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- Volume 3, Issue, 2016
International Journal of Chinese Linguistics - Volume 3, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 3, Issue 2, 2016
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Object expletives in Chinese and the structural theory of predication
Author(s): Yicheng Wu and Daogen Caopp.: 179–200 (22)More LessBased on her conception that the subject is the least droppable NP in a clause, and that object position is generated only because the thematic structure of the predicator requires it, Rothstein (1995, 2001, 2006) proposes a structural theory of predication whereby predication is a syntactic relation which is independent of theta–role assignment holding between a predicate and its subject. Based on this theory, she goes as far as to claim that “there can be no such thing as an object pleonastic”. This article provides evidence from Mandarin and some Chinese dialects, showing that there is a third person singular pronoun that can occur as expletive in object positions. It is argued on empirical grounds that a structural theory of predication such as Rothstein’s, which rests upon parsimonious English data, still faces the challenge faced by the Principle of Projection.
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Chinese-style topics as indexicality
Author(s): Tong Wupp.: 201–244 (44)More Less‘Topic’ is one of the most studied and the least understood subjects in Chinese linguistics. One major problem is the so-called ‘Chinese-style topics/ dangling topics’. Shi (2000) was the first to establish a typology of Chinese-style topics. Later studies were primarily concerned with the validity of his typology (Huang & Ting 2006; Pan & Hu 2002, 2008) and with how Chinese-style topics, if they exist, are semantically licensed (Hu & Pan 2009). More problematic and less discussed is the question as to how Chinese-style topics are syntactically derived. Based on previous studies and new tests, I argue that Chinese-style topics do exist, although not only in Chinese and not all Shi’s six types are Chinese-style topics. I only identify Shi (2000)’s types 3 and 4 as Chinese-style topics, contrary to the conclusion of all previous studies. Furthermore, I argue that the Chinese-style topics which I identify share properties which non-Chinese-style topics do not have, namely Chinese-style topics necessarily or preferably stand before other topics and do not show Weak Crossover and Relativized Minimality effects. To explain these properties, I adopt Giorgi (2010)’s Indexicality Hypothesis and propose that Chinese-style topics, which have the interpretable [iDeictic] feature, sit at the specifier of the C-SpeakerP at the leftmost layer of the CP. This approach can shed new light on the famous dichotomy, that of topic-prominent languages vs. subject-prominent languages (Li & Thompson 1976).
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Elastic language in TV discussion discourse
Author(s): Grace Zhangpp.: 245–269 (25)More LessThis paper investigates the elasticity of the pragmatic particle ba in Mandarin Chinese, based on TV discussion data. It provides refreshing theoretic explanations of ba: the elasticity manifests through fluidity and stretchability of ba’s meanings and functions, and its strategic use. Ba has the general meaning of ‘a change of tone in an utterance’, which can trigger three pragmatic meanings (and functions) in context: mitigating (most frequent), boosting (least frequent) and soothing. These three meanings stretch upwards (boosting), downwards (mitigating) or sidewise (soothing) to serve the needs of communication. Ba is sentence-type and text-type specific; the cluster shiba shows the overlapping characteristics of the embedded declarative and interrogative forms.
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A refutation of Song’s (2014) explanation of the ‘stop coda problem’ in Old Chinese
Author(s): Nathan W. Hillpp.: 270–281 (12)More LessSong (2014) draws renewed attention to the problem of groups of Chinese words in which the character used to write one of the words has a stop final reading in Middle Chinese but the character used to write another of the words has an open syllable reading in Middle Chinese, although the two seem to have a shared a rime in Old Chinese. She offers a new solution employing the reconstruction of voiced and voiceless stop finals in the shared ancestor of Chinese and Tibetan. Every step in Song’s reasoning is faulty and nearly every claim she makes about Tibetan is false. Haudricourt long ago solved the ‘stop coda problem’ (1954).
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古音研究的新收获 [New achievements in research on Old Chinese phonology]
Author(s): 孙景涛 Jingtao Sunpp.: 282–309 (28)More Less本文旨在评论介绍宋晨清《古音悬疑探论 — 事实与方法》(Song, 即出),共分三个部分:评估本书的理论价值和贡献,介绍本书的主要内容,就本书涉及的两个重要问题进行讨论。
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