ON the SYNTAX of CHINESE NOMINALS by HUIMIN JI
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ONTHE SYNTAX OF CHINESE NOMINALS by HUIMINJI (Under the Direction of Marlyse Baptista) ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the use of classifiers in Chinese and more specifically compares Mandarin and the Wu dialect in terms of classifier usage. Different syntactic structures are proposed for the surface form [Cl + N] to derive its definite and indefinite interpretations. Classifiers are argued to encode only the feature of countability. The classifier in Wu moves to D when the [Cl + N] form has a definite interpretation. Xie ‘some’, usually considered to be a plural marker or a plural classifier in the linguistic literature, is argued to be a quantifier which can be used with both count and mass nouns. This dissertation also analyzes the so-called complex definites. Pronouns are assumed to be determiners in Mandarin. Possessives function like adjectives and they do not encode the definiteness feature in Mandarin. Multiple possessives realizing different theta roles can occur prenominally and their order is fixed. It is assumed that different possessives occupy the specifier positions of different functional projections. Proper names in Mandarin are argued to be in various syntactic positions. Demonstrative determiners are assumed to project their own phrasal category in this dissertation. INDEX WORDS: determiner phrase, classifier phrase, definiteness, specificity, complex definites ONTHE SYNTAX OF CHINESE NOMINALS by HUIMINJI B.A. Zhejiang Normal University, China, 1986 M.A. Shanghai International Studies University, China, 1995 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2007 © 2007 Huimin Ji All Rights Reserved ONTHE SYNTAX OF CHINESE NOMINALS by HUIMINJI Major Professor: Marlyse Baptista Committee: Keith Langston Michael A. Covington Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2007 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Finally, this dissertation is complete. It is time for me to express my deepest gratitude to the many people from whom I have received help in the writing process and who have helped shape me into the person that I am today. First of all, I am deeply indebted to my committee members: Dr. Marlyse Baptista, Dr. Keith Langston and Dr. Michael Covington. Dr. Baptista read the drafts of this dissertation meticulously and supervised my writing with professional guidance and insightful criticism. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Baptista for her patience with my procrastination and her confidence in me. Without her constant nudging and encouragement, I would have long given up writing this dissertation. I would like to thank Dr. Langston and Dr. Covington for serving on my committee and for their constructive comments on this dissertation. It has always been a pleasant and enlightening experience to talk with Dr. Langston. Also, I would like to thank Dr. Baptista and Dr. Langston for their syntax and morphology courses, from which I have benefited most, of all the courses I have taken at UGA. I am grateful to the Linguistics Program and late director Dr. William Provost for admitting me. I can still recall my excitement when he told me that I had been admitted to the program and recommended for Graduate School assistantship. My thanks also go to Dr. Don McCreary, Dr. Mi-Ran Kim and Ms Lynnette Lang for all their help during my study at UGA. v I would like to thank my former teacher Professor Tiexiong Wang at Zhejiang Normal University, China, who introduced me to English linguistics over twenty years ago. At that time, linguistics courses were not offered at the university that I attended; Professor Wang tutored me out of class and lent me books when we students almost had no access to linguistics works written in English. During the writing of this dissertation, he sent me a book and several journal articles from China. Professor Wang is a father figure to me and treats me like his own child. He once advised me to wash hands before eating after I graduated and was assigned to work in a medical college. During the writing of this dissertation, many friends, former classmates and colleagues helped me. I thank the following people for sharing their intuitions about (un)grammaticality of Chinese nominals and/or sending me journal articles: Fengming Cai, Mingsheng Cao, Jiaoe Chen, Jiayun Han, Lichao He, Zhongheng Jia, Shupeng Li, Xinghuan Luo, Chong Pan, Yugang Shen, Dong Wang, Yaowu Wang, Yue Wang and Yanran Zhu. Last, but not least, I thank my family. I owe special thanks to my parents-in-law for encouraging me to pursue further study in the U.S. I thank my parents for instilling in me the importance of education and sending me to college, when most children of my age then worked in the field. My parents have always been my support, whether I was a small village kid at home or a student far away from home. My wife Congzhou and daughter Yinyu have always been extremely patient and supportive. Without them, this dissertation would have never been completed. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………...iv LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………….viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………………….ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………1 1.1 Definiteness and Specificity….................................................................................3 1.2 The Organization of the Dissertation……………………......................................10 2 LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………..…………….....……......13 2.1 Theoretical Motivations for the DP Hypothesis…………………………….........13 2.2 Empirical Support for the DP Hypothesis……..…………………………………16 2.3 Bare Nouns………………………………………………………………….…....26 2.4 Research on Chinese Nominals………………………………………………….33 3 MANDARINCHINESE: AN OVERVIEW…………..…………………………….…43 3.1 Language Use in China…………………………………………………………..43 3.2 Some Grammatical Features of Mandarin Nominals…………………………….47 4 THE CLASSIFIER SYSTEM INCHINESE…………..………………………………60 4.1 The Development of the Chinese Classifier System……………………………..62 vii 4.2 Classification of Chinese Classifiers…………………………………..…………80 4.3 Functions of Classifiers…………………………………………………………..83 4.4 Numerically-Quantified Nominals……………………………………………….88 5 COMPARISONOF CLASSIFIER USES IN WU AND MANDARIN…….………...105 5.1 Uses of Classifiers in Wu………………………….…………………………….105 5.2 Distributions and Interpretations of [Cl+N] in Wu and Mandarin….…………...111 5.3 Syntactic Structures of [Cl+N] in Wu and Mandarin…………...……………….115 6 COMPLEX NOMINALS INMANDARIN…..…………..…………………………..129 6.1 Possessive Constructions in Mandarin……..………..………………………….130 6.2 Personal Pronouns and Proper Names…………………………………………..148 6.3 Demonstrative Determiners……………………………………………………..165 7 CONCLUSION…………………………….…………..……………………………..180 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………..184 viii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 3.1 Personal Pronouns in Mandarin ……………………………………………………49 Table 3.2 Personal Pronouns in the Wenling Dialect……….…………………………………54 Table 4.1 Differences between Classifiers and Measure Words………………………………70 Table 6.1 Meanings and Functions of Demonstratives in Mandarin……………….………..174 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS C complementizer Cl classifier ClP classifier phrase Col collective marker -men in Mandarin Comp complementizer CP complementizer phrase D determiner DE modification marker de in Mandarin Dem demonstrative DemP demonstrative phrase DP determiner phrase Exp experiential aspect marker GE modification marker ge in Wu, equivalent to de in Mandarin. I inflection IP inflectional phrase MW measure word N noun x NP noun phrase Num number Nume numeral NumP number phrase NumeP numeral phrase Poss possessive pronoun Perf perfective aspect marker Prog progressive aspect marker Quan quantifier Ques question marker SFP sentence-final particle TP tense phrase V verb VP verb phrase 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This dissertation examines the syntactic structure of Chinese nominal expressions, with particular attention paid to the functional category of Cl(assifier). It argues against Cheng & Sybesma’s (1999, 2005) view that the classifier in Chinese functions like the definite article in some western languages and that ClP is more or less equivalent to DP. The classifier plays an important role in Chinese nominal expressions. Every dialect of the Chinese language uses classifiers, yet the use of classifiers varies among different dialects. Not only do different dialects use different classifiers in counting the same object described by a noun, but they have different grammatical functions. This dissertation compares the uses of classifiers in Mandarin with those in the Wu dialect. The classifier in both Mandarin and the Wu dialect has classifying and individualizing functions. However, classifiers in Wu can also have the referentialization function; a nominal like ben shu (literally ‘Cl book’) in Wu, not in Mandarin, can mean ‘this book’. This dissertation assumes that the classifier in Mandarin and Wu is base-generated in Cl and that only in Wu the classifier can move to D. When it has an indefinite interpretation, the surface form [Cl + N] in Mandarin and Wu is argued to be a Nume(ral)P with the numeral yi ‘one’ deleted, This explains why the indefinite [Cl + N] phrase can only occur in a lexically-governed position in both Mandarin and Wu. In addition to an 2 indefinite interpretation, the [Cl + N] phrase in Wu can have a definite interpretation, in which case the classifier is argued to move to D. Another