Language and Linguistics - Volume 21, Issue 1, 2020

This paper argues for the left-branching constituency of the Chinese classifier phrase and demonstrates that the right-branching approach assumed by the majority of current syntactic works is not viable. The rejection of the right-branching approach entails the rejection of the “split” approach, where both left- and right-branching structures are required. In this debate, we offer a vital fresh perspective from the syntax and mathematics of complex numerals. We examine the right-branching argumentation in A. Li (2014), which, crucially, extends Ionin & Matushansky’s (2006) non-constituent account of complex numerals, e.g. two hundred, in non-classifier languages like English to Chinese and must rely on ellipsis and a silent element YIDIAR ‘a bit’. Yet, complex numerals in Chinese, e.g. liang bai ‘200’, are in fact constituents (He 2015), and the alleged YIDIAR ‘a bit’ does affect the semantics of the noun phrase and is thus by definition illicit (Her & Tsai 2014; 2015). Other evidence comes from Chinese synchronic and diachronic syntax as well as the typology of classifier word orders. While the overall argumentation centers on Chinese, it has significant cross-linguistic implications.

This paper takes a corpus-driven approach to the Korean first person possessive pronoun nay with reference to its plural counterpart wuli. The examination of the frequent noun collocates of the two pronouns in Sejong Corpus reveals the close connection between nay and inalienable entities as well as persons lower than the speaker. Meanwhile, wuli is strongly coupled with places or organizations alongside persons higher than the speaker. Pragmatic principles account for the difference between the kinship term collocates of the two pronouns, such as Horn’s (1984; 1989) R-principle or Levinson’s (2000) M-principle. The non-prototypical singular use of wuli triggers a pragmatic effect of expressing, for example, affection. The frequent collocation of nay with foreign/loan nouns is a reflection of the tendency that people more interested in social mobility (younger generation and women) are more ready to employ nay rather than the singular wuli and to accept foreign/loan words. The meaning of nay emerging from its interaction with noun collocates is that it is closely connected with being inalienable, private, or unshared. Meanwhile, the singular meaning of wuli is pragmatically derived, which is construed as being grouped, deferent, or general.

The present study reports a novel case where a simple one-to-one category mapping may develop into a systematic one-to-two mapping over the course of second language acquisition. We examined the split in category mapping of the Mandarin unaspirated stops conditioned by tone by Korean-speaking learners of Mandarin Chinese (e.g. Mandarin /ta³⁵/ to Korean lenis [ta] vs. Mandarin /ta⁵⁵/ to Korean fortis [t’a]). Korean L2 learners and naïve listeners participated in identification tasks in which f0 contours of Mandarin words containing unaspirated stops with short-lag VOTs were digitally manipulated. In word-initial position, learners showed a near-categorical perception from lenis to fortis as f0 increased, while most stimuli were identified as fortis by naïve listeners. The effect of f0 was much smaller in word-medial position, but the group difference remained the same, confirming the two groups’ differential use of phonetic cues for stop identification. Taken together, a substantial reorganization of perceptual cues, namely the promotion of f0 concurrent with significant underweighting of VOT cues, seems to have taken place during L2 acquisition. The findings were discussed with reference to PAM-L2 whereby the knowledge of the L2 phonological system along with particular phonetic properties of the L2 sounds may have driven a perceptual regrouping of the L2 stop categories.

This paper provides an overview of the grammatical properties of the Cantonese aa3, a nominal element that only attaches itself to [+human] nouns. We provide evidence to show that there are in fact two types of aa3-nominals. Their syntactic and semantic properties correlate with the number of syllables they consist of. There is a two-way split between disyllabic aa3-nominals and multisyllabic aa3-nominals. Aa3 in disyllabic aa3-nominals should be treated as a prosodic template filler while aa3 in multisyllabic aa3-nominals occupies a syntactic position in the referential layer of the Chinese nominal.

This study examines the uses of Mandarin Chinese buguo ‘but’ as a contrastive discourse marker (CM) in spoken discourse. The data were taken from casual conversations, TV/radio single-interviewee interviews and TV panel news interviews. We found that two main types of the CM buguo were used to mark contrast: restrictive buguo and cancellative buguo. Restrictive buguo is similar to the advbuguo in usage in that it modifies the validity of the preceding proposition to signal implicit contrast. Cancellative buguo is used to cancel the validity of a previous proposition to indicate explicit contrast. As such, restrictive buguo can serve as a topic-shift marker and to convey implicit disagreement; cancellative buguo often acts as a topic-change marker used to introduce explicit disagreement. In particular, both restrictive buguo and cancellative buguo can serve as metacoherence markers, which are often employed by interview hosts/hostesses to make the discourse optimally coherent.

The structure of Num+CL in the Zhōutún dialect can be divided into two kinds: VCP and NCP. The VCP in VCP+V is the adverbial, while the NCP can either precede or follow the N it modifies. In NCP+N, the NCP is the attribute; however, in N+NCP, the NCP can be the post-attribute and the adverbial, according to the syntactic property of N. The language contact of the Zhōutún dialect with Amdo Tibetan (AT) plays a role in leading to the peculiarities of Num+CL in the Zhōutún dialect.