Space, Time and Asymmetry in Chinese

Abstract

Kayne (The antisymmetry of syntax. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994, Studies in Chinese Linguistics 34(1):3–37, 2013) proposes that natural language is asymmetrical in syntactic structure, and that the universal default constituent order is Specifier-Head-Complement. Kayne states that the posited asymmetry is due to the inherently asymmetric nature of syntactic derivation within the Faculty of Language (FL), induced by the asymmetric, directional property of language production and parsing (Kayne, Studies in Chinese Linguistics 34(1):3–37, 2013: 19). In this paper I argue that the asymmetric direction of language production and parsing undoubtedly have influenced the evolution of the FL, but that this need not entail asymmetry either in syntactic derivation or in default constituent order, and that the claim of Specifier-Head-Complement as default constituent order is fundamentally unmotivated. I suggest instead that FL asymmetry is manifest in the well-known asymmetric order of information flow (old precedes new), and that a dissociation between syntactic derivation and information flow is possible because the ordering of old and new information is iconic, while syntactic derivation is symbolic. This, I argue, frees syntactic derivation from the strictures of old-new information flow order. To support this claim, I first describe the phenomenon of spatial asymmetry in Mandarin (e.g., Xu, Asymmetry in the expression of space in Chinese – the Chinese language meets typology. In Xu D. (ed) Space in languages of China: cross-linguistic, synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 175–198, 2008) to demonstrate how the asymmetry of space follows from the iconic, asymmetric order of spatial states as experienced by humans. I then demonstrate, following Tai (Temporal sequence and Chinese word order. In Haiman J (ed) Iconicity in syntax. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 49–72, 1983, Iconicity: motivations in Chinese grammar. In Eid M, Iverson, G (eds) Principles and prediction: the analysis of natural language. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 153–173, 1993), that the expression of temporal order in Mandarin is also asymmetrical, resulting from the iconic, asymmetric, human perception of temporal order. I then argue that the well-known tendency for old information to be ordered before new information is manifestly iconic as well, because old events are always perceived as occurring before new events.