ba"-construction
(2011)
The paper aims at a formulation of semantic constraints on the produc- tivity of the Chinese ba-construction and their representation at the syntax-semantics interface. It builds on the observation that requirements on the surface form of the construction may be altered by the choice of the verb. I propose that the semantics of the ba-construction can be treated in terms of a scalar constraint: a ba-sentence must come with a scale and a difference value that holds of the described event. The satisfaction of this constraint largely relies on the lexical semantics of the sentence. Not all verbs are inherently associated with scalar relations; those that are not must combine with an additional dependent which satisfies the scale requirement. Due to the obligatory presence of the additional dependent for some verbs, it is reanalyzed as a complement of ba: being optional on their level of combination with the verb, it becomes obligatory once the verb is used in the ba-construction.
The present paper gives an account of Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) in Mandarin Chinese. After a typological presentation of the phenomenon, we give an overview of the Chinese data with examples of the semantic variations of SVCs. The inventory of SVC types is classified according to causal and temporal relations between the components. We also discuss the pragmatic conditions on the use of SVCs as well as alternative, semantically equivalent constructions. A HPSG-analysis is proposed for marked SVCs, which uses the interaction between aspect marking and the set of possible subordinative relations to deduce the extra-lexical meaning of the construction. Particular attention is payed to the syntactically peculiar SVC with shared internal arguments, which is accounted for by a non-cancellation approach to valence requirements.
This paper aims at making a general description of Chinese NPs using Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. The paper introduces the basic and complex structures of Chinese NPs and then shed light on the noun-classifier matching problem when implemented in HPSG. To solve this problem, the paper tries to establish a basic grammar of Chinese NPs in the framework of HPSG, which is implemented in the LKB system. The implementation shows, although the matching problem between noun and classifier can be described in HPSG, especially by the MRS, it is still difficult to efficiently represent the semantic constrains in the LKB system.
This paper discusses word classes in Tagalog, the dominant language of the Philippines, using analyses developed by Himmelmann (2007) and LaPolla (2008). The goal is to clarify issues related to the identification of word classes in Tagalog, and show the distinct features of these word classes. Through the discussion of word classes in Tagalog, the authors also hope to shed some light on the issue of word classes in Chinese.
This paper discusses the typology of focus structure types (variation of information structuring in the clause) and how information structure can be used to explain all of the word order patterns in Chinese without reference to grammatical relations.
This paper argues that long-standing problems in the analysis of Chinese, such as the question of word classes and grammatical relations, can be resolved, or actually done away with completely, if we take a constructionist approach in the analysis. This means the constructions are taken as basic, so we only need to look at the propositional functions of elements in the construction (referential, modifying, or predicative), and do not need to posit global categories such as word classes and grammatical relations.
In LaPolla 1990, I presented arguments to show that Chinese is a language in which there has been no grammaticalizalion of the syntactic relations "subject" and "object". This being the case, then syntactic relations cannot be what determines word order in Chinese. In this paper I will argue that, aside from a semantic rule that the actor of a verb, if expressed, must precede that verb, it is pragmatic relations (information structure) that are the main determinants of word order in Chinese.
This paper discusses an attempt to write a computer program that would properly model the phonological development of Chinese from Middle Chinese to Modern Peking Mandarin, using the rules in Chen 1976. Several problems are encountered, the most significant being that the rules cannot apply in the same order for all lexical items. The significance of this in terms of the implementation of sound change is briefly discussed.
The bulk of this dissertation is an analysis of grammatical relations (including syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic relations) in Modern Mandarin Chinese. In Chapter I the background, functional framework, and concepts used in the dissertation are introduced. In Chapter II it is shown that Chinese has not grammaticalized the syntactic functions 'subject' and 'object', and has no syntactic function-changing passive construction. In Chapter III the nature of word order and its relationship to information structure in Chinese is examined. It is argued that word order in Chinese does not mark 'definite' and 'indefinite' NPs, as is commonly assumed, but marks information structure. A number of marked focus structure constructions are also discussed. In Chapter IV the discussion is of the structure of Chinese discourse, developed from an analysis of the nature of discourse referent tracking. It is shown that recovery of anaphora is not based on syntactic functions, but is based on real world knowledge (semantics and pragmatics) and discourse structure. Chapter V gives the conclusions, followed by a discussion of some of the diachronic considerations that arose in the course of this investigation. It is suggested that within Sino-Tibetan, Chinese should be seen as an innovator in terms of word order, and that grammatical relations in Proto-Sino-Tibetan should be seen to be pragmatically based rather than syntactically based.
This paper is the second in a series arguing for a discourse·based analysis of grammatical relations in Chinese in which there is a direct mapping between semantic role and grammatical function, and there are no relation-changing lexical rules such as passivization that can change that mapping. The correct assignment of semantic roles to the constituents of a discourse is done by the listener purely on the basis of the discourse structure and pragmatics (real world knowledge). Though grammatical analyses of certain constructions can be done on the sentence level, the sentence is generally not the central unit for understanding anaphora and grammatical relations in Chinese. Two related arguments are presented here: the question of 'subject' and the structure of discourse developed from an analysis of the nature of discourse referent tracking.
Current analyses of specificity are unable to provide an explanatory account for why specific and nonspecific uses of indefinites are available. While Abusch (1994), Reinhart (1997), and Kratzer (1998) provide successful mechanisms for deriving specific readings, they do not provide a fundamental explanation for the availability of this mechanism. This is due to the fact that specific indefinites are treated as involving an interpretive component or procedure unique to themselves: storage (Abusch) or choice function (Reinhart and Kratzer), for example. It would be preferable if specific indefinites could be understood as deriving from the use of independently motivated meaning components and interpretive mechanisms.
Here I will pursue the idea, building on Portner & Yabushita (1998), that specificity has to do with the indefinite's interaction with a topical domain (note similarities with the proposals of Enç 1991, Cresti 1995, and Schwarzschild 2000). In this conception, specificity is a matter of degree: the narrower the topical domain, the more specific the indefinite. More precisely, sentences containing specific indefinites will be understood as involving ordinary existential quantification in combination with a topical domain function.
Identical topic (IT henceforth) was previously known as copying topic (Xu & Liu (1998:141-157). It is fully or partially identical to a corresponding element (CE henceforth) occurring in the following part of the clause. Broadly speaking, IT is semantically empty. Being an unusual type of adding, it properly falls into the central concern of this volume.
It seems IT can be attested in all Chinese dialects, though the phenomena in question have been poorly documented and have scarcely been studied under a unified category. IT seems to be a better candidate to characterise topic prominent languages than many other topic types including the non-gap topic, which has long been called "Chinese style topic" since Chafe (1976) and has been viewed as a major characteristic of topic prominent languages (e.g., Li & Thompson, 1976, Xu & Langendoen 1985, Gasde 1999). I believe the study of IT structure is necessary to obtain a clearer and more complete picture of topic structure in general. As far as I know, Wu dialects of Chinese, including Shanghainese, are the ones which have the richest IT types and the greatest text frequency of IT. Therefore, this study will be based on both Mandarin and Shanghainese data.
In this paper I would like to show that the principles which have been proposed so far to account for the relationship between the informational level and the syntactic level in a Chinese utterance are unable to predict some interesting and regular facts of that language.
To my mind, the form and the position of the question operator in an interrogative utterance provide two distributional tests which univocally indicate where the new information lies. Hence, the pairing of affirmative and interrogative sentences might be a better approach to locate where the new information lies in a Chinese utterance.
In this paper I firstly argue that secondary predicates are complement of v, and v is overtly realized by Merge or Move in secondary predication in Chinese. The former option derives the de-construction, whereas the latter option derives the V-V construction. Secondly, I argue that resultatives are hosted by complement vPs, whereas depictives are hosted by adjunct vPs. This complement-adjunct asymmetry accounts for a series of syntactic properties of secondary predication in Chinese: the position of a secondary predicate with respect to the verb of the primary predicate, the co-occurrence patterns of secondary predicates, the hierarchy of depictives, the control and ECM properties of resultative constructions, and the locality constraint on the integration of secondary predicates into the structure of primary predication. Thirdly, I argue that the surface position of de is derived by a PF operation which attaches de to the right of the leftmost verbal lexical head of the construction. Finally, I argue that in the V-V resultative construction, the assumed successive head-raising may account for the possible subject-oriented reading of the resultative predicate, and that the head raising out of the lower vP accounts for the possible non-specific reading of the subject of the resultative predicate.
It will be shown that verbs can be missing in predicative sentences by using the data from Chinese. Copula-less sentences in Chinese are subject to 'Generalized Anchoring Principle' (GAP), which requires that every clause be anchored at the interface for LF convergence. To satisfy GAP, clauses may be either tensed or focused. It is shown that copula-less sentences in Chinese are subject to focus anchoring. It will be further argued that whether a verb is needed in predication depends on the syntax of predicate nominals.
On object specificity
(2001)
[W]e have demonstrated that the object specificity follows from the same principle as the subject specificity under the EMH. Furthermore, the semantic discrepancy between the realis and irrealis object shift constructions turns out to be a subcase of the more general indicative-modal asymmetry. Although our analysis presented here is nothing but conclusive, it does suggest that the EMH is a potent candidate for explaining the indicative-modal asymmetry, as well as for building a general theory of the specificity effects in question.
This article discusses some syntactic peculiarities of Chinese yes/no questions. Starting from the observation that Standard Mandarin shares significant typological features with prototypical SOV languages, Chinese is treated as an underlyingly verb-final language. Based on this heuristic principle, A-not-AB, AB-not-A and AB-not questions are uniformly derived by means of one simple raising rule that operates within the sentence constituent V'. This novel idea is elaborated on in great detail in the first part of the article. In contrast to the prevailing trend, it is argued that the question operator contained in A-not-A and A-not sentences CANNOT be raised to "Comp". In consequence, A-not-A and A-not questions are "typed" in the head position of a sentence-internal functional phrase that we call Force2 Phrase (F2P) in the present paper. This position is not to be confused with Drubig's (1994) Polarity 1 Phrase (PollP), in the head position of which assertive negations and an abstract affirmative element are located. The existence of a head position F2° other than Poll° is supported by the fact that F2° can be occupied by certain overt question operators, such as assertive shi-bu-shi, which are compatible with negations. In contrast to the assertive question operator shi-bu-shi which is obligatorily associated with information focus, non-assertive shi-bu-shi serves as a compound focus and question operator whose focus feature is complex insofar as it is composed of two subfeatures: a contrastivity and an exhaustivity subfeature. Non-assertive shi-bu-shi is obligatorily associated with identificational focus in the sense of Kiss (1998). In accordance with some basic ideas of Chomsky's checking theory, the two subfeatures of the complex focus feature carried by the non-assertive shi-bu-shi operator check a correlating subfeature in the head position of a corresponding functional phrase (Contrastive Phrase and Focus Phrase, respectively). The question feature contained in the non-assertive shi-bu-shi operator is attracted by the head of Force1 Phrase (F1') at the level of LF. Due to the fact that F1° is sentence-final, the question feature of non-assertive shi-bu-shi must be Chomsky-adjoined to F1'. Unlike identificational focus phrases which are inherently contrastive, topics are non-contrastive in the default case. As separate speech acts, they are located in a c-commanding position outside the sentence structure. Semantically, there is a difference between Frame-Setting Topics and Aboutness Topics. As shown in the article, both A-not-A and A-not questions on the one hand and yes/no questions ending with ma on the other can be used in neutral and non-neutral contexts. The decisive advantage of mu questions, however, is that their question operator has scope over the whole sentence.
The complexity of human languages has always inspired research for some human faculty that makes language learning possible. The system that generates the complexity of human languages, ideally, is simple and effective. Recent developments of the generative grammatical theory explore deeper into the issue of simplicity or economy. The Minimalist Program developed in Chomsky (1991, 1993, 1995) tries to provide contents to such notions. What does it mean to be more economic or least effort? An important instantiation of such notions is the proposal that movement is the last resort assuming that movement is more costly than non-movement. Processes occur only because they are necessary. The definition of necessity generally is cast in morphological terms. Moreover, the notion of "economy" or "least effort" is deterministic of the appropriate derivations for sentences: a shorter derivation is better than a longer one. In this work, we show that the notion of "least effort," - do minimally if possible - is manifested not only in derivations but also in other aspects of the grammar. We take Chinese as an example and show that this language exhibits the properties manifesting some "least effort" guidelines in the area of movement and reconstruction, and in the projection of syntactic positions: when there is a choice, non-application of moyement/reconstruction and non-projection of a position are adopted. These phenomena essentially are attested in topic structures. The question arises as to why topic structures exhibit such minimal effort effects. We suggest that this is due to the fact that topic structures can be derived by movement or base-generation. When there are morpho-syntactic clues that reconstruction is necessary, the structure is a movement structure. Otherwise, the less costly non-movement structure is assumed. Moreover, because of the possibility of assuming a topic NP to be base-generated, bearing a predication (or aboutness) relation with the comment clause, the argument position which otherwise would be related to the topic (conveniently termed the trace position) is not projected when there is a choice of projecting or not projecting it.
This paper investigates syntactic properties of verbless constructions in Chinese. Verbless constructions differ from constructions with overt verbs in three major respects. First, there is a VP-internal nominal raising in Chinese, which is optional if an overt verb shows up, and obligatory if there is no overt verb. Second, while an overt verb can select various kinds of argument, the internal argument of a verbless construction cannot be indefinite. Third, there are two types of object depictive secondary predication constructions, and only one of them allows for a null verb.
On the Indo-European nature of non-Indo-European animals metaphor : the case of Chinese zoosemy
(2007)
Wenn in dieser Arbeit von "dem Chinesischen" die Rede ist, so ist darunter die heute in China gesprochene Umgangssprache zu verstehen. Diese pǔtōnghuà, d.h. 'allgemeine Sprache', basiert vor allem auf dem im Norden Chinas gesprochenen Dialekt und zwar sowohl auf phonologischer, syntaktischer als auch lexikalischer Ebene. [...] Den Untersuchungsgegenstand dieser Arbeit bildet eine Gruppe von Morphemen im Chinesischen, die sowohl Vollverben sind als auch in Sätzen der Form 'Subjekt ___ NP V (NP)' vorkommen, in denen sie mit der darauffolgenden Nominalphrase eine Konstituente bilden und keinen Vollverbstatus mehr haben. In dieser Funktion werden sie als "Koverb" bezeichnet. […] [K]ategorielle[] Analysen werden dem Phänomen der Koverben nicht gerecht. Vielmehr deutet ihr unterschiedliches Verhalten auf ein Kontinuum, auf dem sie sich zwischen den Polen Verb und Präposition einordnen lassen. Um die verschiedenen Positionen der Koverben auf dem Kontinuum zu bestimmen, die ihrem unterschiedlich hohen Grad an Verbalhaftigkeit entsprechen, werden sie einer Reihe von Tests unterzogen, die Aufschluß über ihren verbalen Charakter geben.[…] Den Schwerpunkt der Arbeit bilden die Kapitel 5 bis 10, in denen jeweils ein Koverb behandelt wird. Die in diesem Teil vorgestellten Daten wurden vorwiegend durch Informantenbefragung gewonnen sowie aus der Literatur übernommen. Diese zitierten Beispiele wurden mithilfe der Informantin überprüft. Den Abschluß der Arbeit bildet Kapitel 11, in dem die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung in einer Skala zusammengefaßt werden und der theoretische Hintergrund dieser Darstellungsweise erläutert wird.
This paper is one argument for a theory of grammatical relations in Chinese in which there are no grammatical relations beyond semantic roles, and no lexical relation-changing rules. As the passive rule is one of the most common relation changing rules cross-linguistically, in this paper I will address the question of whether or not Mandarin Chinese has lexical passives, that is, passives defined as in Relational Grammar (see for example Perlmutter and Postal 1977) and the early Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) literature (e.g. Bresnan 1982), where a 2-arc (object) is promoted to a 1-arc (subject).
In attempting to reconstruct the morphosyntax of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, one of the most basic questions to be answered is what was the unmarked word order of the proto-language? Chinese, Bai, and Karen are verb-medial languages, while all of the Tibeto-Burman languages except for Bai and Karen have verb-final word order. lf these languages are all related, as we can assume from lexical correspondences, then either Chinese, Bai and Karen changed from verb-final to verb-medial word order, or the other Tibeto-Burman languages changed trom verb-medial to verb-final order. How we answer the question of which languages changed their word would then give us the answer to the question of word order in Proto-Sino-Tibetan.
Thirty-one years ago Tsu-lin Mei (1961) argued against the traditional doctrine that saw the subject-predicate distinction in grammar as parallel to the particular- universal distinction in logic, as he said it was a reflex of an Indo-European bias, and could not be valid, as ‘Chinese ... does not admit a distinction into subject and predicate’ (p. 153). This has not stopped linguists working on Chinese from attempting to define ‘subject’ (and ‘object’) in Chinese. Though a number of linguists have lamented the difficulties in trying to define these concepts for Chinese (see below), most work done on Chinese still assumes that Chinese must have the same grammatical features as Indo-European, such as having a subject and a direct object, though no attempt is made to justify that view. This paper challenges that view and argues that there has been no grammaticalization of syntactic functions in Chinese. The correct assignment of semantic roles to the constituents of a discourse is done by the listener on the basis of the discourse structure and pragmatics (information flow, inference, relevance, and real world knowledge) (cf. Li & Thompson 1978, 1979; LaPolla 1990).
Minority languages of China
(2007)
This chapter looks at language endangerment in the People's Republic of China, focusing on three of the main factors that influence language maintenance in China today: increased contact due to population movements and changes in the economy; the population policies of the government, particularly the identification of nationalities and languages; and the education system, particularly bilingual education. Finally, we give a brief account of the major efforts to document endangered languages.
Many linguists in China and the West have talked about Chinese as a topic-comment language, that is, a language in which the structure of the clause takes the form of a topic, about which something is to be said, and a comment, which is what is said about the topic, rather than being a language with a subject-predicate structure like that of English. Y. R. Chao (1968), for example, said that all Chinese clauses have topic-comment structure and there are no exceptions.
The philosophy of language comes in three varieties. 1. The functionalist’s view: linguistic forms are instruments used to convey meaningful elements. This is the basis of European structuralism. 2. The formalist’s view: linguistic forms are abstract structures which can be filled with meaningful elements. This is the basis of generative grammar. 3. The parasitologist’s view: linguistic forms are vehicles for the reproduction of meaningful elements. This is the view which I advocated twelve years ago in a Festschrift (1985).