Demonstratives and Mandarin relative types

This chapter reports the results of an Event-Related Potential (ERP) study of relative clause processing in Mandarin Chinese. The objective of this research is to determine whether electrophysiological evidence of filler-gap integration costs found for other languages would be observed in Mandarin and to determine where in the relative clause filler-gap integration occurs. To pursue these goals, we analyze ERP data obtained from 20 Mandarin speakers as they read sentences containing subject-gap and object-gap relative clauses modifying the subjects and objects of matrix sentences. Our results indicate a larger P600 ERP component for subject-gap than object-gap relative clauses at the point in the clause where the filler is integrated with the antecedent gap. That effect was found on the relative clause marker de for clauses modifying the matrix subject and on the relative clause head for clauses modifying the matrix object. We interpret our results as supporting the hypothesis that the difficulty of integrating verb arguments is reflected in the magnitude of the P600 ERP component and that in Mandarin relative clauses, subject-gap arguments are more difficult to integrate than object-gap arguments. Based on these findings, we argue that in Mandarin, relative clause verb selectional restrictions may be satisfied in real time either by the relative clause head or by the relative clause marker de, depending on where the relative clause is located within the matrix sentence.

This paper revisits the often-claimed correlation between the restrictive/appositive distinction in Mandarin relative clauses (RC) and their pre-/post-demonstrative position (Chao 1968; Huang 1998; Lin 2003 a.o.). We show that different uses of the demonstrative should be controlled for in establishing the correlation, a novel perspective which reconciles the conflicting claims noted in the literature. In particular, we argue that (i) only when the demonstrative is used deictically, the pre-/post-demonstrative position makes a difference such that pre-demonstrative RCs can only be appositive while post-demonstrative RCs can be either appositive or restrictive; and (ii) when the demonstrative is used anaphorically, the position of RCs does not determine its appositive/restrictive status. The new patterns can be accounted for by extending some analyses of strong definites (Elbourne 2005; Schwarz 2009; Jenks 2018) to Mandarin demonstratives, recognizing a structural distinction between the deictic use and the anaphoric use. The current proposal has implications for studies on demonstratives.

Production predicts comprehension: Animacy effects in Mandarin relative clause processing

It has been reported that children's comprehension of complex structures is affected by temporary ambiguity. Yet, much less is known about its effect on children's comprehension of relative clauses (RCs). To fill this gap, the present study focused on Mandarin RCs, where temporary ambiguity often plays a role in the comprehension of object-extracted RCs. More specifically, we directly manipulated the (non)existence of temporary ambiguity in object-extracted RCs and compared 3- to 5-year-olds' understanding of object-extracted and subject-extracted RCs. Using the Truth Value Judgment Task, we found a clear developmental trajectory of preschoolers' abilities to comprehend the RCs. The 3-year-olds could correctly understand the object-extracted RCs only when there was no temporary ambiguity in the sentence, while the 4- and 5-year-olds exhibited successful comprehension regardless of the (non)existence of temporary ambiguity. In addition, when temporary ambiguity was not present, object-extracted RCs were generally easier than subject-extracted RCs for preschoolers to comprehend. Taken together, the findings inform us about the role of temporary ambiguity in RC comprehension, and point to the necessity of taking into account this factor when examining children's sentence comprehension performance.

ABSTRACTWe explored the acquisition of relative clauses in Mandarin Chinese, a subject–verb–object language with head-final relatives. One hundred and twenty-five children (aged 3 years to 8 years, 11 months) and 20 adults participated in an elicitation task. The results revealed a subject advantage at all ages and a large production of relative clauses with resumptive noun phrases (NPs) across age groups. To further explore the latter finding, we carried out a grammaticality judgment study with 80 adults. We found that relative clauses with resumptive NPs are acceptable in the spoken language for many adult native speakers of Mandarin. This result is at odds with Chinese prescriptive grammar. We propose an analysis of the subject advantage based on the structure intervention expressed as relativized minimality and argue that resumptive NPs are an option in Mandarin relative clauses.

Following dynamic syntax (DS), the present paper establishes a dynamic parsing model for Chinese relative clauses, in which the presence and absence of the resumptive pronouns are explained by showing how to construct a propositional structure representing the content of a sentence. The lexical actions of the Chinese relative “DE” are specified on the basis of an observation of the relevant data, and much discussion is made about the locality constraints for the computational rule of link. One important assumption is that the meta-variable projected by a pronoun and that projected by the lexical actions of verbs are different in that the former has a bottom restriction, which prevents the application of the rule of merge. The conclusion is that the presence or absence of pronouns in relative clauses is determined by whether the unfixed node decorated by the formula value projected by the relative “DE” can merge into the proposition structure. It thus follows that much space is devoted to the conditions that must be met in order for an unfixed node to be merged into a proposition structure.

In sentences with long-distance dependency relations (“The man whom the police arrested is thin”), there are two kinds of distance between the gap (object position of arrested) and the filler man: linear (the intervening words in linear order), and structural (the intervening nodes in the syntactic tree). Previous studies found that older adults have difficulty comprehending sentences with long-distance dependency relations. However, it is not clear whether they are more disrupted by longer structural distance between gaps and fillers, or longer linear distance. There is a distinction between linear distance and structural distance, in that the former is directly related to working memory whereas the latter is associated with syntactic ability. By examining the effect of linear distance and structural distance on sentence processing by older adults, we can identify whether age-related decline in sentence comprehension is attributed to working memory dysfunction or syntactic decline. For this purpose, structural distance and linear distance were manipulated in Mandarin relative clauses (RCs). 30 older adults and 33 younger adults were instructed to perform a self-paced reading task. We found that both groups performed more slowly as structural distance increased, and less accurately when linear distance increased. More importantly, there was a significant interaction between linear distance and age group in the accuracy of comprehension, with linear distance disrupting older adults more than younger adults in offline processing. The findings suggest that the age-related decline in offline sentence comprehension might be attributable to the decline in working memory, rather than syntactic ability. Practical implications, limitations, and directions for future studies are discussed.

In this paper, we investigate constraints on the time reference of embedded clauses in Mandarin. We show that while English past-tensed embedded clauses disallow later-than-matrix readings in intensional contexts on a de dicto construal, Mandarin relative clauses with bare predicates yield temporally free readings across the board. We argue that the contrast between the temporal interpretations of bare embedded clauses in Mandarin vs. past-tensed embedded clauses in English is not due to a putative contrast between ‘tenseless’ languages (as Mandarin is traditionally assumed to be) and ‘tensed’ languages such as English. Mandarin is indeed not tenseless, but rather has a covert Non-Future tense, restricting the reference time of bare sentences to non-future times. Moreover, Mandarin superficially tenseless embedded clauses with overt—be it perfect, perfective, durative/progressive—aspectual marking do not allow later-than-matrix readings on a de dicto construal, just like tensed embedded clauses in English. We conclude that the freedom of interpretation of bare embedded clauses in Mandarin cannot be imputed to null semantically underspecified tense, but rather to null semantically underspecified aspect. Our analysis provides, to our knowledge, the first arguments for Non-Future tense in embedded contexts.

(In)Alienable Possession in Mandarin Relative Clauses

This paper deals with the applicative-causative syncretism, which is a pattern of morpheme polysemy attested in many different natural languages. We basically interpret the causative-applicative syncretism as based on a shared syntactic configuration. Specifically, we argue that the syncretic morpheme under investigation is the ‘applicative’ counterpart of an adpositional/case elementary relator (Manzini & Franco 2016; Franco & Manzini 2017a), attaching instrumental or benefactive obliques (High Applicatives, cf. Pylkkanen 2002, 2008) to the verbal spine. We follow Bellucci (2017), Manzini & Savoia (2018) in assuming that causees in causative constructions can be introduced as obliques, linked to the same structural position as High Appls. The causative reading of the sentence is driven by interpretive means (cf. Franco & Manzini 2017a). This readily explains the possibility of encoding causative and applicatives with the same lexical items.

Determiners are a nominal syntactic category distinct from both adjectives and nouns; they constitute a functional (aka closed or ‘minor’) category and they are typically located high inside the nominal phrasal structure. From a syntactic point of view, the category of determiners is commonly understood to comprise the word classes of article, demonstrative, and quantifier, as well as non-adjectival possessives and some nominal agreement markers. From a semantic point of view, determiners are assumed to function as quantifiers, especially within research informed by Generalized Quantifier Theory. However, this is a one-way entailment: although determiners in natural language are quantificational, their class contains only a subset of the logically possible quantifiers; this class is restricted by conservativity and other factors. The tension between the ‘syntactic’ and the ‘semantic’ perspective on determiners results to a degree of terminological confusion: it is not always clear which lexical items the Determiner category includes or what the function of determiners is; moreover, there exists a tendency among syntacticians to view ‘Determiner’ as naming not a class, but a fixed position within a nominal phrasal template. The study of determiners rose to prominence within grammatical theory during the ’80s both due to advances in semantic theorizing, primarily Generalized Quantifier Theory, and due to the generalization of the X' phrasal schema to functional (minor) categories. Some issues in the nature and function of determiners that have been addressed in theoretical and typological work with considerable success include the categorial status of determiners, their (non-)universality, their structural position and feature makeup, their role in argumenthood and their interaction with nominal predicates, and their relation to pronouns. Expectedly, issues in (in)definiteness, quantification, and specificity also figure prominently in research work on determiners.

The term reflexive is applied by traditional grammarians to an event or situation that “reflects” (“rebounds”) upon its initiator, typically when some internal argument of the predicate co-refers with its subject (e.g., English John pinched himself or John saw himself in the mirror). In a slightly broader sense, reflexivity is a type of interpretation wherein two arguments of the same predicate co-refer, regardless of their structural positions in their clause; thus, I spoke to John about himself is viewed as semantically reflexive. From a cross-linguistic perspective, expressions used to express reflexive interpretations—reflexivity markers—typically include nominals denoting the human person or body, or inalienable parts of it (for example, Haitian Jan renyen tèt li, lit. “John hates his head” = “John hates himself”), and specialized reflexive pronouns (e.g., English himself, Russian sebja: Ivan ljubit sebja “Ivan loves himself”), which may grammaticalize into verbal affixes deriving reflexive verbs (for example, Russian myt’-sja, French se laver “to wash (oneself)”). Finally, reflexive interpretations, as defined above, may also be available with some ordinary personal pronouns (e.g., French Jean est fier de lui = “John is proud of him” or “of himself”). A crucial cross-linguistic generalization brought out by works on reflexivity is that the forms that may correlate in some contexts with reflexive readings, in the narrower sense defined above, are often associated, in other contexts, with interpretive effects distinct from reflexivity, such as valency or aspectual changes, intensification, subject affectedness, or subjective discourse perspective. Two approaches may thus be considered for the study of reflexives and reflexivity in one or several languages: (i) the research may focus on the expression of reflexivity in its narrowest semantic sense: how are reflexive interpretations signaled in a given language or in natural languages? (ii) the research may aim at identifying and linking together the different uses of forms available, among other things, as reflexivity markers. Option (i) leads us to consider reflexivity as a special case of co-referential or anaphoric relations. Option (ii) leads us to consider reflexivity as one among a set of semantic effects associated with a common “reflexive” morpology, and to try and understand how these different effects can arise from the same forms.

This research article provides evidence from Jordanian Arabic (JA) that negation is syntactically bound to the projection of a phasal head, wherein NegP is structurally licensed to project exclusively within phase-bound configurations. Therefore, NegP can project separately in CP and v*P, offering support to the multi-locus view (Alqassas 2012. The morpho-syntax and pragmatics of Levantine Arabic negation: A synchronic and diachronic analysis. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University) that NegP in Arabic is not restricted to one structural position in the clause structure. NegP can rather project separately above TP or below TP. However, as we argue for in this article the projection of NegP is correlated with the presence of a phasal head (Chomsky 2007. Approaching UG from below. In Uli Sauerland & Hans-Martin Gärtner (eds.), Interfaces+recursion=language? Chomsky’s minimalism and the view from syntax-semantics, 1–30. Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter). Our evidence comes from two interrelated phenomena in JA: (1) the possibility of negating the past tense copula ka:n independently from the negation of the main verb in transitive and passive sentences and (2) the impossibility of independently negating the verb and the past-tense copula ka:n in unaccusative clauses. Following Jarrah’s (2023. Passive vs. unaccusative predicates: A phase-based account. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 41. 1397–1424) assumption that unaccusative predicates, unlike passive or transitive verbs, do not project phases in JA grammar, we propose that the use of two NegPs in the same clause with unaccusative clauses is prohibited as these unaccusative predicates do not project phases. This assumption is significant as phases, local domains, are not only found to be independent in terms of their Φ-content (their head bears an independent set of unvalued Φ-features) but also in terms of negation.

We consider the applicative-causative syncretism, which is a pattern of morpheme polysemy attested in many different natural languages. We basically interpret the causative-applicative syncretism as based on a shared syntactic configuration. Specifically, we argue that the syncretic morpheme under investigation is the ‘applicative’ counterpart of an adpositional/case elementary relator (Manzini & Franco 2016; Franco & Manzini 2017a,b), attaching instrumental or benefactive obliques (High Applicatives, cf. Pylkkänen 2002, 2008) to the verbal spine. We follow Bellucci (2017), Manzini and Savoia (2018) in assuming that causees in causative constructions can be introduced as obliques, linked to the same structural position as High Appls. The causative reading of the sentence is driven by interpretive means (cf. Franco & Manzini 2017b). This readily explains the possibility of encoding causative and applicatives with the same lexical items.

Introduction As is well known, negation in natural languages comes in many different forms. Crosslinguistically, we observe differences concerning the morphological character of the Neg (negation) element as well as concerning its structural position within a sentence. For instance, while many languages make use of an independent Neg particle (e.g. English and German), in others, the Neg element is affixal in nature and attaches to the verb (e.g. Turkish and French). Moreover, a Neg particle may appear in sentence-initial position, preverbally, postverbally, or in sentence-final position (for comprehensive typological surveys of negation, see Dahl 1979; 1993; Payne 1985). In this chapter I am concerned with morphosyntactic and phonological properties of sentential negation in some spoken languages as well as in German Sign Language ( Deutsche Gebardensprache or DGS) and American Sign Language (ASL). Sentential negation in DGS (as well as in other sign languages) is particularly interesting because it involves a manual and a nonmanual element, namely the manual Neg sign NICHT ‘not’ and a headshake that is associated with the predicate. Despite this peculiarity, I show that on the morphosyntactic side of the Neg construction, we do not need to refer to any modality-specific structures and principles. Rather, the same structures and principles that allow for the derivation of negated sentences in spoken languages are also capable of accounting for the sign language data. On the phonological side, however, we do of course observe modality-specific differences; those are due to the different articulators used.