ON THE SYNTAX OF CHINESE NOMINALS
by
HUIMIN JI
(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
ON THE SYNTAX OF CHINESE NOMINALS
by
HUIMIN JI
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
ON THE SYNTAX OF CHINESE NOMINALS
by
HUIMIN JI
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 MANDARIN CHINESE: AN OVERVIEW…………..…………………………….…43
3.1 Language Use in China…………………………………………………………..43
3.2 Some Grammatical Features of Mandarin Nominals…………………………….47
4 THE CLASSIFIER SYSTEM IN CHINESE…………..………………………………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 COMPARISON OF 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 IN MANDARIN…..…………..…………………………..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
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.
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 topic that is dealt with in this dissertation is complex nominal expressions in
Mandarin. By complex nominal expressions, I mean here those in which personal pronouns, proper names, possessive pronouns, or demonstratives occur prenominally. These expressions are called complex definites in Lyons (1999). Some of these elements (like possessive pronouns and demonstratives) can co occur in Mandarin.
Assuming with Kayne (1994) that the underlying phrase structure for all languages is identical, following Li (1998, 1999) and Tang (1990) and contra Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005),
I hold that Chinese nominal expressions have a DP projection although Chinese does not have a dedicated article to signal the (in)definiteness of the nominal. This dissertation proposes that personal pronouns and proper names in Mandarin can be base generated in D, while the demonstrative occupies a lower level position within DP. I analyze complex nominal expressions such as (1) within X' theory.
(1) Zhang San (ta-men) zhe san ge xuesheng Zhang San (he Col) this three Cl student ‘Zhang San and the other two students’
In the following, I define and discuss the two important terms “definiteness” and
“specificity” and then outline the organization of this dissertation.
3
1.1 Definiteness and Specificity
Definiteness and specificity are two pivotal concepts in the discussion of the syntax and semantics of nominal expressions. In this section, I describe some of the main assumptions underlying these two concepts in the literature and put forward a working definition of the two terms for this dissertation.
As a semantico pragmatic concept, definiteness is universal (Lyons, 1999). The referents of some nominals in any language are identifiable or known to the hearer, no matter whether this language has any grammatical device to indicate the (in)definiteness of the nominal. Proper nouns and personal pronouns are inherently definite and every language also has demonstratives which indicate that the noun phrase in which they occur is definite. Still, syntactically, definiteness can be encoded differently in different languages and it may not be encoded at all in some languages. In a language like English, definiteness and indefiniteness are signaled by articles and other determiners. It is easy to determine whether a nominal expression is definite or indefinite in English, as definiteness is always encoded by definite determiners. I will elaborate on it later on. In a language without articles like Chinese, (in)definiteness of the nominal usually is not encoded syntactically and the (in)definite interpretation of the nominal expression depends on contextual factors such as shared background knowledge or prior discourse. If word order is considered a syntactic device, then definiteness is encoded syntactically to a certain extent, as preverbal bare nouns always have a definite interpretation in Chinese.
4
Although we know that the definite article encodes definiteness in English, the term
‘definiteness’ is difficult to define. Lyons (1999) discusses several perspectives from which definiteness is approached in the linguistic literature.1
The first perspective is the familiarity hypothesis. If the entity denoted by the nominal is familiar to both the speaker and the listener, then the nominal is definite. The definite article the in English signals such familiarity and a the lack of such familiarity. But in certain contexts, the definite article is used, but the listener is not familiar with the referent of the nominal. For example, A says (2) to B when B just enters the room:
(2) “Pass me the hammer, please.”
Speaker B may not know that there is a hammer in the room, but the is still used in the nominal.
Here, the familiarity hypothesis cannot explain the appropriate use of the definite article.
Another perspective is the assumption of identifiability of the referent. According to this approach, the definite article signals that the speaker assumes that the listener is able to identify the referent. The identifiability notion can explain the use of the definite article in (2). Even though the listener may not know that there is a hammer in the room, he would look around and identify the hammer after hearing (2). Still in certain contexts, neither the familiarity hypothesis nor the identifiablity perspective can explain the use of the definite article. A speaker may use the definite article even when the listener is unable to identify the referent. For example, one
1 The example sentences in this section are from Lyons (1999, Chapter One).
5 might say (3), even when the hearer may be neither familiar with nor able to identify the bride mentioned in (3).
(3) I’ve just been to a wedding. The bride wore blue.
The third perspective that Lyons (1999) discusses is uniqueness. We can use the definite article as long as there is a unique referent that fits the description and the definite article signals that there is only one referent satisfying the description of the nominal. The successful use of the definite article in (3) can be explained by the idea of uniqueness. In a wedding, there must be a bride and only one bride. However, the definite article can also be used with a mass noun or a plural count noun. The referent is not unique when the definite article is used with mass or plural count nouns.
The fourth perspective is inclusiveness. This means the reference of definite nominals containing plural or mass nouns in the context is to the totality of the objects/people or the mass satisfying the description of the referent(s) of the nominal. Consider the following example:
(a nurse about to enter the operating theatre) (4) I wonder who the anesthetists are today.
The definite noun phrase the anesthetists in (4) refers to all the anesthetists about to take part in the operation. Uniqueness can be viewed as a special case of inclusiveness when the totality of objects/people satisfying the description is only one.
6
From the above, we can see that each of the four approaches can explain some of the uses of the , but not necessarily all of its uses. The four notions of definiteness discussed above are basically semantico pragmatic. As long as the reference of a nominal involves either familiarity, or identifiability, or uniqueness or inclusiveness, the nominal can be considered to be definite.
The four notions are applicable to the Chinese nominal. The difference between (in)definite nominals in English and those in Chinese is that there is no obligatory grammatical means to signal familiarity, identifiability, or uniqueness/inclusiveness in Chinese.
In this dissertation, I use ‘definite’ to mean that the listener knows who or which thing(s) a definite nominal expression refers to. This means that the listener is able to identify the referent of the nominal in discourse, thanks to either the context of discourse or shared background knowledge. Here the verbs ‘know’ and ‘identify’ do not mean that the listener literally knows or is able to identify the person(s) or thing(s) in real life that a definite nominal refers to. It only means that the listener has a mental representation of the referent of the definite nominal, based on the linguistic context, situational context and background knowledge.
Lyons (1999) classifies definites into simple and complex ones. Simple definites are when definiteness is marked by grammatical or functional morphemes (like the in English).
Complex definites are proper names, personal pronouns, noun phrases with possessives or demonstratives.2 As we mentioned above, definiteness is language universal as a semantico pragmatic concept. As a grammatical category, whether definiteness is language universal
2 In some languages, possessives and demonstratives do not necessarily have the definiteness feature, as they can co occur with the definite article in a nominal.
7 depends upon how definiteness is defined. Lyons argues that it is only when definiteness is marked by grammatical morphemes in a language that the language has definiteness as a grammatical category. This is the narrow sense of definiteness. In Lyons’ view, languages like
Chinese, which do not have a grammatical marker of definiteness, lack definiteness as a grammatical category. In this dissertation, I adopt the broad sense of definiteness, that is, definiteness as also encoded by proper names, personal pronouns and demonstratives. As a matter of fact, some scholars regard the personal pronoun as an article or definite determiner
(Postal, 1966; Abney, 1987). Let us consider the following examples:
(5) a. You guys did a good job. b. The guys did a good job. (6) a. We rich are becoming richer. b. The rich are becoming richer.
If we compare (5a) and (6a) with (5b) and (6b), we immediately notice that the pronouns occupy the same syntactic position as the definite article. In Mandarin, plural personal pronouns can precede bare nouns like you in (5a), as shown in (7).
(7) ni-men xuesheng yao renzhen xuexi . you Col students should diligently study ‘You students should study diligently.’
8
In addition, personal pronouns in Mandarin can precede the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence and the [Dem + Nume + Cl + N] sequence. We will come to the use of personal pronouns as determiners in Mandarin in Chapter Six.
Closely related to definiteness is specificity. According to Frawley (1992: 80),
“specificity refers to the uniqueness, individuation, or referential accessibility of an entity in a mentally projected world.” While definiteness is encoded by definite determiners in English, specificity is not marked in English. A nominal in English is not ambiguous with regard to definiteness; it can be either definite or indefinite, but cannot be both in English. This is not the case with specificity; a nominal can be both specific and nonspecific. For example, the nominal a man who speaks French in (8) can have two readings:
(8) I’m looking for a man who speaks French .3
The object nominal has a specific reading when (8) means ‘I’m looking for a particular man who speaks French’ and has a nonspecific reading when it means ‘I’m looking for any man who speaks French’. In some languages, the two readings of the nominal in (8) are formally distinguished. In Spanish, the specific and nonspecific readings of (8) are signaled by using different moods: the indicative mood for the specific reading and the subjunctive mood for the nonspecific reading (Frawley, 1992: 70).
3 The examples in the discussion of specificity here are from Frawley (1992, Chapter Three). For details about specificity, please refer to Frawley (1992).
9
According to Frawley (1992: 74), specificity “can be functionally induced by tense, mood, definiteness, context of utterance or assumed knowledge base.” The past tense in English tends to induce a specific reading of the nominal and the habitual present tense a nonspecific reading.
This is because past tense is connected to actuality, what really happened in the past. Consider the following two English examples:
(9) a. John bought the food. b. John buys the food.
The object nominal in (9a) has a specific reading, while that in (9b) can have both specific and nonspecific reading. (9b) can mean “John habitually buys particular food” or “John habitually buys any food” and the latter interpretation (i.e., the nonspecific reading) is arguably even the preferred one (Frawley, 1992: 73). I will come to the inducement of specific reading by past tense when discussing the interpretation of the classifier phrase in Chinese in Chapter Five.
Definiteness/indefiniteness and specificity/non specificity are closely related. Definite nominals tend to be specific, as they tend to encode old information. Still, not all definite descriptions are specific. For example, the definite noun phrase the lion in (10) can have generic reference, so (10) can mean ‘any member of the class of lions is noble’.
(10) The lion is a noble animal.
10
Indefinite noun phrases can be both specific and non specific as (8) illustrates, depending on contextual factors.
I use ‘specificity’ here to mean the feature of a nominal in context to refer to a particular member, not any member of the class of entities described by the noun. Compare the feature of
(non)specificity of the object noun phrase in the following two sentences.
(11) I bought a book yesterday. (12) I’m going to buy a book this afternoon.
In (11), a book has a specific reference, as the speaker bought a particular book, while a book in
(12) can have either a specific or nonspecific reference. The speaker plans to buy a particular book or any one book this afternoon.
In this section, I discussed several aspects of the concepts of ‘definiteness’ and
‘specificity’ and what is meant by the two terms in this dissertation.
1.2 The Organization of the Dissertation
The organization of the dissertation is as follows: I first conduct a literature review of studies concerning the structures of nominal expressions in Chapter Two. The theoretical motivations and empirical support for the DP hypothesis are described. I also discuss some studies about Chinese nominals in the linguistic literature.
In Chapter Three, some background is provided about language use in China and about the main relevant features of Mandarin nominal expressions.
11
In Chapter Four, I discuss numeral classifiers with particular reference to Mandarin. The use of classifiers is a very important feature of Chinese nominals. In a numerically quantified nominal in Chinese, the numeral cannot be used directly before the head noun; a classifier or measure word must be used between them. As a result, much of Chapter Four is devoted to the discussion of classifiers. I first make a distinction between classifiers and measure words, although many scholars use these two terms interchangeably. The classification of classifiers in the literature and the functions of classifiers are discussed there. I will trace the development of the classifier system in Chinese, as there were no classifiers in ancient Chinese. Then I analyze the syntactic structure of numerically quantified nominals in Mandarin.
Chapter Five compares the functions of classifiers in Mandarin and the Wu dialect.
Relatively speaking, the use of classifiers in the southern dialects of Chinese is more diverse than in Mandarin, although the use of classifiers within a major dialect area is not always consistent.
The distributions and interpretations of classifiers are discussed. I propose different syntactic structures of the surface form [Cl + N], which can have two different interpretations in the Wu dialect. The different functions of classifiers in the Wu dialect and Mandarin are explained with reference to their syntactic structures.
Complex nominal expressions in Mandarin are dealt with in Chapter Six. Although demonstratives, definite articles and possessive pronouns are in complementary distribution in
English, they can co occur in other languages (like Spanish, Bosnian). So, demonstratives and possessive pronouns do not universally occupy D. They may not be inherently definite syntactically. Proper names/personal pronouns, demonstratives or possessives can co occur
12 before the head noun in Mandarin. The position of possessives is quite flexible and several possessives can occur together in a Mandarin nominal. Syntactic structural analyses for complex nominals in Mandarin will be proposed. Chapter Seven summarizes the conclusion of the dissertation.
13
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, I conduct a literature review of research about nominal expressions in general linguistics and in Chinese linguistics. In Section 2.1, the theoretical motivations for the
DP hypothesis are provided. The empirical support for the DP hypothesis is discussed in Section
2.2. In Section 2.3, the syntactic and semantic approaches to bare arguments are presented. In
Section 2.4, I discuss some previous studies about Chinese nominals.
2.1 Theoretical Motivations for the DP Hypothesis
During the 1970’s, a theory was put forward in linguistics to capture the similarities of different phrases. This theory is called X' theory, where X stands for a lexical category (N, V, Adj,
Prep). According to the X' theory, a lexical category has a phrasal projection, in which there is an optional specifier which is sister to an intermediate projection called X' (hence the name of the theory). Under the intermediate projection X' are the zero level category head X and its complement which itself is a phrase. So a phrase within the X' theory has the following structure
(1):
14
(1)
Before the mid 1980’s, a nominal expression was analyzed as an NP and all pre head elements (traditionally called determiners), such as articles, demonstratives, and possessive pronouns, occupy the specifier position. So a nominal had the following syntactic structure (2):
(2)
Chomsky (1986) proposes that both lexical categories (like N, V) and functional categories (like Complementizer and Inflection) have phrasal projections, and specifiers and complements are always maximal projections. So a clause is analyzed as CP or IP, with
Complementizer or Inflection as head and wh phrase or subject NP in their respective specifier positions. For example, ‘He broke the window’ has the following structure (3):
15
(3)
Unlike the analysis of clausal structure, the revised X' theory had not been extended to the analysis of nominal expressions before the DP hypothesis. A nominal expression was then still analyzed as an NP, with determiners in its specifier position. Such an analysis of nominal expressions is inconsistent with the revised X' theory. One inconsistency is that determiners, as a functional category, do not have their phrasal projection. Another is that the specifier position of a nominal expression hosts a zero level category D, not a maximal projection as supposed in the revised X' theory.
In the 1980’s, some scholars (Szabolcsi, 1983 on Hungarian; Hellan, 1986 on Norwegian;
Abney, 1987) proposed that nominal expressions are not NPs. Abney (1987) argues that determiners project their own phrasal category and that nominal expressions are really DPs, headed by a functional category D. Based on the English data, Abney draws the conclusion that various elements such as articles, demonstratives and pronouns are generated in D, as they are in
16 complementary distribution in English. A nominal expression within the DP analysis has the following structure (4): (4)
The DP analysis solves the afore mentioned two inconsistencies with the revised X' theory.
In the following section we deal with the empirical support for the DP hypothesis.
2.2 Empirical Support for the DP Hypothesis
Many linguistic facts show that clausal and nominal structures are similar. This evidence comes from different areas: morphology, syntax and semantics. The similarities between clauses and nominal phrases cannot be accommodated by the pre DP hypothesis analysis of nominal expressions and these similarities justify the DP hypothesis. Therefore, the DP hypothesis can not only make the analysis of the nominal conform to the revised X' theory, but also capture the
17 similarities between the clause and the nominal phrase. In the following, I present some of the facts validating the DP hypothesis (for details please refer to Bernstein (2001)).
Morphologically, agreement in case, person and number between the possessor and the possessed noun in the nominal and that between the subject and the verb in the clause are observed to be similar in some languages, although the English nominal and clause lack such inflectional morphology. Abney (1987) cites data from Yup'ik, a Central Alaskan Eskimo language, Tzutujil, a Mayan language, and Hungarian to demonstrate the similar agreement morphology within the clause and the nominal. The possessor in the nominal and the subject in the clause are assigned the same case in Yup'ik, Tzutujil and Hungarian: ergative case in Yup'ik and Tzutujil; nominative case in Hungarian (Abney, 1987: 20). Consider the following data from
Yup'ik (5) and Hungarian (6):
(5) a. angute t kiputa a t man ERG (PL) buy OM SM 4 ‘the men bought it’ b. angute t kuiga t man ERG (PL) river SM ‘the men’s river’ c. angute m kiputa a ø man ERG (SG) buy OM SM ‘the man bought it’ 4 The Yup'ik data were originally from Reed et al. (1977). OM stands for ‘object agreement marker’ and SM for ‘subject agreement marker’.
18
d. angute m kuiga ø man ERG (SG) river SM ‘the man’s river’ (6) a. a te ø vendeg e d5 the you NOM guess POSS 2SG ‘your guest’ b. (a) Mari ø vendeg e ø (the) Mary NOM guest POSS 3SG ‘Mary’s guest’ c. Mari ø alud t ø Mary NOM slept Past 3SG ‘Mary slept’
From the above examples, we can see that the clause and the nominal in both Yup’ik and
Hungarian share the agreement morpheme and case assignment. These facts strongly suggest that the clause and the nominal share the similar syntactic structure. Based on Hungarian data,
Szabolcsi (1983) argues for a nominal IP node. Abney (1987) suggests that the counterpart of the clausal IP in the nominal is DP.
Syntactically, there are also parallels in the clausal and nominal domains. In terms of argument structure, both the verb and the noun can take internal and external arguments, although the argument in the nominal is not obligatory and that in the clause usually is. Consider
5 The data were originally from Szabolcsi (1983). (6a) and (6b) were cited in both Abney (1987) and Bernstein (2001). (6c) was cited in Bernstein (2001).
19 the following two examples and notice the similarity between the clausal argument (7a) and the nominal argument (7b).
(7) a. John destroyed the spaceship . b. John ’s destruction of the spaceship . (Abney, 1987: 15)
In the literature, the external argument of the verb is argued to be base generated in Spec VP and then it moves to Spec IP for case checking (Koopman & Sportiche, 1991). This approach is called the VP Internal Subject Hypothesis. In the same way, some scholars (e.g., Ritter, 1988) argue that the subject argument of the noun is generated in Spec NP and then moves to Spec DP to check its case.
Another piece of syntactic evidence for the similarity between the clausal and the nominal domain is word order variation in different languages. Much research about word order variation was concerned with Romance languages and Germanic languages. For example, adverbs in French must follow finite verbs while they must precede finite verbs in English, as the following examples taken from Pollock (1989: 367) illustrate.
(8) a. Jean embrasse souvent Marie . John kisses often Mary b. * Jean souvent embrasse Marie . John often kisses Mary c. *John kisses often Mary. d. John often kisses Mary.
20
Pollock (1989) suggests that underlyingly adverbs precede finite verbs cross linguistically. The word order variation of the adverb with respect to the finite verb is due to syntactic movement. In
French, the verb moves across the adverb to the Infl node, while in English the verb remains in the V node. The reason for verb movement in French, not in English, is that French has rich morphology and English does not. Such word order variation in the clausal domain can also be found in the nominal domain. The equivalent of the adverb is the adjective in the nominal domain. In English nominals adjectives precede the proper noun while they follow in Romance languages, as shown in (9) and (10) (drawn from Longobardi, 1994: 624).
(9) a. *E’ venuto vecchio Cameresi. (Italian) came older Cameresi b. E’ venuto Cameresi vecchio. came Cameresi older c. E’ venuto il vecchio Cameresi. came the older Cameresi (10) a. Old John came in. e. *John old came in.
Longobardi (1994) argues that proper names in Italian move overtly across adjectives to D when it is not occupied by the expletive definite article (9b), while proper names in English only move covertly to D at LF. With regard to common nouns, adjectives are argued to be on the left of the noun underlyingly in both Romance and Germanic languages. The different surface position
21 of the adjective was attributed to the raising of the head noun in Romance (but not in Germanic) to a functional head intermediate between N and D (Cinque, 1994).
Semantically, there is also some similarity between the clausal and nominal domain. In the literature, an independent clause is treated as an IP and a sentential argument as a CP.
Consider the following English examples.
(11) a. He failed the test. b. *That he failed the test. (12) a. That he failed the test surprised me. b. *He failed the test surprised me.
(11a), which expresses a proposition, is an IP and that he failed in the test in (12a) is an argument and it is the complementizer that that turns he failed in the test into an argument. The tree diagrams for (11a) and (12a) are as follows.
22
(11a)
23
(12a)
Similarly, nominal predicates are NPs and nominal arguments DPs. It is the determiner
that turns a nominal predicate into an argument. Look at the following Italian examples (from
Longobardi, 1994: 619):
(13) *Gianni e medico che si cura davvero dei suoi pazienti. Gianni is doctor who really cares for his patients. (14) Gianni e un medico che si cura davvero dei suoi pazienti. Gianni is a doctor who really cares for his patients. (15) Gianni e (un) medico. Gianni is a doctor.
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The ungrammaticality of (13) and grammaticality of (14) show that a nominal predicate without an accompanying determiner cannot function as the head of a relative clause in Italian. But the determiner is optional when there is no relative clause following the predicate nominal as indicated in (15). Actually, in English a nominal predicate sometimes does not need a determiner either.
(16) a. Child as he is, he has more sense than his father. b. We elected him president.
In (16), the singular count nouns child and president , functioning as predicates, are not preceded by articles. From the perspective of (non)argument, the sentential argument and nominal argument are respectively an CP and an DP; a sentence or a proposition and a nominal predicate are respectively an IP and an NP.
A number of scholars (Abney, 1987: 77; Cheng & Sybesma, 2005: 227) observe that
Tense Phrase (TP) (sometimes subsumed under Infl in the literature) in the clausal domain is equivalent to DP in the nominal domain and VP in the clausal domain is equivalent to NP in the nominal domain. Both TP and DP have deictic property, the property to be able to refer, while VP and NP describe. For example, the NP dog just describes the intensional property of ‘dogness’ possessed by a certain type of animal and the VP bake cookies describes a certain type of event.
When the NP and the VP are embedded in DP and TP or IP respectively, then the nominal and the verbal have the property of referentiality. As a result, the nominal the dog and the verbal baked
25 cookies in (17a) and (17b) refer to a particular dog and a particular event of ‘baking cookies’ in the real life world respectively.
(17) a. The dog is barking. b. John baked cookies.
Above I discussed the similarities between the clausal and the nominal domains in terms of their morphology, syntax and semantics. These similarities can only be captured when a higher functional level above NP is assumed. Abney (1987) suggests that this higher functional level is DP. The lexical category VP in the clause is equivalent to NP in the nominal; they both describe. In terms of (non)argument, the functional category CP in the clause corresponds to
DP in the nominal; they can both function as argument one is a sentential argument, the other a nominal argument. In terms of movement and case checking and referentiality, the functional category IP in the clause is equivalent to DP in the nominal; the sentential subject and nominal subject move to Spec IP and Spec DP for case checking and both IP and DP have the property of referentiality. In the next section, I give a brief review of research on bare nouns.
2.3 Bare Nouns
In this section, I review some studies about bare nouns. It is generally agreed that the article is the typical lexical item that fills the head D of DP. Abney (1987: 266) argues that personal pronouns are “intransitive” determiners and that they occupy the D position. With regard to the possessive containing nominal in English, the possessor is considered to be in Spec
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DP and AGR(eement), which does not co occur with lexical determiners in English, is in D
(Abney, 1987: 271).
In some languages with articles, such as French, the head of DP must be lexically filled, while in other articled languages, the head of DP is not always lexically filled, like bare plurals and mass nouns in English. Still other languages do not have any article at all, like most Slavic languages and Chinese, and in such languages bare nouns are widely used. Compare the following examples.
(The intended reading of the subject nominals of the following examples is generic)
(18) a. Wine is expensive. b. The tiger is a mammal. c. Tigers are mammals. (19) a. Le vin coûte cher . (French) The wine cost expensive ‘Wine is expensive.’ b. Le tigre est un mammifere . the tiger is a mammal ‘The tiger is a mammal.’ (20) a. Jiu hen gui . (Chinese) wine very expensive ‘Wine is very expensive.’ b. laohu shi purudongwu . Tiger be mammal ‘The tiger is a mammal.’
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The above examples show that the argument nominal in French must have a determiner, that in
Chinese it does not need a determiner, and that a determiner is used with the singular noun, but no determiner is needed with a mass noun or a plural noun in English.
There are two approaches to bare nouns in the literature: a syntactic one, of which
Longobardi (1994) is representative, and a semantic one, of which Chierchia (1998a, b) is representative. Longobardi (1994) suggests that argument nominals need to be introduced by D.
Furthermore, he assumes that the nominal can only have an existential interpretation if the D position is left empty and that an empty head must be lexically governed (p.641). Bare nouns, which can function as arguments in both Italian and English, project DPs. Proper names in Italian move to D overtly when D is not lexically filled by the expletive article, while in English proper names move to D covertly at LF, to avoid the proper government requirement of an empty head.
The evidence for this proposal is the word order difference when an adjective modifies a proper name in Italian and English. When the D position is empty, the proper name must occur before the adjective in Italian. When the D position is filled by the definite article, then the proper name can occur after the adjective. In English a proper name can only follow an adjective. We repeat
(9) and (10) from Longobardi (1994: 624) here for illustration.
(9) a. *E’ venuto vecchio Cameresi. (Italian) came older Cameresi b. E’ venuto Cameresi vecchio. came Cameresi older c. E’ venuto il vecchio Cameresi.
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came the older Cameresi (10) a. Old John came in e. *John old came in.
Bare common nouns in Italian project DP, but they do not move to D, so the head D is empty. As a result of D being empty, bare common nouns in Italian can only have existential interpretation and occur only in a lexically governed position. However, in English, bare nouns are much freer in distribution than those in Italian. Also, bare nouns in English can both have existential and generic interpretation, as the following examples from Longobardi (1994) indicate.
(21) a. Mangio potate. (p.613) I eat/am eating potatoes. b. *Castori construiscono dighe. (p.630) Beavers build dams. c. *Cani stavano seduti sul mio prato. Dogs were sitting on my lawn.
In (21a) the argument nominal potate , which has an existential interpretation, projects a DP, with the head D empty. (21a) is grammatical since the bare nominal with an empty D head is governed by the lexical verb, and (21b) and (21c) are ungrammatical, because the argument nominals are bare and they occur in a position that is not lexically governed. The English equivalents of (20b) and (20c) are grammatical; beavers has a generic interpretation and dogs an existential interpretation. According to Longobardi, a bare noun having a generic interpretation
29 in English moves to D at LF, thus avoiding a violation of the lexical government requirement.
The bare noun which has an existential interpretation does not move to D, yet it occurs in non lexically governed position in English. According to Longobardi (1994: 645), the existential interpretation of bare nouns in the non lexically governed position in English is a marked phenomenon; in other Germanic languages bare nouns in the non lexically governed position can only be generically interpreted. Longobardi offers two proposals to explain the markedness of the existential interpretation of bare nouns in a non lexically governed position in English. One proposal is that default existential closure determines the interpretation of the nominal introduced by the empty D and later the head noun moves to D at LF and D is no longer empty, thus avoiding the violation of the government requirement of an empty head at LF. Another proposal is that the subjects of stage level predicates in English are in a VP internal position at LF, even though occurring in Spec IP at S Structure (which was originally developed in Kratzer (1988) and Diesing (1988)) and the lexical government requirement of an empty category is satisfied.
Chierchia (1998a, b) approaches bare nouns from a semantic perspective. Nouns generally can be predicates as restrictors of quantifiers and can be arguments as names of kinds.
But the ways that they are realized in different languages are different. Chierchia (1998a) proposes that the two features [±arg] and [±pred] constrain the way in which N and NP are mapped onto their interpretation. Based on whether bare N and NP in a language can occur in the argument or predicate position, languages are classified into three types: NP [+arg, pred] languages, NP [ arg, +pred] languages and NP [+arg, +pred] languages.
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Each type of language has a cluster of properties. In NP [+arg, pred] languages, nouns refer to kinds; bare nouns can be arguments; all nouns are mass and have no plural markings but rather have a classifier system for counting. In such a language, the nominal does not need to be a DP for argumenthood. Chinese and Japanese are examples of this type of language. I use the following Chinese examples for illustration.
(22) xuesheng zai jiaoshi kai banhui .
Student in classroom hold class meeting
‘The students are having a class meeting in the classroom.’
(23) you wu *(ge) xuesheng zai da lanqiu .
Have five Cl student Prog beat basketball
‘There are five students playing basketball.’
Bare noun xuesheng ‘student(s)’ in (22) functions as an argument in. When the noun is numerically quantified, a classifier must be used (23).
In a NP [ arg, +pred] language, every noun is a predicate and the nominal has to project a
DP in order to be an argument, although the head D can be lexically filled or phonetically null.
French and Italian are two examples. The head D is overt in argument position in French, while it can be null in Italian. The occurrence of null D must obey the rule for empty category, that is, it must be licensed or governed by a lexical head; therefore, the bare N as argument is restricted in distribution in Italian. I repeat the Italian example (21) (from Longobardi, 1994) for illustration.
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(21) a. Mangio potate. (p.613) I eat/am eating potatoes. b. *Castori construiscono dighe. (p.630) Beavers build dams. c. *Cani stavano seduti sul mio prato. Dogs were sitting on my lawn.
In (21a) the bare noun potate ‘potatoes’ is in a lexically governed position and functions as an argument. When in a non lexically governed position, bare nouns cannot be an argument as (21b, c) show.
In a NP [+arg, +pred] language, N and NP can be either predicate or argument. That is, they can denote either kinds or predicates. In such a language, there is mass/count distinction among nouns. Mass nouns and plurals are able to occur as bare arguments; singular count nouns do not. English is an example of a language of this type. Consider example (24).
(24) a. I bought books/water this afternoon.
b. I bought * (a) book this afternoon.
c. We elected him president.
(24a) illustrates that bare plurals like books and mass nouns like water in English can function as an argument. Bare singular nouns, on the other hand, cannot be an argument; they can function as a predicate as shown in (24b, c).
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With respect to the nominal in languages without dedicated articles to signal
(in)definiteness, scholars are divided about whether the nominal projects DP or not. Some linguists (Progovac, 1998; Leko, 1999; Tang, 1990; and Li, 1998, among others) assume that the projection of DP is a universal property and argue that DP is projected in the nominal, while others (Lyons, 1999; Cheng & Sybesma, 1999, 2005; and Trenkic, 2004, among others) hold that languages without articles do not project DP. Progovac (1998) uses word order differences of the noun/pronoun with respect to certain intensifying adjectives to conclude that pronouns occupy a structurally higher position than nouns in Serbo Croatian, where pronouns precede and nouns follow certain intensifying adjectives. Trenkic (2004), on the other hand, following Lyons (1999), argues that definiteness is not grammaticalised in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, although definiteness as a semantic /pragmatic concept is universal. Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) argue that there is no D category in Chinese nominals, that the classifier in Chinese performs some of the functions of articles in some western languages, and that definite nominals in Chinese are
ClP.
Before concluding this section, I mention some studies of the more elaborated analyses of internal structures of the nominal since the DP hypothesis was first put forward. Abney originally analyzed the nominal as a DP taking an NP as its complement. Since then, research into other languages has shown that demonstratives, possessive pronouns and other elements which cannot co occur with the definite article before nouns in English do occur together in other languages.
Therefore, later studies proposed a series of other functional projections between D and NP in order to accommodate these prenominal elements. Number Phrase was proposed for Hebrew by
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Ritter (1991), and Gender Phrase for Romance languages (Picallo, 1991). Cinque (1994) proposed some unidentified intermediate functional categories whose specifier positions host prenominal adjectives.
2.4 Research on Chinese Nominals
With regard to Chinese nominal expressions, some scholars (Li, 1998, 1999; Tang, 1990) hold the view that Chinese nominal expressions have the DP projection, while Cheng & Sybesma
(1999, 2005) believe that ClP in Chinese is equivalent to DP in languages with articles. In the following subsections, I will review Tang (1990), Li (1998, 1999) and Cheng & Sybesma (1999,
2005), which are the representative studies concerning Chinese nominal expressions in the literature.
2.4.1 Tang (1990)
Following Abney’s DP analysis (1987), Tang (1990) put forward the following structure to analyze the Chinese nominal expressions. In her analysis, demonstratives are generated under
D and there is a phrasal category (ClP) between DP and NP. Numerals and classifiers are generated under the Cl head, as they always occur together and usually no other element can be inserted between them in Mandarin. Tang (1990) proposes that a Mandarin nominal has the following structure (25):
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(25)
‘these three books’
Tang (1990) does not take into account other more complex nominals involving personal pronouns and proper names. She just considers both the numeral and classifier to be under the head Cl. I will discuss whether numerals and classifiers project separate phrasal categories or as a complex head project one phrasal category together in Chapter Four.
2.4.2 Li (1998, 1999)
Li (1998, 1999) analyzes the different structures of numerically quantified Mandarin nominals in different contexts and the structure of Mandarin nominals with the so called plural marker men respectively. She proposes in the two articles that Mandarin nominals have a DP projection.
35
Nominals occurring before a verb tend to be definite in Chinese, as preverbal nominals are topics and topics tend to be old information. Numerically quantified nominals are usually indefinite, so they can not function as a subject in Chinese. In reality, they can occur as a subject in some contexts, but not in others. Li (1998) proposes that numerically quantified Chinese nominals (the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence) can be analyzed either as an indefinite individual denoting DP or a quantity denoting NumP. Individual denoting DPs are referential and quantity denoting NumPs are not referential. The nominal wu-ge xuesheng (‘five students’) in
(26) is an individual denoting DP and in (27) a quantity denoting NumP.
(26) you wu-ge xuesheng kaoshi de ai . (individual denoting) have five Cl student test get A ‘There are five students who got an A on the test’ (27) wo xuyao wu-ge xuesheng bangmang . (quantity denoting) I need five Cl student help ‘I need five students to help me.’
The nominal wu-ge xuesheng (‘five students’) in (26) has specific reference, referring to five particular students, while that in (27) has kind of generic reference, meaning ‘any five students’.
Some linguistic facts support the two different analyses of the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence in Mandarin. For example, an individual denoting [Nume + Cl + N] sequence, that is, an indefinite referential nominal expression, cannot occur before the verb in Mandarin, which can be explained by the syntactic principle that an empty category must be lexically governed
(Longobardi, 1994) if we consider an indefinite [Nume + Cl + N] as a DP with a null head. A
36 quantity denoting [Nume + Cl + N] nominal can appear before the verb, as the head Num is filled with a numeral. Let’s compare the following Mandarin and English examples.
(28)*San-ge xuesheng zai xuexiao shoushang le . (individual denoting DP) Three Cl student at school hurt SFP ‘Three students were hurt at school.’ (Li, 1998: 694) (29) San-zhi gunzi gou ni da ta ma? (quantity denoting NumP) Three Cl sticks enough you hit him Ques ‘Are three sticks enough for you to hit him (with)?’ (Li, 1998: 695) (30) Three students were hurt at school. (individual denoting) (31) Three students are enough to move the table. (quantity denoting)
(28) and (29) show that an individual denoting [Nume + Cl + N] nominal expression cannot occur in the subject position in Mandarin, but the quantity denoting [Nume + Cl + N] nominal can.
In addition, Li (1998) uses the co occurrence of the universal operator dou ‘all’ and the existential expression you ‘have’ with [Nume + Cl + N] sequences in certain contexts but not in other contexts to support her proposal that [Nume + Cl + N] sequences have two different structures. Dou ‘all’ and you ‘have’ can only co occur with individual denoting DPs ((32) and
(33)), because the scope of the universal operator is over an entire set of individuals and the existential expression asserts the existence of individuals. They can not occur together with non referential quantity denoting NumP ((34) and (35)).
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(32) San-ge xuesheng dou lei le . (individual denoting DP) Three Cl student all come SFP ‘Three students all came.’ (33) You sange xuesheng lei le . (individual denoting DP) Have three Cl student come SFP ‘There are three students that came.’ (34) *San-zhi gunzi dou gou ni da ta ma? (quantity denoting NumP) Three Cl sticks all enough you hit him Ques (35) *You san-zhi gunzi gou ni da ma? (quantity denoting NumP) have three Cl sticks enough you hit Ques
Based on the different uses and interpretations of the [Nume + Cl + N] nominal, Li (1998) argues that DP can be projected even though Mandarin does not have articles.
Li (1999) investigates the nominal expressions with the so called plural marker men . It is generally understood that men can only be added to singular personal pronouns and human nouns. It is also believed that the [Nume + Cl + N] nominal cannot be pluralized (that is, [Nume
+ Cl] is incompatible with men ). Li (1999) basically provides an explanation for the
(un)grammaticality of the following nominal expressions. In (36) and (37), the proper noun and personal pronoun with the plural marker men can occur before the numeral classifier. (38) and
(39) are ungrammatical; that is, common nouns with the plural marker men cannot co occur with the numeral classifier.
(36) XiaoQiang-men / xiaozhang-men san-ge (ren) XiaoQiang Col / principal Col three Cl (person)
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‘XiaoQiang/Principal and two others (in the group)’ (37) ta-men san-ge (ren) they three Cl (person) (38) *Xuesheng-men san-ge (ren) student Col three Cl (person) (39) *san-ge xuesheng-men three Cl student Col
Li (1999) hypothesizes that pronouns and proper nouns, being definite, are base generated in D and men is attached to an element in D (but she does not say where men is generated) and that the pluralized pronoun and proper noun with men can be followed by the
[Nume + Cl + N] sequence. But common nouns (which are generated under the node N) with
men cannot co occur with the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence, the reason for which, according to Li
(1999), is that the pluralized noun must be moved to D to check the definiteness feature, as pluralized nominal expressions must be definite; however, the Cl head blocks the N movement to
D.
Li argues that nominal expressions with men have the following syntactic structure (40):
39
(40)
‘the three of them’
However, the following expressions cannot be explained by Li’s hypothesis. Li (1999) argues that the plural marker men should be added to elements in D. The head nouns with the marker
men in (41), (42) and (43) all follow a classifier, so they cannot be in the D position.
(41) zhe/a qun hezhi -men this/a Cl child Col ‘this/a group of children’ (42) ji wei dashi -men several Cl master Col ‘several masters’ (43) s an-wu-ge ren -men three five Cl man Col ‘about three?/five? people’ ‘several people’
40
In (41), the collective classifier qun (‘group’) co occurs with a pluralized noun, while in (42) and
(43), the individual classifiers wei and ge combine with pluralized nouns when the numeral/quantifier + classifier does not express the exact number of the entity denoted by the pluralized noun. (41), (42) and (43) show that pluralized nouns do not have to move to D. It can be argued that pluralized nouns in Mandarin are not always definite, just like plurals suffixed with tati in Japanese (Nakanishi & Tomioka, 2004). Probably, men is not a plural marker at all, but a collective marker, as Iljic argues (1994). I will discuss the usage and the grammatical status of men in some detail in Chapter Three.
2.4.3 Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005)
Cheng & Sybesma (1999) deals with bare noun phrases in Mandarin and Cantonese and
Cheng & Sybesma (2005) analyzes the syntactic structure of bare noun phrases in Mandarin,
Cantonese, Wenzhou (a Wu subdialect) and the Min dialect. Bare nouns in Chinese can have both definite and indefinite reference. To them, bare nouns in Chinese are not really bare.
Definite bare nouns are ClP with a null head and indefinite bare noun phrases are NumeP with a null head.
Following the spirit of Longobardi (1994), C & S (1999, 2005) suggest that the classifier, like a determiner, has an individualizing or singularizing function and that a bare noun in
Mandarin is at least a ClP. Classifiers in Mandarin perform some functions of determiners in other languages, for example, classifiers turn Chinese nouns, which are predicates, into arguments.
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C & S consider definite bare nouns in Mandarin as ClPs and propose that nouns move covertly to the Cl position in order to receive a definite interpretation. Following Chierchia
(1998), they assume that for articleless languages like Chinese, the nonovert ι operator, which is equivalent to a definite article, is available. N to Cl movement is a necessary step for the use of the ι operator. As there is no overt classifier in definite bare nouns in Mandarin, they can be interpreted either as singular or plural.
The indefinite bare nouns and indefinite [Cl + N] phrases in Mandarin Chinese are believed to be a NumeP with an empty Cl head and an empty Nume head in the former and only an empty Nume head in the latter. As to the bare noun having generic interpretation, C & S argues that they, like definite bare nouns, undergo N to Cl movement. They demonstrate similarities between definite bare nouns and generic bare nouns in terms of their distribution and semantics. They draw an analogy between bare nouns in Mandarin, which can be interpreted as either generic or definite, and noun phrases with a definite article in English which can also be interpreted as either generic or definite.
(44) gou hen jilin . dog very intelligent ‘The dog is very intelligent.’
Example (44), just like its English counterpart (‘The dog is very intelligent.’), can make a predication about dogs in general or about a particular dog.
42
If the ClP in Mandarin functions like the DP in English, then it is very hard to explain the structure of complex nominal expressions like:
(45) wo zhe san ben shu my this three Cl book ‘these three books of mine’
In example (45), both the demonstrative zhe ‘this’ and the classifier ben are used. It is unattractive for two different heads to have the same feature. Also, it is hard to understand how the indefinite NumeP can have as its complement the ClP with a definite reference and a numeral can cancel its definite feature if the ClP is really definite. Besides, the [Cl + N] sequence in
Mandarin Chinese is very limited in distribution and never has a definite interpretation. How can a ClP in Chinese be equivalent to a DP in English? I will return to Cheng & Sybesma’s ideas about the classifier in Chinese in Chapter Five and there I suggest that the classifier in itself does not have the feature of definiteness and the [Cl + N] sequence can have definite interpretation because the classifier moves to D. When there is a demonstrative or numeral before the classifier in a nominal, the classifier remains in its base position.
In summary, I presented theoretical motivations and empirical supports for the DP hypothesis in this chapter. I also reviewed the two approaches, the syntactic and the semantic one, to bare nouns in the literature. Studies about Chinese nominal expressions were also discussed.
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CHAPTER THREE
MANDARIN CHINESE: AN OVERVIEW
For informational purposes, I describe in this chapter the language use situation in China
(Section 3.1) and some linguistic features of Mandarin Chinese related to nominal expressions
(Section 3.2).
3.1 Language Use in China
China is a multi ethnic and multilingual country. The main ethnic group is Han. The Han people account for about ninety two percent of the total population in China. The major language in China is the Chinese language (in mainland China sometimes called Hanyu ‘the language of the Han people,’ Zhongwen ‘the language of China,’ or Putonghua ‘the common speech’), spoken by the Han people and some minorities. Besides the Han people, there are fifty five ethnic minorities in China. About seventy percent of these minorities have their own languages, some of which do not have a writing system. But some minority languages are on the verge of extinction, because of the popularization of Mandarin by the Chinese government and the reluctance of minority children to learn their own ethnic languages. Minorities are under pressure to speak Chinese in order to better themselves economically. Scholars have advocated for
44 compulsory bilingual education for minority children in order to save the dwindling minority languages.
Several terms are used in linguistics to describe the language spoken by the Chinese people. The term referring to the official or standard Chinese language in mainland China is
Putonghua, the pronunciation of which is based on Beijing dialect which belongs to the North dialect group. In the West, scholars often use Mandarin or Mandarin Chinese to refer to the standard language in China. Some scholars also use Standard Mandarin for the standard variety of the Chinese language. In this dissertation, I use Mandarin to refer to the standard variety and
Chinese or the Chinese language to designate the language in general (i.e. both the standard variety and dialects) used by the Chinese people. If a particular subdialect is intended, I use the name of the place where it is spoken.
No one knows for certain how many dialects of Chinese there are. The Chinese language is notorious for the mutual unintelligibility between its dialects. Sometimes people compare the differences in pronunciation between Chinese dialects to those between Romance languages.
Chinese is often cited as an example in dialectology and sociolinguistics when the discussion evolves around what criterion should be used in deciding whether two speakers speak two dialects of the same language or two different languages. If the linguistic criterion of “mutual intelligibility” is adopted to distinguish dialect from language, then Chinese is a group of languages, as speakers from different areas cannot understand each other when they speak their local dialects. Sometimes, people living miles away from each other cannot communicate successfully using their own dialects, especially if there exists some geographical barrier like a
45 river or a mountain. In truth, some scholars (Cheng & Sybesma, 1999, 2005) in the West call
Cantonese, Wu and other Chinese varieties the Chinese languages. Ethnologue (1996, cited in
Nettle & Romaine 2000: 29) listed Chinese, Wu (dialect) as one of the top fifteen languages in terms of number of speakers. However, Chinese people usually perceive the different varieties that they use as dialects of the Chinese language because they share the same political entity, and a uniform writing system which is logographic.
Traditionally, the Chinese language is divided into seven dialect groups: Northern
(sometimes called Mandarin in the West), Wu, Yue (Cantonese), Kejia (Hakka), Min, Xiang and
Gan. The native speakers of the Northern dialect account for seventy percent of the total Chinese population (Li & Thompson, 1990). They spread widely in terms of geographical area and yet they can more or less understand each other. The other six major dialects are spoken in the south and southeast part of China. Cantonese is spoken in some areas in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces and Hong Kong. Many overseas Chinese also speak Cantonese. Min dialect is spoken in the Fujian and Taiwan provinces. It is usually subdivided into Northern and Southern Min.
Xiang dialect is spoken in the Hunan province and Gan dialect in the Jiangxi province. Speakers of Hakka whose ancestors were migrants from the North are scattered in Guangdong, Fujian,
Hunan, and Jiangxi provinces. Many sub dialects in the south are mutually unintelligible and at the same time some dialects, like some minority languages, are disappearing.6
6 With the popularization of Mandarin by the government and the migration of people from economically underdeveloped areas to the southeast part since the implementation of the open door policy in China in the late 1970s, many dialects there are disappearing. A survey conducted about the Jinhua dialect (belonging to the Wu dialect group) in Zhejiang province shows that almost every child between 6 and 14 years old can speak Mandarin. Fifty two (Footnote to be continued on the next page.)
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The Wu dialect, which will be discussed in this dissertation, is mainly spoken in the southern part of the Jiangsu province, Shanghai and the Zhejiang province. In the literature, the
Wu dialect is sometimes divided into the Northern Wu (spoken in the southern part of Jiangsu province, Shanghai and the Northern part of Zhejiang province) and the Southern Wu (spoken in the southern part of Zhejiang province). The phonological differences among sub dialects of the Southern Wu are greater that those among sub dialects of the Northern Wu. Speakers of
Southern Wu dialects living a few miles apart sometimes cannot understand each other. In this dissertation, the data of the Wu dialect is mainly from the Wenling dialect a Southern Wu dialect I grew up speaking.
The most prominent differences among Chinese dialects are within phonetics and phonology. Mandarin has four tones while some southern dialects like Cantonese have seven or eight tones. Some southern dialects also retain many words of Old Chinese. In terms of syntax there is not much difference among different dialects, especially in the written form. One of the main grammatical differences between Mandarin and the Wu dialect and Cantonese lies in the use of classifiers. We will return to the different uses of classifiers in the Wu dialect in Chapters
Four and Five.
percent of the children cannot speak the local dialect and only 22.65 percent of the children can communicate in the local dialect quite well. Another report is about Shenzhen, a one time fishing village bordering on Hong Kong. It has become the only city in Guangdong province where Mandarin is mostly spoken. Since the economic reform started in 1980, its population has increased 30 times in 25 years. People there have to use Mandarin in communication and the original local dialect is almost extinct.
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3.2 Some Grammatical Features of Mandarin Nominals
Genetically, Mandarin belongs to the Sino Tibetan language families. In terms of phonological features, Mandarin is a tone language, in which every syllable has a contrastive pitch which is an inherent part of the syllable. There are no consonant clusters and only two consonants ([n] and [ŋ]) can be in the coda of a syllable. The canonical word order in a Mandarin sentence is SVO. In this subsection, I describe some features relevant to the Mandarin nominal.
3.2.1. An Isolating Language
Mandarin is usually considered an isolating language. Each morpheme, except for loan words, has only one syllable. Unlike Old Chinese, in which most words were monomorphemic and monosyllabic, modern Mandarin has many dissyllabic words and compound words.
However, it has very little inflectional morphology. Verbs do not inflect for person or tense.
Nouns are not inflected for case, gender or number. As there is no case morphology or agreement markers, word order becomes a very important device in indicating the grammatical relation between the verb and nominal(s) in a sentence. For example, in (1) and (2), the preverbal nominal is the agent and the post verbal nominal is the patient and only the word order determines which nominal is the subject and which is the object.
(1) Wo da-le zhe ge ren . I beat Perf this Cl person ‘I beat this person.’
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(2) Zhe ge ren da-le wo . this Cl person beat Perf I ‘This person beat me.’
With regard to number marking, scholars agree (Cheng & Sybesma, 1999, 2005;
Chierchia, 1998a, b) that number is not a grammaticalized category in Chinese, as a bare noun can have both a singular and plural interpretation in different contexts. There is indeed a bound grammatical suffix in Mandarin which is sometimes added to pronouns and some human nouns.
This grammatical morpheme is men . There is no consensus in Chinese linguistics about the status of the suffix -men . Many native speakers (especially those who have learned a Western language) would think that -men is a plural marker, but different linguists have different ideas on the issue. Some linguists (Li & Thompson, 1981; Li, 1999) believe that men is a plural marker added to pronouns and nouns referring to people. Chao (1968) holds the view that men is a pure plural marker when applied to personal pronouns, but it is a collective marker when added to human nouns. Other linguists (Lü, 1944; Iljic, 1994, 2001a, 2001b, 2005) argue that men is a collective marker, but not a plural marker, no matter whether it is used with pronouns or human nouns. Iljic (2005) calls men “personal collective”. Still others (Chen, 1987) think that there are two ways of marking plurality in Mandarin: one way is to use numerals to express the exact number of the referents in counting; the other is to suffix men to the noun to indicate the collective meaning of plurality. Now, we will look at the contexts in which -men can, must and must not be used.
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The context in which men is used is very restricted. Even when it can be used, its use is very often optional. In many contexts, the use of men is prohibited. So, bare nouns are prevalent in Chinese and they can have singular or plural interpretation, as the following example illustrates.
(3) jintian xiawu wo qu mai shu . today afternoon I go buy book ‘I will go to buy a/the book(s) this afternoon.’
In (3), the number of books to be bought can be one or more than one.
There are only two contexts in which the use of the suffix men is obligatory. One is when a personal pronoun has more than one referent.
First person Second person Third person
Singular wo ‘I’ ni ‘you’ ta ‘he/she/it’ ‘they’ (non human)
Plural wo-men ‘we’ ni-men ‘you pl.’ ta-men ‘they’
Table 3.1 Personal Pronouns in Mandarin
The third person singular pronoun ta can have both human and nonhuman reference. There are three characters to represent respectively the third person male, female human pronouns and non human pronoun. When the suffix men is added, ta-men can only have human reference.
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When a reference is made to more than one non human object, ta is used without the suffix
men 7. Example (4) is adapted from Iljic (2001a.: 19).
(4) Zhe-xie zha-zi wo ka-huan le, ni ba ta na-qu ba. These magazines I read finish Perf you prep. it take away SFP. ‘I have finished reading these magazines, you can take them away.’
In (4), the singular form of the third person pronoun ta ‘it’ refers to ‘these magazines’.
The second context is when directly addressing an audience of more than one person. For example,
(5) tongzi-men, zaoshang hao . Comrade Col morning good ‘Good morning, folks!’
The affix -men can also be suffixed to proper names. In such a case, the nominal usually does not mean ‘a group of people having the same name’. It means ‘a group of people consisting of the person referred to by the proper name and others’ (6) or it means ‘a group of people who has the quality of the person referred to by the proper name’ (7).
(6) xiao-Li- men little Li –Col ‘Little Li and his companions’
7 Sometimes men is suffixed to the nonhuman pronoun ta when reference is made to two or more animate entities.
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(7) Lei Feng-men xianzai bu jian le .8 Lei Feng Col now not see SFP ‘People like Lei Feng cannot be found any more.’
In the following contexts, -men cannot be used. First, only nouns referring to human beings can be suffixed with -men and -men cannot be affixed to nonhuman nouns (i.e. nouns referring to animals or objects). So we can say xuesheng-men ‘students’, but we cannot say dongwu-men ‘animals’ or zuozi-men ‘tables’. However, in fables or children’s literature, the suffix men sometimes is added to nouns referring to animals or inanimate objects. In such cases, the use of men is usually regarded as a rhetorical device: personification.
Second, the suffix men can be used with only some human nouns. Monosyllabic words tend not to be suffixed with men (Li & Thompson 1981; Zhang, 2001). We can say xiaote-men
‘thieves’ but cannot say zai-men ‘thieves’. Some collective nouns cannot be suffixed, as their collective meaning is already conspicuous. We cannot say gongzhong-men ‘the public’.
Third, nouns that are predicates cannot be suffixed with men as human nouns suffixed with men are referential and predicate nouns cannot be referential. Consider the following examples.
(8) Wo-men shi xuesheng . I Col be student ‘We are students.’
8 Lei Feng used to be a household name. He was very generous and willing to help others at the expense of himself, even at the risk of his life. He died at his job at the age of 22.
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(9) *Wo-men shi xuesheng-men I Col be student Col
Fourth, nominal expressions with generic reference can not be suffixed with men .
(10) * Xuesheng-men yinggai xuexi . Student Col should study Intended reading ‘Students should study.’
Sentence (10) is grammatical if the nominal refers to a particular group of students. So it can mean ‘The students should study’.
Fifth, nouns suffixed with men are not compatible with exact counting.
(11) * san ge xuesheng-men three Cl student Col
As (11) illustrates, the head noun cannot be suffixed with men when the [Nume + Cl] does an exact counting. However, whenever the [Nume + Cl] expresses approximate quantity or when “ yi
(‘one’) + collective Cl” is used, the head noun can be suffixed with men .
(12) yi qun xuesheng(-men) a Cl student ( Col) ‘a group of students’
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(13) san wu ge ren(-men) three five Cl person ( Col) ‘several people’
Both yi qu (‘one collective classifier’) in (12) and san wu ge (‘three five individual classifier’) in (13) express an approximate quantity. When a numeral other than yi is used with a collective classifier, then -men cannot be suffixed to the head noun as the ungrammaticality of (14a) indicates.
(14) a. * san qun xuesheng-men three Cl student (Col) b. san qun xuesheng three Cl student ‘three groups of students’
From the above examples of the use of men in nominal expressions, we can conclude that men is not really a plural marker, but a collective marker. Another convincing argument against the view that Chinese has a grammatical category of number is that Chinese bare nouns have plural reference. If there is a grammatical category of number, then the use of a plural marker should be categorical. However, the use of men in Chinese in most contexts is optional and in some contexts is prohibited even when the referents of a nominal are more than one as the above examples demonstrate. From the contexts of the use (and nonuse) of -men , we can also conclude that nouns suffixed with -men must be referential and can not have generic reference.
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What about men used with personal pronouns? In general linguistics, some scholars
(Wales, 1996: 10) observe that “number in pronouns characteristically operates rather differently, signifying ‘X+ others’, rather than ‘X+X, etc.’” Wo-men (I Col, meaning ‘we’) in Mandarin and we in English refer to a group of people with the speaker as the center. We in English does not mean I + I + I …. In English, the plural personal pronouns do not use the regular plural suffix -s at all.
Personal pronouns in the Wenling dialect also show that the so called plural in pronouns is actually not plural, but really a collective marker. There is no marker corresponding to
Mandarin men in the Wu dialect. So, even human nouns in the Wu dialect do not have a suffix.
But there is a way to indicate plurality with personal pronouns in the Wenling dialect. From the composition of the plural personal pronouns in the Wenling dialect, we can say the so called plural pronouns we consists of ‘I + the third party’, you (pl.) ‘you (sg.) + the third party’ and they
‘he + the third party’.
First person Second person Third person ngo ‘I’ n ‘you’ gei ‘he/she’ Singular ngo-deng ‘I + others’ n + yi ‘you + gei+yi ‘he + he’ Plural ‘ inclusive we’; he’ ‘you pl.’ ‘they’ ngo-yi ‘I + he’ ‘exclusive we’
Table 3.2: Personal Pronouns in the Wenling Dialect
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Based on the above described linguistic facts, I assume that Chinese does not have the grammatical category of number.
3.2.2 A Language without Articles
Chinese is usually considered an articleless language (Norman, 1988; Chierchia, 1998a, b). Recently some scholars view ‘ yi (one) + classifier’ as an indefinite article (Xu, 1997) or indefinite determiner (Chen, 2003) and Huang (1999) argues that the distal demonstrative na-ge
(literally meaning ‘that + classifier’) is being grammaticalized into the definite article in spoken
Chinese. Without articles, bare nouns are prevalent in Chinese. They can be interpreted as definite, indefinite (specific and nonspecific) or generic, depending on context. These different interpretations of nominal expressions are encoded by articles in languages like English and
French.
(13) Wo mai shu le . I buy book SFP ‘I bought a/the book(s).’ (14) shu hen gui . book very expensive ‘(The) book(s) is/are very expensive.’
In example (13), the bare noun shu (‘book) can have definite and indefinite interpretations, while shu in example (14) can have definite and generic interpretation, but not indefinite due to the feature of subjects in Chinese tending to be definite.
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3.2.3 A Numeral-classifier Language
In Chinese, nouns cannot be modified directly by a numeral. Either a classifier or a measure word must occur between the numeral and the noun. Hence, it is called a numeral classifier language.9 In English numerals directly precede count nouns (like ‘ seven cows’ ) and only mass nouns need measure words in order to be counted (like 10 gallons of gas ).10 So, on the surface, all nouns in Chinese behave like mass nouns in English. The obligatory use of a classifier/measure word in quantified nominals is one of the main reasons
Chierchia (1998a, b) gives to substantiate his idea that all nouns in Chinese are mass nouns.
(15) si ben shu four Cl book ‘four books’ (16) si xiang shu four box (MW) book ‘four boxes of books’ (17) *si shu four book
9 Classifiers alone cannot be used with nouns in Mandarin. They have to be preceded by a numeral or demonstrative. When they are preceded by a demonstrative, it can be argued that the numeral yi ‘one’ is deleted, as there is no meaning difference whether the numeral yi occurs between the demonstrative and the classifier. But the use of classifiers in some Southern dialects (like Cantonese and some Wu dialects) is different; the classifier alone can be used with the noun. We will discuss the use of classifiers in Chinese in Chapters 4 and 5. 10 One English form very close to Chinese numeral classifier structure is something like ‘seven head of cattle’ (Greenberg, 1973).
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In (15) and (16), the classifier ben and measure word xiang ‘box’ are used respectively. Without them, the nominals will be ungrammatical as (17) indicates.
3.2.4. A Topic-prominent Language
Sentence structure in Chinese is different from that in English. The basic Chinese sentence structure is topic comment rather than subject predicate (Chao, 1968). The topic is something about which the comment says something. The subject has a semantic relationship with the predicate, but the topic does not have to. In example (18) (taken from Li & Thompson
1981: 15; the English translation is mine), the topic is zhei ke shu ‘this tree’ and the comment is yezi hen da ‘leaves are very big’, the subject is yezi ‘leaves’ and hen da ‘very big’ is the predicate.
The topic zhei ke shu ‘this tree’ has no grammatical relation with the predicate hen da ‘very big.’
(18) zhei ke shu yezi hen da . this Cl tree leaf very big ‘As for this tree, its leaves are very big.’
Li & Thompson (1981) classify languages into two types: topic prominent and subject prominent. In a topic prominent language the topic, not the subject, is a crucial part of the sentence, while in a subject prominent language the subject is an essential part of the sentence. Chinese is a topic prominent language and English is an example of the subject prominent language. So, a Chinese sentence, unlike an English sentence, does not always need
58 an overt subject. This is illustrated in example (19) in which the object is topicalized and there is no subject.
(19) wufan hai meiyou chi . lunch still haven’t eat ‘(I) haven’t had lunch yet.’
As the subject is essential in English, a ‘dummy’ it is used as a formal subject when there is no logical subject bearing a semantic relation with the verb in a sentence, as example (20) indicates.
(20) It’s very cold.
The Chinese counterpart of (20) is hen leng (literally ‘very cold’) which lacks a subject.
The topic of a sentence always comes first and always refers to something about which the speaker assumes the listener has some knowledge (Li & Thompson, 1981). When there is no element topicalized in a sentence, the pre verbal subject becomes the sentence topic by default.
So the pre verbal noun in Chinese is usually definite (Chao, 1968; Li, 1998). The following oft cited examples illustrate this point.
(20) keren lai le . guest come Perf ‘The guest(s) has/have come’.
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(21) ?* yi-ge keren lai le . One Cl guest come Perf. ‘One guest has come’
The bare noun keren (‘guest’) in (20) must be interpreted as having definite reference. (21) is usually considered ungrammatical in the literature, because of its subject being indefinite. For the same reason, the [Cl + N] phrase occurring in subject position in the Wu dialect and
Cantonese must have definite reference and when it occurs in object position, it can have both definite and indefinite reference. Consider the following examples from the Wenling dialect.
(22) ben shi youqu . Cl book interesting ‘This book is interesting.’ (23) ngo mai le ben shi. I buy Perf Cl book ‘I bought a / this book.’
Ben shi in (22), functioning as the subject and topic, can only have a definite interpretation, while ben shi in (23), occurring after the verb, can have both definite and indefinite interpretation.
In this chapter, I briefly described some linguistic features of Chinese nominals.
Compared to nominals in languages like English, the Chinese nominal has the following features: no plural marker and no articles; the mandatory use of a classifier or a measure word in a numerically quantified nominal; and definite preverbal nominals.
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CHAPTER FOUR
THE CLASSIFIER SYSTEM IN CHINESE
The classifier system is one of the main features of numerically quantified nominals in modern Chinese. As we mentioned in Chapter Three, a numeral cannot precede a noun without a classifier or a measure word in between. As (1) indicates, the deletion of the classifier leads to ungrammaticality.
(1) san *(ben) shu three Cl book ‘three books’
Only in rare circumstances can a numeral modify a noun directly, such as in compound words and idiomatic expressions which are residues of Old Chinese. In such cases, the numerically quantified nominal is not used referentially. Consider the following examples:
(2) Taolun shi dajia qi zui ba she . discuss when people seven mouth eight tongue ‘Everyone talked at once during the discussion.’
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(3) san lun motuo che three wheel motor vehicle ‘three wheeled motorcycle.
In (2), qi-zui-ba-she is an idiom, functioning as predicate and san-lun in (3) is part of a compound word. However, in Old Chinese a numeral can precede or follow a noun directly and the use of classifiers is very rare. The following examples illustrate the numerical expressions in
Old Chinese. The numeral yi ‘one’ precedes the noun niu ‘cow’ in (4), while in (5) the numeral wu-bai ‘five hundred’ comes after the noun c he ‘chariot’.
(4) Wu he ai yi niu ? I why love one cow ‘Why should I begrudge one ox?’ ( Mengzi ,11 in Pulleyblank 1995: 59) (5) Sang she wu bai . Lose chariot five hundred ‘lost five hundred chariots.’ ( Zuozhuan ,12 in Pulleyblank 1995: 59)
The establishment of the classifier system is one of the major changes in the history of the Chinese language (Wang, 1989). In this chapter, I first discuss the quantified nominal expressions in Old Chinese and trace the development of the classifier system of Chinese
11 Mengzi (known as Mencius in the West) is a classic work of Confucianism assembled by Mencius (c. 372 – 289 BC) and his immediate disciples. Mencius, better known in China as “Master Meng” (Chinese: Mengzi ) was a great Chinese thinker and a foremost representative of the Confucian tradition. 12 Zuozhuan a Chinese historical work traditionally believed to have been written by Zuo Qiuming, a historian of the Warring States period (475 221 BC).
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(Section 4.1). In Section 4.2, I review the classification of classifiers in Chinese linguistic literature. The functions of classifiers are dealt with in Section 4.3. In the last section (Section
4.4), I discuss the syntactic structure of numerically quantified nominal expressions in modern
Mandarin Chinese.
4.1 The Development of the Chinese Classifier System
Different scholars working on Chinese linguistics use the two terms “classifier” and
“measure word” differently; both of them can occur after a numeral in Chinese. So, I would like to first compare the two terms and clarify the distinctions between the two classes of words occurring after a numeral before dealing with the numerically quantified nominals in Old
Chinese and tracing the development of the classifier system.
4.1.1 Classifier and Measure Word
Linguists in China never used the term “classifier” until recently. The term liang-ci
(literally ‘measure word’) is used to designate the element between the numeral and the noun in a numerically quantified nominal. They usually do not make a distinction between classifiers and measure words. Chinese scholars (Lü, 1980, among others) call real classifiers like ben in (6) geti-liang-ci (literally ‘individual measure word’) and measure words like ping (‘bottle’) in (7) rongqi-liang-ci (literally ‘container measure word’) and measure words like pang (‘pound’) in (8) duoliang-liang-ci (literally ‘measure measure word’, meaning ‘standard measure word’).
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(6) san ben shu three Cl book ‘three books’ (7) san ping shui three bottle water ‘three bottles of water’ (8) san pang rou three pounds meat ‘three pounds of meat’
That people do not differentiate classifiers from measure words may be due to the fact that they occupy the same syntactic slot in Chinese and that they both have the function of individualization and make nouns quantifiable.
The counterpart of “classifier” in Chinese, fenlei-ci (literally ‘classifying word’), which is still unfamiliar to many linguists in China, was used by Chinese linguist Lü, Shuxiang in 1980, when he translated Chao Yuenren’s A Grammar of Spoken Chinese 13 into Chinese. But western scholars working on Chinese linguistics very often use the two terms ‘classifier’ and ‘measure word’ interchangeably. Quite often, scholars (Matthews & Yip, 1994: 92; Vuori, 2000: 72) write that classifiers are alternatively called measure words in works on Chinese. Some linguists (Chao
1968, and linguists in China) consider classifiers as a subcategory of measure words, while others (Li & Thompson, 1981; Lyons, 1977; Denny, 1976) use classifier as an umbrella term encompassing measure words. Chao (1968) considers classifiers as individual measures and to
13 The book was published by University of California Press in 1968.
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Li & Thompson (1981), “any measure word can be a classifier”. Lyons (1977: 463) calls measure words as measural classifiers which individuate in terms of quantities and genuine classifiers as sortal classifiers which individuate in terms of the kind of entity they refer to. When Denny
(1976: 122) discusses the functions of nominal classifiers, he mentions that some classifiers (like ben in san ben shu meaning ‘three books’) ‘qualify’ the noun and some (like bag in ‘three bags of potatoes’) ‘quantify’ the noun. What Denny (1976) considers as classifiers quantifying the noun are really measure words. The confusion in using ‘classifier’ and ‘measure word’ also occurs in the linguistic literature about numeral classifier languages in Southeast Asia (such as
Thai, Burmese). Scholars working on those languages usually subsume measure words under classifiers, so the number of classifiers is often exaggerated (Goddard, 2005: 16).
In general linguistics, classifiers refer to morphemes whose function is to mark the semantic class that certain lexical items belong to (Crystal, 2003: 74). It would be desirable to distinguish classifiers from measure words in discussing numeral classifier languages. Otherwise, a major difference between numeral classifier languages and western languages with regard to numerically quantified nominal expressions would be blurred, as measure words are a linguistic universal (Goddard, 2005). All human languages have measure words. For example, a non classifier language like English uses measure words to quantify mass nouns. What distinguishes quantified nouns in Chinese from those in English is that classifiers must be used between numerals and count nouns in the former while numerals precede count nouns directly in the latter. From the gloss of the examples in this chapter, we can see measure words in Chinese can be translated into their counterparts in English, while classifiers cannot.
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In English, nouns are divided into count nouns and mass nouns 14 . Count nouns can be modified by numerals directly, but mass nouns cannot. Mass nouns must be individuated with the help of a measure word in order to be counted. However, every noun in Chinese, whether it is count or mass, must collocate with a classifier or measure word to be numerically quantified.
Because of this and the lack of the plural marker in Chinese, some western scholars hold the view that all nouns in Chinese are mass nouns (Chierchia, 1998a, b). Such a view may be related to the confusion in the use of the two terms ‘classifier’ and ‘measure word’ in Chinese linguistics.
Actually, there is still a difference between count and mass nouns in Chinese and the difference is reflected in the use of classifiers/measure words (Cheng & Sybesma, 1999, 2005).
Classifiers and measure words in Chinese have some different functions and grammatical features although they also share some features. In terms of similarities, they both occupy the same syntactic slot, i.e., after numerals and have the function of individualization. Classifiers individualize count nouns in terms of semantic features and measure words individualize mass nouns, and count nouns in that matter, in terms of quantity. But classifiers have the function of classification, besides that of individualization. A classifier places into one category nouns whose referents share some feature. For example, the classifier ba ,15 whose original meaning is ‘hold’, is used with count nouns (such as dao ‘knife’ , jiandao ‘scissors’ , yaoshi ‘key’ , qiang ‘gun’) whose referents (usually tools) have a handle or are used with hands. According to Tai and Wang 14 Some mass nouns can have a count reading via “Universal Packager” (see Pelletier, 1979). In such a case, the mass noun has a kind reading or a reading of a conventional portion and can be pluralized, e.g. The store sells different beers. (=kinds of beers) He had two beers before going to bed. (= two portions of beer, two cups of beer). 15 Ba can also be used as a measure word, meaning ‘handful’, e.g. yi ba tang (one handful sweets, meaning ‘a handful of sweets’.)
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(1990: 38), “a classifier categorizes a class of nouns by picking out some salient perceptual properties, either physically or functionally based, which are permanently associated with the entities named by the class of nouns; a measure word does not categorize but denotes the quantity of the entity named by a noun.”
In terms of collocation, classifiers can be used only with count nouns; measure words can be used with both count and mass nouns. When a measure word is used with a count noun, then the individuality of the entity denoted by the noun is deemphasized and the entity is treated like a mass. This is the same with the use of measure words with count nouns in English. For example, in English, a measure word like ‘box’ can be used with both a mass noun like sand as in (9) and a count noun like book as in (10):
(9) a box of sand (10) a box of books
In the same way, the measure word xiangzi (‘box’) in Chinese can both be used with count nouns like shu (‘book’) as in (11) and mass nouns like shazi (‘sand’) as in (12):
(11) yi xiangzi shu one box book ‘a box of books’ (12) yi xiangzi shazi one box sand ‘a box of sand’
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But the classifier ben can only be used with certain count nouns like shu (‘book’) or biejiben
(‘notebook’) as in (13) and cannot be used with any mass nouns like shui (‘water’) or shazi
(’sand’) as the ungrammaticality of (14) indicates.
(13) san ben shu/biejiben three Cl book/note book ‘three books/notebooks’ (14) * san ben shui/shazi three Cl water/sand
With regard to their inventories, measure words are larger in number. Although measure words are said to form a closed class, many common nouns can temporarily function as measure words in context, like wuzhi (meaning ‘room’) in yi wuzhi ren (literally ‘one room person’, meaning ‘a roomful of people’). The number of classifiers is limited and constant; no new classifiers are created when new things are invented and nouns are created to denote them. For example, the noun dian-nao (literally ‘electric brain’, meaning ‘computer’) has a very short history and the classifier used with it is tai , which is a classifier collocating with nouns referring to machines. Estimates of the number of Chinese classifiers vary greatly, from over sixty
(Mathew & Yip, 1994: 92) to almost one hundred and forty (Wang, 1994).
Semantically, the original lexical meaning of many classifiers is no longer transparent to native speakers, although originally they are derived from lexical words, mostly nouns. Some classifiers do not have any lexical meaning now. For example, the general classifier ge was
68 derived from the noun zhu which meant ‘bamboo’ in Old Chinese. It started to be used as a classifier for counting bamboos. Now it has grammaticalized as a general classifier and its original lexical meaning has been bleached out.
Morphologically, classifiers are bound morphemes in modern Chinese. Measure words, on the other hand, have lexical meaning and can be used as an independent word in other contexts. The ping ‘bottle’ in (15) is a measure word, but it is a noun in (16).
(15) yi ping shui one bottle water ‘a bottle of water’ (16) yi zhi ping one Cl bottle ‘a bottle’
Ping ‘bottle’ in (16) has its own classifier zhi when used as a noun.
Syntactically, there are two differences between classifiers and measure words in Chinese that are quite often discussed in the literature. The first difference is that the modification marker de can be inserted between the measure word and the following noun as shown in (20), but cannot between the classifier and the noun as shown in (18).
(17) san ben shu three Cl book ‘three books’
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(18) * san ben de shu three Cl DE book (19) san pang rou three pound meat ‘three pounds of meat’ (20) san pang de rou three pound DE meat ‘three pounds of meat’
The second syntactic difference is that measure words can be modified by an adjective, but classifiers cannot. In (22), the adjectives da/xiao (‘big/small’) are inserted between the numeral and the measure word ping (‘bottle’), but they cannot be inserted between the numeral and the classifier zhi in (24) (from Cheng & Sybesma, 1999).
(21) yi ping shui one bottle water ‘a bottle of water’ (22) yi da/xiao ping shui one big/small bottle water (23) yi zhi gou one Cl dog ‘a dog’ (24) * yi da/xiao zhi gou one big/small Cl dog
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The following table summarizes the above discussed similarities and differences between classifiers and measure words in Chinese.
Classifiers Measure Words
Individualizing function Yes Yes
Classifying function Yes No
Collocation (with) count nouns (with) mass and count nouns
Inventory small (relatively) big
Semantics no/little lexical meaning full lexical meaning
Morphology bound morpheme independent morpheme
Premodification by adjectives Impossible 16 possible
Insertion of the marker de No Yes
Table 4.1: Differences between Classifiers and Measure Words
4.1.2 Quantified Nominal Expressions in Old Chinese
In Old Chinese, there is no classifier and numerals can come directly in front of nouns.
According to the distinguished Chinese linguist Li Wang (1958), there are three ways to express quantities of objects denoted by nouns in Old Chinese. The first way is to combine the numeral and the noun with the numeral in front of the noun like (25). The second is that the numeral follows the noun like (26). 16 Actually, some classifiers can be modified by adjectives. For example, yi da ben shu (literally ‘a big Cl book’).
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(25) san ren xing bi you wo shi . three person walk must have I teacher ‘When three people are walking along, one can surely learn something from the other two.’ (Analects of Confucius 17 ) (26) fu shi baiwan . prostrate corpse million ‘The prostrate corpses are a million.’
The third is that the numeral comes after the noun and the numeral is followed by a danwei-ci
(literally ‘unit word’, Wang’s (1958) terminology for classifiers/measure words) like (27).
(27) chang wu you millet wine five vase ‘five vases of millet wine’
Wang uses the term ‘unit word’ which creates a unit of the entity denoted by the noun so that it can be quantified and does not make a distinction between a classifier and a measure word. The first structure is the predominant one and the other two are very rare. When a measure word is used, the third method is employed, that is, the [Nume + MW] combination can only occur after the noun.
Although many scholars hold the view that numerals or [Nume + MW] combinations occurring after a noun function as a modifier of the noun in Old Chinese (Wang, 1958; Dobson 17 Compiled by his disciples, the Analects of Confucius is a record of the great Chinese thinker and educator Confucius’s (BC 551 BC479) words and of the discussions among him and his disciples.
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1962), it can be argued here that they function as a predicate. Let us consider some linguistic facts of nominals in Old Chinese.
First, the rule of a modifier occurring before the modified in Chinese has never changed throughout its long history (Shi & Li, 2002: 13). Just like in modern Chinese, a possessive pronoun (28) or a demonstrative (29) occurs before a noun in Old Chinese (Pulleyblank 1995).
(28) wo min 18 I people ‘our people’ (29) zi jiu this wine
While all the other modifiers are pre modifiers in nominal expressions, numerals and the [Nume
+ MW/Cl] combination would be exceptions if they were considered as modifiers when occurring after nouns.
Second, if the numeral and the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination are post modifiers, then why can numerals occur both before and after nouns, but not [Nume + MW/Cl] combinations in
Old Chinese? It is very difficult to explain why [Nume + MW/Cl] combinations cannot function as pre modifiers of nouns. If we consider the numeral and the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination as predicates, then this difficulty will not arise.
18 In Old Chinese, a marker connecting the possessive pronoun and the head noun is optional; also the personal pronoun did not inflect for plurality.
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Third, nouns followed by numerals or [Nume + MW/Cl] combinations did not occur in the subject position in Old Chinese. According to Li and Shi’s (1998: 49) observation of the examples of classifier use in Old Chinese in Wang (1990), there are seventeen examples of [N +
Nume + MW/Cl] occurring in object position and no example in subject position from works written before the Northern and Southern dynasties (AD 420 to 589). The [N + Nume + MW/Cl] combination in Old Chinese either occurred independently as a sentence or as an object. When they occurred independently as a sentence, the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination was a predicate.
When they occurred in object position, the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination functioned as an object complement. In Old Chinese, the lexical meaning of the very few classifiers had not been bleached out and the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination was really a noun phrase.
Fourth, when the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination occurs after a noun, another word could be inserted between them. For instance, in (30), the adverb ge (meaning ‘respectively’, a different word from the general classifier ge) comes between the noun and the numeral.
(30) ma niu ge shi pi . horse cow respectively ten Cl ‘horses and cows are ten in number respectively’
If the [Nume + Cl] combination shi pi and the nouns ma and niu formed a nominal constituent in
(30), then the adverb could not have been inserted. Here, the [Nume + Cl] combination shi pi should be analyzed as a predicate and the nouns ma and niu function as the subject.
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Based on the above linguistic facts, numerals or [Nume + MW/Cl] combinations occurring after nouns should be better regarded as predicates, not as post modifiers of the noun.
They do not form a nominal constituent. The relationship between numerals or [Nume + MW/Cl] combinations and the preceding nouns is that between subject/object and predicate. When [N +
Nume] or [N + Nume + MW/Cl] occur independently, the numeral or the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination predicates about the subject noun. When they occur after the verb, i.e. in object position, the numeral or the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination predicates about the object noun.
Actually, in modern Chinese, the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination occurs after the noun in inventories or listings, and Chao (1968) regards the [Nume + MW/Cl] combination as a nominal predicate with the noun as subject. For example,
(31) zuozhi wu zhang, yi zhi qi ba table five Cl chair seven Cl ‘five tables, seven chairs’
Tang (1996) also discusses the occurrences of [Nume + MW/Cl] combination after objects in modern Chinese like:
(32) w o mai le bi san zhi . I buy Perf pen three Cl ‘I bought three pens.’
75 and treats san zhi in (32) as a predicate of the object bi (‘pen’). Of course, this use of [Nume +
MW/Cl] following nouns is very rare in modern Mandarin.
In this subsection, I argued that the classifier in Old Chinese was not grammaticalized into a functional category. The numeral or the [Nume + MW/Cl] functions as a predicate and the measure words and the very few classifiers still retained their lexical meaning in Old Chinese. In the next subsection, I will trace the development of the classifier in Chinese.
4.1.3 The Rise of Classifiers as a Functional Category
The Chinese language does not have classifiers in its early history. Why has Chinese developed the classifier system? Erbaugh (1986) attributes phonemic mergers as the trigger of the historical development of classifiers in Chinese. Because of phonological change, many distinctive speech sounds in Old Chinese were no longer distinctive. As a result, many words became homophonous and classifiers were derived to facilitate communication. On the other hand, Erbaugh (1986) hypothesizes that classifiers may not be native to Chinese and could have been borrowed from Tai languages through language contact. Her hypothesis is based on the following two facts: (1) Chinese classifier use is variable rather than categorical. There is great variation among speakers in using classifiers with particular nouns, so she believes that Chinese classifiers “never become a fully automatic part of the grammatical level of the language.” (2)
Unlike the Thai language, Chinese has never had the animate/inanimate, human/nonhuman split in classifiers and does not have the finely graded honorific distinctions which she thinks are central to Thai and most other classifier languages. This hypothesis apparently can explain the
76 phenomenon that southern Chinese dialects have more classifiers than Mandarin Chinese as there might have existed more close language contact between southern dialects and Tai languages
(Peyraube, 1991).
I agree with Erbaugh (1986) that Chinese classifiers were motivated to avoid ambiguity and facilitate communication. I also share the view that there is more intense contact between southern dialects and Tai languages. However, the Chinese classifier system was not necessarily borrowed as Erbaugh and some other scholars assumed (Erbaugh, 1986; Jones, 1970). Erbaugh’s first reason for her borrowing view that Chinese classifiers have never become a fully automatic part of the grammatical level because of great variation in the use of classifiers among native speakers is not very convincing. While it is true that the use of classifiers with some nouns varies from dialect to dialect and that speakers are not certain or disagree among themselves about the proper classifiers with some nouns, it does not mean that classifiers are not a fully automatic part of Chinese grammar. That a classifier must be used in a quantified nominal demonstrates that the classifier is part of Chinese grammar. Different classifiers can bring out different aspects of the meaning of the nouns they collocate with. That is the reason why several classifiers can be used with one single noun and then speakers may disagree about the proper classifiers with some nouns when they may pay attention to different features of the objects the nouns refer to.
As to the reason that Chinese does not have the animate/inanimate, human/nonhuman split in classifiers, it is not completely correct. Although Chinese, unlike Thai, does not have a specific classifier used with animal, inanimate, human or nonhuman nouns, there are some classifiers used exclusively with human or nonhuman nouns while others can be used with
77 different types of nouns. For example, the classifier wei is specific to human nouns while the general classifier ge is used with different types of nouns. The fact that Chinese does not have the finely graded honorific distinctions in classifier use cannot count as an argument for the borrowing of the Chinese classifier system from Thai. The use of classifiers in different cultures may be culture specific. For example, there is a specific classifier used with elephants in Thai, as the animal is a very important part of their life. In Chinese, the early classifiers were first used with important animals or objects in the then circumstances. The classifiers pi (used with ma
‘horses’) and ge (now a general classifier, first used in counting zhu ‘bamboos’, then jian
‘arrows’) were used long before the establishment of the classifier system. Horses, bamboos and arrows were very important in the early Chinese history during which wars were common and chariots and horses were very important vehicles and arrows were very important weapons.
As Wang (1994) argues, the nouns or verbs from which Chinese classifiers were derived were among the Chinese vocabulary. These words were found in Chinese historical documents written before their use as classifiers in Chinese. There is no solid evidence to show that Chinese classifiers were borrowed from Thai. The earliest known Thai writing is the Sukhathai script invented in 1283 A.D. (Danvivathana, 1987, cited in Wang, 1994), while Chinese writing system dates back to more than three thousand years ago. In a very long history, the Chinese people and language were very influential among East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. Many neighboring languages were influenced by the Chinese language. Even when the Chinese people were ruled by non Chinese speaking nationalities such as Mongolians and Manchu, the Chinese language did not borrow many words from the rulers’ languages (Wang, 1994). Historically,
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Chinese is a “monolithic ethnic and linguistic entity, highly resistant to any sort of outside cultural or linguistic influence” (Norman, 1988: 16).
When did the classifier come into being in Chinese? Different scholars have different answers. For one thing, early classifiers were not fully grammaticalized and they had lexical meaning. So, some scholars just consider early classifiers as nouns modified by numerals. For another, some scholars do not make a distinction between measure words and real classifiers.
Measure words were used very often in Old Chinese, although they were not many in number before the measurement system was first established during Qin dynasty (221 to 207 BC).
Although it is generally agreed that proto classifiers can date back to three thousand years ago, the grammatical category of classifiers was established much later. The vast majority of quantified nominal expressions were of the [Nume + N] structure in Old Chinese.
The two classifiers that were used in Old Chinese and often cited in Chinese linguistic literature only occurred after the noun during the early development of classifiers. These two classifiers are pi applied to horses and ge to bamboos and arrows.
(33) ma shi pi .
horse four Cl ‘four horses’ (34) fu shi wu-shi ge . carry arrows five ten Cl ‘carry fifty arrows’
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According to Peyraube (1991), real classifiers probably began to appear in the first century B.C. Even then, they still retained many features of the common nouns from which they derived. When classifiers were first used with numerals, the [Nume + Cl] combination was always after nouns and we have argued in Subsection 4.1.2 that [Nume + Cl] combinations functioned as a predicate when they followed nouns. The [Nume + Cl + N] pattern, i.e. [Nume +
Cl] preceding nouns, started to occur in the first century B.C. (Shi & Li, 1999). During the next one thousand years [Nume + N] was still the predominant pattern of quantified nominal expressions. Shi (2002: 149) observed that [Nume + N] account for 88% and [Nume + Cl + N]
12% of the nominal expressions in Shishuo Xinyu (written in AD 425). In Laoqida (written in
AD 1325), the [Nume + Cl + N] pattern accounts for 98% of all nominal expressions. So we can say that the classifier system was probably established by the 14 th century. However, the
[Nume + N] pattern is still quite common in some of the novels written in the 17 th or 18 th century.
Literary Chinese had long been emulated until the New Culture Movement (1917 1923), so the written language may not reflect accurately the speech of the period when the literary works were written. We can only speculate that classifiers became obligatory in numerically quantified nominals in the 14 th century.
When classifiers were first used, they occurred after nouns. Then a syntactic change occurred in Chinese in sentence structure and the [Nume + Cl] started to precede nouns.
According to Li & Shi (1998: 40), the sentence structure in Old Chinese is: subject + verb + object + X. The X element can be an adjective, intransitive verb, a prepositional phrase or a
[Nume + Cl] combination. The X element functions as a secondary predicate. Later on, there
80 occurred a change in the sentence structure and the X position gradually disappeared. The preposition phrase moves before the verb; the intransitive verb merges with the main verb to form a compound verb; the adjective and numeral classifier becomes a pre modifier of the object noun. That is the reason why the [Nume + Cl + N] first occurred in the object position. When classifiers became more fully grammaticalized and obligatory in quantified nominal expressions, then they started to occur in the subject position. Only when classifiers are obligatory in numerically quantified nominals has the classifier system been firmly established in the Chinese language.
4.2 Classification of Chinese Classifiers
Since most scholars working in Chinese linguistics do not make a distinction between classifiers and measure words, our review here of classifications of classifiers in Chinese linguistic literature concerns both classifiers proper and measure words.19 Classifiers can be classified into different types, depending on their features and the features of the words that they collocate with.
Classifiers in modern Chinese can collocate with both nouns and verbs. When a classifier is used with a noun, it is called a nominal classifier. Those used with verbs are called verbal classifiers. They indicate the times that an event takes place. Nominal classifiers occur 19 In subsection 4.1.1, I made a distinction between classifiers and measure words. There are some other words which fill the same position as classifiers, but differ from the classifier proper. The so called collective classifiers like qun ‘group’, ban ‘class’ and kind classifiers like zhong ‘kind/type’ are also used in non classifier languages. They are included in this section for the sake of completeness, but the dissertation mainly discusses the classifier proper.
81 before a noun and verbal classifiers usually follow a verb. For example,
(35) wo mai le yi ben shu . I buy Perf one Cl book ‘I (have) bought a book.’ (36) zhe ben shu wo kan le liang bian . this Cl book I see Perf two Cl ‘I have read this book twice.’
The classifier ben in (35) and (36) is a nominal classifier and the classifier bian in (36) is a verbal classifier. Since verbal classifiers are not the topic of this dissertation, we will not discuss them. We will focus on nominal classifiers in this chapter.
With regard to the classification of nominal classifiers, researchers in Chinese linguistics divide nominal classifiers in different ways, depending on their perspectives and research topics.
To resolve the confusion in the use of classifiers and measure words and to highlight the reality of a count/mass distinction in Chinese, Cheng & Sybesma (1999) coin two terms: count classifiers and mass classifiers. Count classifiers (like ben in (35)) name the unit of natural semantic partitioning and are used with count nouns. Mass classifiers (like ping ‘bottle’ in (7)) create a unit of measure. Cheng & Sybesma’s mass classifier corresponds to the term ‘measure word’ used by some other scholars and mass classifiers do not have the classifying function. So, the term mass classifier is still a misnomer.
T’sou (1976) divides nominal classifiers in Chinese into four types, based on the two features: [ ±exact] and [ ±entity]. The feature [ ±exact] is related to whether the quantity of the
82 object denoted by the noun is exactly defined or not. The feature of [ ±entity] refers to the quality of the object, that is whether the object is a discrete physical entity and countable. The four types of classifiers are: individual classifiers (having the features of [+exact] and [+entity]), measure classifiers (having the features of [+exact] and [ entity]), collective classifiers (having the features of [ exact] and [+entity]) and kind classifiers (having the features of [ exact] and
[ entity]). A noun can be used with different types of classifiers. The following examples illustrate the use of different types of classifiers with the noun yu (‘fish’).
a. individual classifier tiao , yi tiao yu (meaning ‘a fish’)
b. measure classifier gongjin (‘kilogram’), yi-gongjin yu (meaning ‘a kilogram of
fish’)
c. collective classifier qun (‘brood’/’group’), yi-qun yu (meaning ‘a school of fish’)
d. kind classifier zhong (‘kind’), yi-zhong yu (meaning ‘a kind of fish’)
The above examples and their glosses illustrate that non classifier languages are lacking in individual classifiers and the other three types (i.e. measure, collective, kind classifiers) are shared by both classifier and non classifier languages.
Huang & Kathleen (2003) make a distinction between classifiers and measure words and divide classifiers into three types: individual, kind and event. When a noun used with the three types of classifiers, they will coerce three different readings of the noun (see examples in Section
4.3.2).
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We will use the term ‘classifier’ to refer to the individual classifier from now on in this dissertation and the following discussion about classifiers mainly concerned with the individual classifier. When a particular type of classifier is intended, we will use the specific term.
4.3 Functions of Classifiers
4.3.1 Grammatical Functions
Classifiers have different functions in different languages. According to Bisang (1999), there are two operations of quantification: counting and measuring. The operation of measuring is applied to the quantification of mass nouns which are semantically unbounded, while the operation of counting quantifies semantically bounded nouns. Classifiers occur with counting and individuate a count noun by designating its semantic boundaries (Bisang, 1999: 120). The main grammatical function of classifiers in Chinese is to individuate count nouns before they are quantified by numerals. Classifiers make count nouns in Chinese numerically quantifiable.
Then, classifiers can have referentialization function (using Bisang’s term) or definiteness feature in some languages. Matthews & Pacioni (1997) argue that the use of classifier is associated with specificity in Cantonese, while Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) argue that classifiers in Cantonese perform functions similar to those of the definite article in many
Indo European languages. This function of classifiers in the southern Chinese dialects is not consistent. Classifiers can make a nominal expression definite in Cantonese and some of Wu dialects without the help of demonstratives while classifiers in Mandarin Chinese do not have this function.
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(37) Gaan ngu hou leng . (Cantonese) Cl house very pretty ‘The house very pretty.’ (referential function) (38) diao ng du xie . (Wenling dialect) Cl fish big degree word ‘This fish is quite big.’ (referential function) (39) * diao yu hen da (Mandarin) Cl fish very big
From the above examples, we can see that nouns preceded by classifiers in Cantonese (37) and Wenling dialect (38) have definite reference when they occur before verbs. But a similar sentence in Mandarin (39) is ungrammatical, as classifiers do not have the referentialization/ definiteness function and subjects tend to be definite in Mandarin.
With regard to the referentialization function of classifiers, Wu subdialects vary from one to the other. In the case of Shanghaiese, the referentialization function of its classifiers is changing. In Qian (1997), a book about Shanghaiese, it is mentioned that classifiers have definite reference when occurring in the subject position in the speech of the older generation. In
Chapter Five, where I compare the distributions and interpretations of the [Cl +N] phrase in the
Wu dialect and Mandarin, I will return to the function of classifiers and use data from Wenling: a southern Wu dialect.
Also, classifiers can have a relationalization function (Bisang 1999). Classifiers are used to connect the modifier and the head in possessives ((40) Cantonese; (42) Wenling dialect) and
85 adjectival constructions ((41) Cantonese; (43) Wenling dialect) and nominal expressions with relative clauses ((44) Wengling dialect).
(40) Keoi gaan nguk (Cantonese) s/he Cl house ‘Her/his house’ (41) Hou daai gaan nguk ! very big Cl house ‘(What) a big house!’ (relationalization function) (42) ngo ben shi youqu. (Wenling dialect) I Cl book interesting ‘My book is very interesting.’ (43) Wo zuotian mai ben shu hen youqu . I yesterday buy Cl book very interesting ‘The book I bought yesterday is very interesting.’ (relationalization function)
2.3.2 Semantic Functions
Semantically, the function of classifiers is to place objects into different classes (Jenny
1976). Usually a classifier can be used with several different nouns whose referents share some feature and the classifier picks out this feature. Let us take the classifier tiao for example. tiao originally means ‘branch’. It is a bound morpheme in modern Chinese. As a classifier, tiao is used with nouns referring to long, slender objects. So, we can say:
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(44) yi tiao sheng one Cl rope ‘a rope’ (45) yi tiao she one Cl snake ‘a snake’ (46) yi tiao malu one Cl street ‘a street’ (47) yi tiao heliu one Cl river ‘a river’
The classifier tiao can even collocate with abstract nouns such as xinwen ‘news’.
Interestingly, the use of tiao with xinwen ‘news’ is related to the historical fact that in the Han dynasty (206 BC –AD 220) before the method of making paper was invented, documents were written on bamboo strips (Norman, 1988).
On the other hand, a noun sometimes can be used with different classifiers to highlight different features of the referent of the noun. For example, shu (‘book’) can both be used with classifiers ben and bu . Ben refers to individual books (emphasizing the feature of ‘bound’), but bu emphasizes the content of individual books. So san bu shu (‘three books’) means three books of different titles, i.e., their contents are different, but san ben shu (‘three books’) may mean both three books of different titles and three copies of the same title (Huang & Kathleen, 2003).
Sometimes, people can manipulate the use of classifiers to convey subtle distinctions of meaning.
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For example, we can use the classifier zhi (which is usually used with animal nouns) with nouns referring to people to show our contempt for the person referred to by the noun.
Huang & Kathleen (2003) convincingly demonstrated that different types of classifiers used with the same noun can coerce different readings: individual, kind, and event. For example, dianhua (‘telephone’) can have different readings when used with different classifiers.
(48) y i bu dianhua one Cl telephone ‘one telephone’ (49) yi zhong dianhua one Cl telephone ‘one kind of telephone’ (50) yi tong dianhua one Cl telephone ‘one phone call’
The individual classifier bu in (48) coerces an individual reading of dianhua (‘telephone’), emphasizing the feature of ‘machinery’. The kind classifier zhong in (49) and the event classifier tong in (50) coerce a kind reading and an event reading respectively.
Different individual classifiers used with a noun can also give rise to different readings.
For example, hua (‘flower’) can be used with two individual classifiers duo and zhu . The use of the two classifiers can bring out the different meanings of the noun hua . Yi duo hua (one +
88 individual classifier + flower’) means ‘one flower’, but yi zhu hua means ‘one plant’ (Huang &
Kathleen, 2003: 361; Qian, 1997).
In this section, we discussed the functions of classifiers. We will deal with the syntactic structures of numerically quantified nominals in Mandarin in the next section.
4.4 Numerically-Quantified Nominals
The classifier in Chinese is called a numerical classifier in discussions of the typology of classifiers in general linguistics (Allen, 1977, and others), because the numeral or classifier alone can not modify the head noun but they have to be used together to quantify the noun. However, this is not very accurate, as a classifier can also follow a demonstrative (51) without collocating with a numeral. A classifier can also reduplicate to function independently as subject (52) or as a quantifier (53). The classifier ben in (52) usually collocates with shu ‘book’. When the classifier is reduplicated, the nominal has a distributive meaning.
(51) Zhe ben shu hen hou . this Cl book very thick ‘This book is very thick’ (52) ben-ben dou youqu . Cl Cl all interesting ‘Every book is interesting.’ / ‘All the books are interesting.’ (53) ge-ge xuesheng du hen yonggong . Cl Cl student all very diligent ‘Every student is very diligent.’
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The term ‘numeral classifier’ is all the more inaccurate when applied to some Wu dialects or
Cantonese, as classifiers in those dialects can precede nouns alone without numerals. In this section, I discuss the distribution and the syntactic structure of numerically quantified nominals in Mandarin Chinese. The [Cl + N] expression in Mandarin and the Wu dialect will be treated in the next chapter.
4.4.1 Distribution and Interpretation of Numerically-Quantified Nominals in Mandarin
We mentioned in Chapter Three that subjects in Mandarin (and other Chinese dialects for that matter) tend to be definite. Numerically quantified nominals are inherently indefinite, so they are usually limited to the postverbal position (54). (55), in which the subject is indefinite, is ungrammatical in Chinese.
(54) zuotian wo pengjian liang ge lao pengyou . yesterday I meet two Cl old friend ‘I met two old friends yesterday.’ (55) * liang ge xuesheng zai zhao ni . two Cl student Prog find you ‘Two students are looking for you.’
Traditionally, it is deemed that a [Cl + N] phrase cannot be used without being preceded by a numeral or a demonstrative in Mandarin. When the numeral is yi (‘one’) in quantified nominals and they are in object position, the numeral yi can be deleted, resulting in the surface
90 form of [Cl + N] (56)). The surface form of [Cl + N] is considered as a case of phonological deletion of the numeral yi .
(56) wo xiang mai ben shu . I want buy Cl book ‘I want to buy a book.’
However, Cheng & Sybesma (1999) argue that the [ yi + Cl + N] phrase and the [Cl + N] phrase are of two different structures in both Cantonese and Mandarin. The [Cl + N] pattern is not the result of the phonological reduction of the numeral yi (‘one’). They believe that the two patterns have different meanings and distributions. The indefinite [Cl + N] phrase can only have nonspecific reference, while the indefinite [ yi + Cl + N] phrase can have both specific and nonspecific reference. (The [Cl + N] in Cantonese and the Wu dialect can also have the interpretation of definite reference; we disregard this interpretation here and will come to it in the next chapter). Cheng & Sybesma give the following example for illustration:
(57) Wo xiang kan ben shu . I would like read Cl book ‘I would like to read a book.’
It is true that the indefinite [Cl + N] phrase ben shu tend to have a nonspecific reference. But if we change the verb form to the past tense, the interpretation of specific indefinite reference arises.
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(58) Zuowan wo kan-le ben shu . Yesterday evening I read Perf Cl book ‘I read a book yesterday evening.’
The [Cl + N] phrase ben shu can only have a specific indefinite interpretation in example (58).
Actually, they themselves mention that “the predicate maai-zo ‘sold’ in (59) (their numbering is
(25b)) which they take from Matthews & Pacioni (1996) could in principle facilitate either a specific indefinite reading or a definite reading” (1999: 524 525):
(59) Keoi maai-zo gaa ce . he sell ZO Cl car ‘He sold the car.’20
From the above, we can see that the verb tense plays a very important role in deciding whether the [Cl + N] phrase has a specific or nonspecific indefinite interpretation. We can insert yi ‘one’ before the object nouns in (57) and (58). So, the [ yi + Cl + N] phrase can have the same two interpretations as the [Cl + N] phrase in Mandarin, depending on the verb form. I speculate it is the same with the specific and nonspecific indefinite interpretations of the [Cl + N] and the [ yi
+ Cl + N] phrase in Cantonese.
Cheng & Sybesma (1999) also provide two contexts in which nonspecific indefinite cannot occur, but specific indefinite can. That means the [Cl + N] expression cannot be used, but
20 This is the original translation; but it can also mean ‘He sold a car’.
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[yi + Cl + N] nominals can in the two contexts and according to them there is no phonological reason why yi cannot be suppressed.
One context is that the object of bounded predicates which are bounded for reasons independent of the object cannot be nonspecific indefinite. So, according to them, the [Cl + N] nominal cannot appear as an object in such a context. The following two examples are taken from Cheng & Sybesma (1999: 526; their numbering is (29 b) and (30b))
(60) Wo he-wan-le yi-wan tang . I drink finish Perf one bowl soup ‘I finished a bowl of soup.’ (61) * Wo he-wan-le wan tang I drink finish Perf bowl soup
It is true that (61) is ungrammatical or at least marginalized; but if we substitute a compound noun (like sui-la-tang ‘sour hot soup’) for the monosyllabic noun tang ‘soup’, then the sentence
(61) becomes grammatical as (62) shows.
(62) Wo he-wan-le wan suan-la- tang . I drink finish Perf bowl sour hot soup ‘I finished a bowl of sour hot soup.’
Also the ungrammatical sentence (61) can be remedied by changing the compound verb he-wan
(‘drink finish’) to the monosyllabic verb he (‘drink’) as (63) indicates.
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(63) Wo he--le wan tang . I drink Perf bowl soup ‘I drank a bowl of soup.’
Both the [Cl + N] objects of (62) and (63) only have a specific indefinite interpretation. The resultative compound he-wan (‘drink finish’) and the perfective marker le in sentences (60) and
(62) indicate that the predicates are bounded. The predicate of sentence (63) is also bounded, which is indicated by the perfective marker le . Native speakers think that (60) and (63) are synonymous.
Although Cheng & Sybesma (1999) believe that there is no phonological reason why the yi in the [ yi + Cl + N] cannot be suppressed in certain contexts, in actuality, there is a reason why yi
‘one’ cannot be deleted. In discussing stress and word length in Chinese, Duanmu & Lu (2002) and Duanmu (2000, 2001) argue that word choices in Chinese are related to stress. In order to obey the Nonhead Stress Rule, which states that syntactic nonheads should have stress, Chinese objects should have more stress than the verb. A word with more stress should not be shorter than a word with less stress. So an object should not be shorter than its preceding verb. In the following examples, which are taken from Duanmu (2001: 124), we can see that the one syllable object of the only ungrammatical phrase (b) is shorter than the two syllable verb; hence violating the Nonhead Stress Rule. In the grammatical phrases (a), (c), and (d), the object either has the same number of syllables or more syllables than the verb.
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. [Verb Object]
a. zhong-zhi da-suan b. * zhong-zhi suan c. zhong da-suan d. zhong suan plant garlic ‘to plant garlic’,
We can extend Duanmu’s analysis to the use of [Cl + N] phrases. Classifiers in Mandarin are usually unstressed and numerals are stressed. The occurrence of [Cl + N] phrases or the deletion or non deletion of yi in [ yi + Cl + N] phrases can be explained by the Nonhead Stress
Rule. When the object is a compound noun, the yi in [ yi + Cl + N] phrases can be deleted (62).
When the verb is a compound, but the object noun is monosyllabic, then the yi in [ yi + Cl + N] phrases cannot be deleted (60). (62) and (63), in which the [Cl + N] phrases occur in object position and they have the same number of syllables as the verbal elements or more syllables, are grammatical, because they conform to the Nonhead Stress Rule. But (61) is ungrammatical, as the object has only two syllables and the verbal element has three syllables, thus violating the
Nonhead Stress Rule. When the numeral yi ‘one’ is retained, then the object and the predicate each have three syllables and the Nonhead Stress Rule is obeyed; so example (60) is grammatical.
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Another context that Cheng & Sybesma (1999) provide is sentences with secondary predication. The object nominal in such sentences, which functions as the subject of the secondary predicate, must be specific indefinite.
(64) Wo jiao-guo yi-ge xuesheng hen congming . I teach Exp one Cl student very intelligent ‘I once taught a student who was very intelligent’ (65) *Wo jiao-guo ge xuesheng hen congming I teach Exp Cl student very intelligent (p.526)
Many native speakers think sentence (65) is grammatical. Interestingly, one friend of mine thinks both sentences (64) and (65) are ungrammatical. I guess he misanalyzed wo jiao-guo yi-ge xuesheng (‘I once taught a student’) as a nominal with a relative clause ( wo jiao-gu ‘I once taught’). But all my informants agree that the following sentence (66), which also involves a secondary predicate, but which is not likely to be misinterpreted, is grammatical, whether the numeral yi is deleted or not:
(66) wo zhao-le (yi)-ge xue-sheng bang-mang . I find Perf (one) Cl student help ‘I found a student to help (me).’
In this subsection, I have argued that the [ yi + Cl + N] phrase and the [Cl + N] phrase have the same two indefinite interpretations: specific and nonspecific. Which interpretation is appropriate in particular contexts is related to the verb form. Contrary to Cheng & Sybesma’s
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(1999) view, the [Cl + N] combination results from the deletion of yi in the [ yi + Cl + N] phrase.
Yi in the [ yi + Cl + N] cannot be deleted in certain contexts for phonological reasons. [Nume +
Cl + N] can only be used post verbally.
4.4.2 The Syntactic Structure of Numerically-Quantified Nominals in Mandarin
Cross linguistically, the numeral and the classifier are adjacent to each other in nominal expressions of numeral classifier languages. As to the syntactic structure of numerically quantified nominals, there are two different views. Some scholars (Tang, 1990; Bhattacharya,
2001) treat the numeral and the classifier as forming a complex head which selects an NP as its complement, while others (Simpson, 2005; Cheng & Sybesma, 1999, 2005; Li, 1998) believe that the numeral and the classifier project their own phrasal categories. We will look at the arguments proposed for the two analyses and see which analysis is better suited to Chinese and numeral classifier languages in general.
Before generative syntacticians became interested in the internal structure of nominal expressions in numeral classifier languages, linguists generally held the view that numerals and classifiers first combine together to form a complex construction and then they as a unit quantify the following noun. Croft (1994:151) notes that “the numeral and the classifier form a constituent, not the classifier and the noun.” Greenberg (1975) called the complex construction the classifier phrase. In terms of word order among the three elements (quantifiers/numerals, classifiers and nouns) in quantified nominals, only four patterns occur in the sample of about one hundred numeral classifier languages Greenberg (1972) surveyed: Q Cl N, N Q Cl, Cl Q N and
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N Cl Q. In no numeral classifier language is there a dominant word order where quantifiers/ numerals and classifiers are separated by head nouns. Greenberg (1972: 28) also writes that numerals and classifiers are so closely connected that prosodically they may have one accent and analysts consider the numeral classifier construction to be a single word in many languages. In some numeral classifier languages like Bengali, the classifier is a bound morpheme and enclitic to the numeral. Indeed, in the discussion of part of speech in Chinese grammar books, the complex of numerals and classifiers is listed as a separate word class called shu-liang-ci ,
(literally meaning ’numeral measure word’).
Generative syntacticians working with nominals in numeral classifier languages either assume that the complex of the numeral and the classifier instantiates a single head or that they are two separate heads. Researchers seldom discuss the reasons behind their assumptions. Tang
(1990: 403 404) suggests that the Mandarin Chinese DP selects a ClP as its complement and both the numeral and the classifier are contained in the head Cl. Once Cl is instantiated, both the numeral and the classifier are obligatory. So, according to Tang (1990), Mandarin Chinese numerically quantified nominals have the following syntactic structure (67).
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(67)
‘three books’
Tang (1990) here follows the traditional view that the numeral and the classifier in
Mandarin Chinese together function as a syntactic unit. She does not discuss why both numerals and classifiers are generated in the node Cl and why the phrasal category of the complex is ClP, not NumP. Tang does mention in passing that whether the numeral and the classifier have their distinct projections or not does not make any difference with regard to Mandarin Chinese data.
Like Tang (1990), Bhattacharya (2001) argues that numerals/quantifiers and classifiers form a complex head in Bengali, an Eastern Indo Aryan language. The main reason that she gives is that in Bengali, a numeral or a classifier alone cannot be used with a noun, as example
(68) shows, and the movement of NP within DP in Bengali leaves the numeral classifier complex stranded and stranding establishes the headness of the complex (p.197).
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(68) a. * (du)-To boi two Cl book b. * (ko)-jon chele some Cl boy (Bhattacharya, 2001: 195)
Following Lobël (1989), Bhattacharya assumes that there is a Quantifier Phrase between the heads D and N. Its head is the numeral classifier complex. The function of the category Q is to ensure the countability of the NP. The Q head is morphologically realized as a plural suffix in languages like English and German, if the noun is a countable one. If the noun is a mass noun, the Q head is realized through a measure word. In numerical classifier languages, which lack the plural marker, the Q head is lexically realized as Num + Cl.
Both Tang’s (1990) and Bhattacharya’s (2001) analyses can explain the data of nominals in the languages that they are concerned with. If we look at nominal expressions in numeral classifier languages in general, then their proposals of the complex head of the numeral and the classifier cannot deal successfully with different patterns related to the classifier. If we take into account the different functions of numerals and classifiers, the view that the complex of the numeral and the classifier projects a single phrasal category is not very convincing. People interpret the obligatory use of the classifier in numeral classifier languages from two perspectives. On the one hand, it can be said that the numeral cannot modify the noun directly; the numeral must first combine with classifier in order to modify the noun (Croft, 1994;
Greenberg, 1972). This is the traditional view. On the other hand, we can say that nouns in the numeral classifier language are mass nouns and in order to be counted, they must first be
100 individualized via classifiers (Chierchia, 1998a, b; Cheng & Sybesma, 1999). Looking at linguistic facts in different numeral classifier languages, we think that the second interpretation is more plausible. Semantically, numerals and classifiers have different functions. Classifiers have the functions of individualization and classification as we discussed previously, while numerals have that of number specification (Simpson, 2005). In some classifier languages in
Southeast Asia (like Vietnamese, Hmong), classifiers can be used alone without any numeral
(examples (69) and (70)). Actually, classifiers in many dialects in the southern dialect areas in
China have such a use as shown in example (71).
(69) Con bo dang an lua kia! 21 Cl cow Prog eat paddy over there ‘Look! A/The cow is eating your paddy!’ (Vietnamese; Nguyen, 2004: 43) (70) Tus tsov tshaib tshaib plab . Cl tiger hungry hungry stomach ‘The tiger is/was very hungry.’ (Hmong; Jaisser 1987, cited in Simpson, 2005: 808) (71) Go leotsi jiu hou lek sin dak . Cl lawyer need very smart only okay ‘The lawyer had better be very smart.’ (Cantonese; Cheng & Sybesma, 1999: 524)
Example (69) shows that the [Cl + N] combination in Vietnamese can have a definite or indefinite reference, depending on the context. Examples (70) and (71) indicate the nominals
[Cl + N] in Hmong and Cantonese can have a definite reference. Ferguson (1962, cited in
21 The tone diacritics in the example are omitted.
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Greenberg, 1975: 37) notes that classifiers are generally called determinative in the grammar of
Bengali, as they are suffixed to nouns to express definite reference (e.g. boi khana ‘book the’).
On the other hand, in certain constructions in some classifier languages, numerals can combine with nouns without any classifier, especially if the number specification is vague and individualization is not necessarily implied (Simpson, 2005: 808). For example, in Burmese classifiers are optional with numbers that are powers of ten or multiples of ten and with complex higher numbers. The following Burmese examples are taken from Burling 22 (1965: 252 253).
(72) nwa oun kaun cow three Cl ‘three cows’ (73) nwa hna-she cow two ten ‘twenty cows’
Even in colloquial Mandarin Chinese, when the number is very large, the omission of classifiers is acceptable as shown in the following examples:
(74) wu qian xuesheng baodao . five thousand student register ‘Five thousand students registered.’
22 Burling considers words she ‘ten’, ya ‘hundred’, thaun ‘thousand’ as classifiers
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(75) san ∗(ge) xuesheng meiyou baodao . five Cl student not register ‘Five students haven’t registered.’
Although the optional use of classifiers with large numbers (like bai ‘hundred’, qian ‘thousand’, wan ‘ten thousand’) in Chinese is seldom mentioned, this phenomenon is quite common when the head noun refers to a human.23
One more argument against the view of the single complex head is that some adjectives can be added before classifiers in Mandarin Chinese. When Cheng & Sybesma 24 (1999) discuss the syntactic differences between measure words and genuine classifiers, they point out that adjectives can be added before measure words, but not before classifiers. The following are two of their examples for illustration.
(76) na yi xiao xiang shu that one small box book ‘that one small box of books’ (77) yi (*da ) zhi gou one big Cl dog
23 When the head noun refers to a nonhuman or inanimate entity, the classifier is obligatory with large numbers. I speculate that human nouns usually take the general classifier ge which does not have specific meaning and its classifying function is not evident. The only specific classifier used with human nouns is wei which has a connotation of ‘being respectful to the referent’ and which is not very often used. Nonhuman nouns usually have their specific classifiers which have a classifying function. 24 They use massifier (collocating with mass nouns) and count classifier (with count nouns). So they gloss the measure word xiang in example (76) as ‘CL box’.
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In example (76) the adjective xiao ‘small’ is inserted before the measure word xiang ‘box’, but the insertion of da ‘big’ before the classifier zhi leads to the ungrammaticality of example (77).
In reality, adjectives can be inserted between numerals and certain genuine classifiers. In example (78), the adjective hou ‘thick’ is inserted before the classifier ben .
(78) Yi hou ben shu one thick Cl book ‘one thick book’ 25
So, in some classifier languages, classifiers can be used alone before nouns (Vietnamese,
Hmong, Cantonese) and large numbers occur before nouns without classifiers (Burmese, Chinese) and some adjectives can come between numerals and classifiers (Chinese). Most importantly, numerals and classifiers have their own different functions (number specification vs. individualization). We think the numeral and the classifier both head their separate phrasal projections. The numerically quantified nominal in Mandarin has the following syntactic structure (79):
25 The adjective da ‘big’ can be used before classifiers like zhang (a classifier for maps, stamps, paper, tables), jian (for rooms), zhi (for boxes, cats, lobsters, feet, legs); the adjective chang ‘long” before classifiers like tiao (for snake, rope, street, river’).
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(79)
‘three books’
Before concluding this chapter, I should say that in Mandarin the numeral projects a
Numeral Phrase. There is no Number Phrase in Chinese, as we argued that Mandarin does not have a plural marker in Chapter Three.
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CHAPTER FIVE
COMPARISON OF CLASSIFIER USES IN MANDARIN AND WU
In Chapter 4, I discussed the classifier system in Mandarin and its numerically quantified nominals. In this chapter, I discuss the uses of classifiers in Wu, make a comparison between Wu and Mandarin in terms of classifier usage and analyze the syntactic structure of the [Cl + N] nominal in these two varieties of Chinese.
5.1 The Uses of the Classifier in the Wu Dialect
Traditional study of Chinese classifiers is concerned with which classifiers are used with which nouns in different dialects. Not until recently have Chinese linguists started to be interested in the syntactic features and structures of nominals involving classifiers, especially in some Southern Chinese dialects (Cheng & Sybesma, 1999, 2005; Matthews & Yip, 1994; Liu,
2002; Qian, 1997). Many of the comparative studies are focused on Cantonese and Wu in comparison with Mandarin. This section deals with the uses of classifiers in Wu in some detail.
First, I discuss the uses of ge in Wu, which functions as the general classifier in Mandarin. In the
Wu dialect, ge has two other functions in addition to being a classifier. Ge can function as a demonstrative and as a modification marker in Wu.
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Before discussing the different uses of ge in Wu, we will look at the uses of ge in Chinese diachronically. Ge is mainly used as a general classifier in modern Mandarin, but it used to perform several other grammatical functions in its history. The classifier ge was originally derived from the noun zhu which means ‘bamboo’ and was used as a classifier in counting zhu
‘bamboo’. Later on the use of ge as a classifier was extended to nouns referring to other concrete objects and then abstract nouns. Now ge is a general classifier, which can be used with most nouns in Mandarin.
While the range of nouns collocating with ge was greatly widened, its grammatical functions also once multiplied in its history. At the beginning, it was only used as a specific classifier for zhu ‘bamboo’ and then developed into a general classifier. In its history, ge was once used as a demonstrative as the following two examples illustrate. In (1), ge was used as a demonstrative adverb, and in (2), ge functions as a demonstrative determiner.26
(1) bai fa san qian zhang, yuan chou shi ge chang . white hair three thousand foot because sadness like this long ‘My white hairs reach three thousand feet, because I am as sad as these are long.’ (Qiu Fu Ge 27 , 8 th C) (2) ge ren hui di ? that person avoid as taboo what ‘What does that person avoid as taboo?’ ( Bei Qi Shu, c. AD 600, cited in Shi & Li, 2002: 7) 26 In traditional grammar, demonstrative determiner is called demonstrative adjective. 27 Qui Fu Ge , a poem written by the great Chinese poet Li Bei (AD701 762, sometimes translated as Li Bo ). Qiu Fu is a place where Li Bei wrote the poem.
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From the 11 th to the 17 th century, ge was grammaticalized into a modification marker, competing with de which is the modification marker in modern Mandarin (Shi & Li, 2002: 7; citing Cao, 1986). The following example is taken from Shi & Li (2002: 7).
(3) Ni ge gu shi qi gu . you GE bone is base bone ‘You’re despicable.’ ( Zhang Xie Zhuangyuan 28 , c. AD 1200)
The afore mentioned two functions (i.e. that of a modification marker and that of a demonstrative) are no longer performed by ge in Mandarin Chinese. But these two syntactic functions are still performed by ge in Wu dialects as shown in the following examples.
(4) ge ben shi youqu . (demonstrative) this Cl book interesting ‘This book is very interesting.’ (5) ngo ge shi youqu . (modification marker) I GE book interesting ‘My book(s) is/are very interesting.’ 28 The work was written by an anonymous group of writers who were from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. So the language used in the book might be the Wenzhou dialect (which is hardly intelligible to speakers of the other Wu subdialects), although the written Chinese language is shared by speakers of different dialects. The English translation of the example is mine.
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In (4), ge functions as a demonstrative determiner and in (5) it functions as a modification marker. In Shanghaiese, ge can be reduplicated for emphasis when functioning as a demonstrative (Qian, 1997) as (6) shows.
(6) ge-ge san ben shi This this three Cl book ‘these three books’
In the linguistic literature, some scholars (Pan, 1991) write that classifiers can function as demonstratives and Pan (1991: 271) observes that in the Wu dialect “the classifier ge has become a particle that is similar in function to the de in Mandarin,” that is, a modification marker. We consider the three different functions as performed by the homophone ge , not by the general classifier ge in the Wu dialect, although etymologically the three functions are related. In the case of the two functions of ge as a demonstrative and a modification marker, ge no longer performs the two basic functions of classifiers: classification and individualization.
Why could the general classifier ge have developed into a demonstrative and a modification marker in the Wu dialect, but not in Mandarin? The development of multiple functions of ge might be related to the uses of classifiers in general in the Wu dialect. As we discussed in Chapter Four, according to Bisang (1999), classifiers can have the following functions: classification, individualization (in the context of counting), referentialization (in the context of reference) and relationalization (in the context of possession and relative clauses).
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Classifiers in Mandarin only have the functions of classification and individualization, while in the Wu dialect, classifiers have all four functions. The function of referentialization is motivated by the individualizing function of classifier. As classifiers in Wu dialects have referentialization function and ge is the general classifier which is more often used than other specific classifiers, ge then is very often used in referential expressions. And one of the main features of the demonstrative is referentiality, so it is quite natural for the general classifier to develop into a demonstrative.
As for the development of ge into a modification marker in the Wu dialect, it is related to the relationalization function of classifiers. In Wu dialects (and probably other dialects, for that matter) and modern Mandarin, there must be a linking element between the modifier and the modified element. The linking element in Wu dialects can be ge or other specific classifiers, while that in Mandarin can be de or demonstratives 29 . Consider the following examples:
Wu dialect
(7) ngo ge shi youqu .30 I GE book interesting My book (s) is/are very interesting.’ (8) ngo ben shi youqu . 29 In possessive constructions, the linking element can be deleted in the case of inalienable possession, like kinship terms, e.g., wo baba (literally ‘I father’, meaning ‘my father’.) 30 When ge is the linking element, sometimes the nominal expressions can be ambiguous, as ge can both be a modification marker and a general classifier. In (6) ge is a modification marker, as ge usually does not collocate with the noun shu ‘book’. A nominal expression like wo ge erzi ‘my son(s)’ is ambiguous. If the ge is a modification marker, the speaker has one or more that one son. If ge is the general classifier, which is very often used with human nouns, the nominal only refers to one particular son of the speaker in context.
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I Cl book interesting ‘My book is very interesting.’ Or ‘this book of mine is very interesting.’ (9) * ngo shu hen youqu I book very interesting Mandarin (10) wo de shu youqu . I DE book interesting ‘My book (s) is/are very interesting.’ (11) wo zhe shu youqu . I this book interesting ‘This book of mine is very interesting.’ (12) * wo shu youqu I book interesting
In (7), when ge is used as a modification marker, the number of the objects referred to can be one or more than one. When the specific classifier ben is used in (8), the number of books must be one. So, here the individualizing function of the specific classifier ben is obvious; ben only concurrently functions as a linking element. (9) shows that the deletion of the linking element between the modifier and the modified element leads to ungrammaticality. The Mandarin example (11) indicates that the demonstrative can concurrently function as a linking element.
The modification marker in (10) de actually is developed from the demonstrative di in Old
Chinese. Because of the concurrent function of classifiers as a linking element in the Wu dialect (or the relationalization function in Bisang’s (1999) term), the general classifier ge
111 developed into a modification marker, while in Mandarin, demonstratives concurrently function as a linking element and the demonstrative di developed into the modification marker de .
5.2 Distributions and Interpretations of the [Cl + N] Phrase in Wu and Mandarin
Of the four functions performed by classifiers discussed in Bisang (1999), Mandarin classifiers can only have classifying and individualizing functions. The classifying function is more related to semantics than syntax and all classifiers in every classifier language have such a function. Classifiers classify objects denoted by nouns into different classes based on their meanings. The choice of classifiers used with nouns depends on certain features of the entities denoted by the nouns. For example, the noun yizi ‘chair’ can collocate with classifiers zhang and ba , which bring out different aspects of the meaning of the object denoted by the noun. The classifier z hang, derived from its verbal meaning of ‘open’, which can also collocate with zhi
‘paper’ or ditu ‘map’, shows the meaning of ‘having an open, flat plane’, while ba , derived from its verbal meaning of ‘hold’, which can be used with nouns like yaoshi ‘key’, dao ‘knife’ or shan
‘umbrella’, bring out the meaning of ‘having a handle, or being operated by hands’.
The individualizing function of the classifier is a syntactic requirement. Classifiers individualize the objects denoted by nouns so that they can be counted in numeral classifier languages (Bisang, 1999) 31 . They perform the individualizing function in the context of counting.
So, most often classifiers should co occur with numerals in counting context in Mandarin and the 31 When Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) write that classifiers in Chinese have the individualizing or singularizing function equivalent to that of articles in English or Romance languages, they seem to equate the individualization function with the referentialization function of the classifier meant by Bisang (1999).
112 distribution of the [Cl + N] combination in Mandarin is quite limited. However, in the Wu dialect and some other Southern dialects like Cantonese, classifiers can perform all the four functions.
The referentialization function of classifiers gives rise to the prevalence of the [Cl + N] phrase in the Wu dialect and some other Southern dialects without being preceded by numerals or demonstratives. The following examples illustrate the distribution of the [Cl + N] phrase in
Mandarin and Wu dialect.
Mandarin (13) wo mai-le ben shu . I buy Perf Cl book ‘I bought a book.’ (14) * ben shu wo mai-le . Cl book I buy Perf (15) * ben shu hen youyong . Cl book very useful
Wu dialect
(16) ngo ma-le ben shi. I buy Perf Cl book ‘I bought a/the/this book.’ (17) ben shu ngo ma-le . (topicalized object, primary topic ) Cl book I buy Perf ‘The/this book I bought.’ (18) ngo ben shu ma-le . (topicalized object, secondary topic) I Cl book buy Perf
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‘I bought the/this book.’ (19) ben shu hen youyong . Cl book very useful ‘The/this book is very useful.’
Distributionally, the [Cl + N] phrase in Mandarin can only occur in the post verbal position and cannot occur sentence initially as examples (13) (15) show. The [Cl + N] phrase in the Wu dialect can both be used as post verbal object (16), pre verbal object (17), (18) and subject (19).
In terms of interpretation, there also exist differences between the [Cl + N] phrase in
Mandarin and that in the Wu dialect. In Mandarin, the [Cl + N] can only have an indefinite interpretation. It can have either specific or non specific reference, depending on context. 32 In
(13) the object ben shu (‘a book’) has an indefinite specific interpretation. In the following example, ben shu tends to have an indefinite nonspecific interpretation. Here, it seems that verbal aspect/tense affects the interpretation of the object ben shu .
(20) wo xiang mai ben shu . (Mandarin) I want buy Cl book ‘I want to buy a book.’
We can also imagine a situation in which the object ben shu has an indefinite specific interpretation. For example, a parent went to buy a book for himself with his child in tow. The 32 Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) hold that the [Cl + N] phrase in Mandarin can only have the nonspecific indefinite interpretation. I argued against this view in Chapter Four.
114 child found one book very interesting and said to the parent (20) with that particular book in mind; in such a situation, the referent of ben shu can be specific.
In the Wu dialect, the [Cl + N] nominal has more diverse interpretations. In addition to the indefinite specific/non specific interpretation shared by the Mandarin [Cl + N] nominal, it has a definite interpretation. Whether it has a definite or indefinite interpretation depends on context, both linguistic and situational. When the [Cl + N] occurs pre verbally, it can only have definite interpretation as (17) and (18) indicate. As we mentioned previously, this is due to the characteristic of the topic comment sentence structure and the subject and topicalized object tend to be definite nominals in Chinese. When the [Cl + N] occurs post verbally, it can have both a definite and indefinite interpretation in the Wu dialect as (16) shows.
When the [Cl + N] has a definite interpretation, the tone of classifiers changes in the
Wenzhou dialect (Cheng & Sybesma, 2005). In the Suzhou dialect, the general classifier ge is stressed when the ge + N phrase has a definite interpretation (Liu, 2002). Classifiers do not carry stress in Chinese when they are preceded by numerals or when the [Cl + N] phrase has an indefinite interpretation. In the Wenling dialect, the classifier in the definite [Cl + N] expression can be stressed when several entities are in sight and the speaker wants to make clear which entity he is referring to. Usually the stressing of the classifier is accompanied by some gesture, like pointing to the entity. Otherwise, the classifier is not stressed whether the [Cl + N] is definite or indefinite. For example, the ben shu in (21), the equivalent sentence of (20) in the
Wenling dialect, can have a definite interpretation in addition to an indefinite one.
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(21) wo xiang ma ben shi. (Wenling dialect) I want buy Cl book ‘I want to buy a/this book.’
Imagine that you were in a bookstore and asked a shop assistant to help you take a book from the top shelf and she took the wrong book, you could say (21) to her, stressing the classifier ben and pointing at that particular book. The stressing of the classifier here is like a contrastive stress in
English, e.g.,
(22) I like the red book, not the yellow one.
In this section, we discussed the distributions and interpretations of the [Cl + N] expression in the Wu dialect and Mandarin. We will discuss syntactic structures of the [Cl + N] expression in the next section.
5.3 Syntactic Structures of the [Cl + N] Phrase in Wu and Mandarin
In this section, we first discuss what syntactic feature is encoded in the classifier in
Chinese (Section 5.3.1) and then put forward the syntactic structures for the different interpretations of the surface form [Cl + N] (Section 5.3.2).
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5.3.1 The Countability Feature Encoded in the Classifier
Cheng & Sybesma (2005: 274 276) argue that the classifier has something to do with number and suggest that the classifier is the locus for grammatical number in Chinese. Their relevant arguments are that it is the classifier in the [Cl + N] phrase that determines whether the referent is singular or plural and that reduplication of the classifier gives rise to a universal quantification reading. Consider the following examples which are taken from Cheng &
Sybesma (2005: 274 275).
(23) a. bun syu (Cantonese) Cl book ‘a / the book’, not ‘(the) books’ b. di syu Cl pl book ‘(the) books’, not ‘a / the book’ (24) a. wo xiang mai ben shu . (Mandarin) I want buy Cl book ‘I would like to buy a book.’ b. wo xiang mai xie shu . I want buy Cl pl book ‘I would like to buy some books.’ (25) ge-ge xuesheng (Mandarin) Cl Cl student ‘every student’
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In (23a) and (24a), the referent of the [Cl + N] phrase is singular and in (23b) and (24b) the referent is plural. In (25), the reduplication of the classifier ge yields a universal quantification reading. It is generally agreed that in all Chinese dialects there is a plural classifier. It is di in
Cantonese and xie in Mandarin.
Granted that the classifier is the locus for grammatical number in Chinese as Cheng &
Sybesma (1999, 2005) argue, the number encoding in Chinese is different from that in Germanic or Romance languages. For one thing, the individual classifier does not change no matter whether the number of the object denoted by the head noun is one or more than one. In English the plural marker is realized in the noun and in French the number is also realized in the article when the referent of the head noun is more than one in number. For another, the so called plural classifier xie in Chinese can only be used with the numeral yi ‘one’.
(26) a. yi ben shu one Cl book ‘one book’ b. san ben shu three Cl book ‘three books’ (27) a. yi xie shu / shui one Quan book/water ‘some books/water’ b. * san xie shu / shui three Quan book/water
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If the classifier in Chinese is the locus of grammatical number as Cheng & Sybesma
(2005) argue, then both (26a) and (26b) are singular as the same individual classifier ben is used in the two examples. Considering san ben shu ‘three books’ as singular is contrary to one’s intuition. In the same way, if xie is a classifier encoding plurality, how come that numerals other than yi ‘one’ cannot be used with it and why mass nouns like shui ‘water’ can be used with it?
The encoding of number in Chinese (if the classifier is considered to encode number) does not conform to the common practice in languages that the marker encoding plurality should be used with count nouns and the numeral (if used) should be two or above.
Now we will consider the contexts in which the so called plural classifier xie is used and draw a tentative conclusion about its grammatical status. Xie is often used with the numeral yi
‘one’, but the numeral yi ‘one’ can always be deleted. The meaning of yi-xie is ‘some’ and like
‘some’ in English yi-xie can be used with both count and mass nouns as (27a) illustrates.
Yi-xie ‘some’ can be modified by demonstratives (28) and adverbs (29) as the following examples show.
(28) zhe/na ( yi)-xie xuesheng this/that some student ‘these/those students’ (29) hao ( yi)-xie xuesheng quite some student ‘quite a few students’
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As yi ‘one’ can often be deleted when preceded by other elements as in (28) and (29), zhe/na yi-xie becomes zhe/na xie . People tend to make a comparison between zhe/na xie and zhe/na + the individual classifier. Some scholars (Lü, 1980; He, 2001) consider xie as a measure word and zhe/na xie as the plural counterpart of zhe/na .33 Shi (2003) treats xie as a plural marker, while others (Cheng & Sybesma, 1999, 2005) consider xie as a plural classifier. Lü (1980) considers hao-xie ‘quite a few/little’ as an adjective expressing quantity.
However, Iljic (1994) argues that xie in Mandarin is a marker of plurality, not a plural classifier. One of Iljic’s (1994) arguments is that in Beijing dialect, the general classifier ge can be inserted between xie and the following head noun. In a nominal expression, only one classifier can be used with the head noun. So, according to Iljic (1994), xie in (30) cannot be a classifier.
(30) zhe xie ge ren this Quan Cl person ‘these people’
But traditionally, some scholars (He, 2001) hold the view that xie is a plural classifier and ge in such sentences as (30) functions as a signal for pause in order to emphasize the meaning of the demonstrative zhe-xie ‘these’. Iljic (1994) holds that ge is a classifier and that it is the only classifier that can be inserted after xie , although he writes in the notes that some other classifiers can be used as such and that the grammaticality of such use of the classifier varies from speaker
33 Zhe/na can modify nouns directly, e.g. zhe/na xuesheng ‘this/that student’. They can also be followed by ‘( yi) + classifier + N’, e.g., zhe/na( yi)-ge xuesheng ‘this/that student’.
120 to speaker. Lichao He (p.c.) says that some classifiers other than the general classifier ge can be used after xie . The following examples are from online articles.
(31) a. zhe xie ben shu this Quan Cl book ‘these books’ b. yi xie zhang zhi one Quan Cl paper ‘some sheets of paper’
While not every classifier can be used after zhe-xie ‘these’ or yi-xie ‘some’ , after hao-xie ‘quiet a few/little’ almost every classifier can be used.
(32) a. hao xie tiao xinwen quite Quan Cl news ‘quite a few pieces of news’ b. hao xie zhi gou/mao quite Quan Cl dog/cat ‘quite a few dogs/cats’
The examples in (31) and (32) seem to suggest that xie is not a classifier, as only one classifier can be used with the head noun in Chinese. Of course, the classifiers in (31) and (32) can be omitted.
If xie is not a plural classifier, is it a marker of plurality as Iljic (1994) suggests? It does not seem so. If xie is a marker of plurality, then why does it not suffix to the head noun?
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Besides, a plurality marker should only be used with count nouns. In fact, xie can be used both with mass nouns (33) and with count nouns (34).
(33) pingzi li you (yi) xie shui . bottle in have (one) Quan water ‘There is some water in the bottle.’ (34) a. yi xie xuesheng one Quan student ‘some students’ b. hao xie xuesheng quite some student ‘quite a few students’
If it is right to name hao-xie (which is the resulting form after yi is deleted from hao-yi-xie ‘quite a few/little’) a quantifying adjective as Lü (1980) does, then (yi) xie is really a quantifier expressing ‘indeterminate quantity’, which can be used with count nouns and mass nouns. (yi) xie is very much like the quantifier ‘some’ in English, which can also be used with count nouns and mass nouns.
(35) some books / water
Then, why is the individual classifier optional when (yi) xie ‘some’ quantifies nouns in
Mandarin? I speculate that this is because some quantifiers like xie ‘some’ and xuduo
‘many/much’ do not do any exact counting and Mandarin classifiers are used to individualize the
122 referents denoted by the head noun in the context of counting. Some scholars (Simpson, 2005;
Aikhenvald, 2000; Hopper, 1986) note that classifiers in some numeral classifier languages like
Thai and Malay are optional when the numeral specification is vague and individuation is not implied. “In Thai classifiers do not occur with large numbers like 1000 unless individuation is implied” (Aikhenvald, 2000: 100). In Malay, the classifier can be omitted when approximate numeral reference is made (Hopper, 1986). Another quantifier xuduo ‘many/much’ can also directly quantify the head nouns without any classifier in between. But almost every classifier can be used after xuduo ‘many/much’ when the head noun is a count noun. (36) a. xuduo (ben) shu many Cl book ‘many books’ b. xuduo (pian) wenzhang many Cl articles ‘many articles’ When the quantifiers are used without the accompanying classifier, the individuality of the referents is not highlighted. Treating (yi) xie as a quantifier can solve the two puzzles: one is why the classifier can sometimes be inserted between (yi) xie and the head noun if xie is a plural classifier; another is why (yi) xie can be used both with count nouns and mass nouns if it is treated as a plural classifier or a marker of plurality.
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If the so called plural classifier di in Cantonese is really like xie in Mandarin as Cheng &
Sybesma (1999, 2005) and others suggest, di might also be a quantifier as I argued above for
Mandarin xie to be. Di applies to both plural and uncountable items (Matthew & Yip 1994: 90).
I agree with Cheng & Sybesma (2005: 274) that there must be a syntactic marker of countability in order for count nouns to be countable (this idea is originally Doetjes’s (1996)).
Classifiers in languages like Chinese and number morphology in languages like English and
French serve as a syntactic countability marker. The classifier is the carrier of the syntactic feature of countability.
In this subsection, I argued that the classifier in Chinese does not encode number and the so called plural classifier or marker of plurality xie is really a quantifier. In the next subsection, I will analyze the syntactic structure of the surface form [Cl + N].
5.3.2 The Syntactic Structures of the [Cl + N] Phrase in Wu and Mandarin
Of all the studies related to Chinese nominals in the literature, Cheng & Sybesma (1999,
2005) provide the most detailed analyses of the bare noun phrase, the [Cl + N] phrase and the
[Nume + Cl + N] phrase. Cheng & Sybesma (1999) deals with bare nouns in Mandarin and
Cantonese and their 2005 chapter compares and contrasts the bare noun phrase, the [Cl + N] phrase and the [Nume + Cl + N] phrase in Mandarin, Cantonese, the Wenzhou dialect and the
Min dialect. We mentioned in section 5.2 that the [Cl + N] phrase can be either definite or indefinite in the Wu dialect, while it can only be indefinite in Mandarin. Since it can have different interpretations, then the same surface form [Cl + N] must have different syntactic
124 structures. According to Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005), the indefinite [Cl + N] phrase is actually a Numeral Phrase and the quantification of numerals leads to the indefinite interpretation. The definite [Cl + N] phrase is a Classifier Phrase. The syntactic structures of definite and indefinite [Cl + N] nominals are respectively represented as (36) and (37).
(37)
(38)
Cheng & Sybesma (2005) argue that the classifier in Chinese encodes definiteness in addition to grammatical number. According to them (2005: 277), definiteness and number seem to be expressed in all languages. All languages have ways of distinguishing definite from indefinite reference and ways of distinguishing singular from plural. They further state that the head D of DP in languages like English has an individualizing function, which picks out a single instance of whatever is described by the noun and a ‘subordinating’ function, which turns an NP into an argument. These two functions are closely related to the deictic property of DP, that is,
125 the property to refer. So, in the nominal domain, the lexical category NP describes and the functional category DP refers. Likewise, in the verbal domain, the lexical category VP describes and the functional category Tense Phrase refers.
They compare articles in English and French with classifiers in Chinese and conclude that the functions performed by the D in French are performed by classifiers in Chinese. Articles in French can express definiteness, number and noun classification (when grammatical gender is taken into account) as the following examples (from Cheng & Sybesma, 2005: 278) illustrate.
(39) a. le garçon, les garçons the M SG boy the PL boys b. un garçon, des garçons a M SG boy a PL boys c. le garçon, la fille the M SG boy the F SG girl
They give the following Cantonese data to substantiate their proposal that Chinese classifiers function in a similar way as articles in French do.
(40) a. bun syu; di syu Cl book; Cl pl book ‘the/a book’; ‘the/ø books’ b. yat-bun syu; syu one Cl book; book ‘a book’; ‘books’
126
c. go jan; zek gau Cl person; Cl dog ‘a/the person’; ‘a/the dog’
If we take a moment to look at the Cantonese examples, we will notice the same nominal in
Cantonese can have two interpretations, e.g. bun syu ‘the/a book’ in (40a) can be definite and indefinite. Conversely, the same meaning can be expressed in two or three ways, e.g. an indefinite singular nominal like ‘a book’ can be expressed in Cantonese as ben syu , yat-bun syu and syu . They gloss the bare noun syu in (40b) as ‘books’; actually, it can also mean ‘a book’. So, from the French and Cantonese data we see some differences between them with respect to the uses of determiners in French and classifiers in Cantonese. In French, a nominal is either definite or indefinite, either singular or plural. In Cantonese, on the other hand, a nominal can be both definite and indefinite; a bare noun can be singular and plural. The specific interpretation of a
Cantonese nominal depends on the context.
One major difference between determiners in French and classifiers in Cantonese cannot be deduced from the limited data, as Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) deal with only bare nouns and the [Cl + N] phrase. Determiners in French (and English for that matter) always occur at the initial position of a nominal, while classifiers in Cantonese and other varieties of Chinese can be preceded by numerals and demonstratives. Consider the following Cantonese data ((41) and (42) from Matthew & Yip, 1994, the diacritics for tones omitted).
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(41) a. ni go behngyahn b. go jeung toi this Cl patient that Cl table ‘this patient’ ‘that table’ (42) leuhng jek gau two Cl dog ‘two dogs’ (43) ni leuhng jek gau this two Cl dog ‘these two dogs’
Positionally, classifiers are too low to be a subordinator to translate a nominal expression into an argument in Chinese. In languages with articles, numerals never precede articles in a nominal, but in Chinese, the numeral always come before the classifier if there is a numeral in the nominal. Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) assume that there is no DP and definites in Chinese are ClPs and indefinites are NumePs. The numeral undoes the definiteness of the classifier. As
Simpson (2005: 824) argues that if the numeral has a quantificational scope over the definiteness of its [Cl + N] complement, then a partitive interpretation will result (44). But the NumeP in
Chinese does not have such an interpretation as (45) illustrates.
(44) [QP[three of DP[the students]]] (45) san zhang zhuozi three Cl table ‘three tables’, not ‘three of the tables’
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So, I propose that indefinite [Cl + N] phrases are NumePs (46) and definite [Cl + N] phrases are really DPs (47). The two structures are represented as:
(46)
‘a book’
(47)
‘this book’ To sum up, the definite [Cl + N] nominal in the Wu dialect is a DP and the indefinite [Cl + N] nominal in Mandarin and Wu is a NumeP.
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CHAPTER SIX
COMPLEX NOMINAL EXPRESSIONS IN MANDARIN
In this chapter, I analyze complex nominal expressions in Mandarin involving possessives, personal pronouns, proper names and demonstratives, which are called complex definites in
Lyons (1999). Like adjectives, these elements can all occur prenominally in Mandarin nominal expressions. At the same time, they can themselves function independently as a nominal. For example, in (1) the possessive wo-de ‘mine’ functions independently as a predicate.
(1) zhe ben shu shi wo-de . This Cl book is I DE ‘This book is mine.’
In section 6.1, I discuss the possessive containing nominal in Mandarin. Section 6.2 deals with nominal expressions containing prenominal pronouns and proper names. Section 6.3 focuses on nominals with demonstratives in Mandarin.
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6.1 Possessive Constructions in Mandarin
In subsection 6.1.1, I present examples to illustrate the position of the possessive in a
Mandarin nominal expression. In 6.1.2, the interpretations of the Mandarin nominal involving possessives are discussed and syntactic structures are proposed for these different interpretations.
6.1.1 Positions of the Possessive
The position of the possessive in the Mandarin nominal is rather flexible; it can occur in the initial or a middle position of the matrix nominal. When the possessive is in the initial position, it can be followed by the head noun (2), the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence (3) and the [Dem + (Nume)
+ Cl + N] sequence (4) as the following examples illustrate.
(2) wo-de shu I DE book ‘my book(s)’, ‘some books of mine’, ‘some of my books’ (3) wo-de san ben shu I DE three Cl book ‘my three books’, ‘three books of mine’, ‘three of my books’ (4) wo-de zhe (san) ben shu I DE this (three) Cl book ‘this (these three) book(s) of mine’
When the possessive occurs in the middle position of the matrix nominal, it must be between the classifier and the head noun, as the following examples show.
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(5) ta na le san ben wo-de shu . he take Perf three Cl I DE book ‘He took three of my books/three books of mine.’ (6) tai xiang jie zhe (san) ben wo-de shu . he want borrow this (three) Cl I DE book ‘He wants to borrow this (these three) book(s) of mine.’
In (5), the [Nume + Cl] sequence precedes the possessive and in (6), the [Dem + (Nume) + Cl] precedes the possessive.
Compared with the English possessive containing nominal, in which the possessive usually occurs at the initial position of the nominal and can be followed by a noun or the [Nume + N] sequence 34 , the Chinese nominal can have the possessive in the middle position and the possessive can co occur with demonstrative determiners, which are prohibited in English. Since the possessive cannot occur together with definite determiners like the definite article the or demonstratives like this, that in an English nominal, the possessive in English is considered to be in the D position (Lyons, 1999) or in the Spec DP (Abney 1987), and the possessive containing nominal is a definite expression.
What is or what are the syntactic position(s) that the Mandarin possessive may occupy?
Does the Mandarin possessive containing nominal have definite reference like its English counterpart? I will attempt to answer these two questions in the next subsection.
34 Quantifiers like every , all can co occur with the possessive in English. All precedes (a) and every (b) follows the possessive in the nominal. (a) all my professors, (b) his every command/move.
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6.1.2 Interpretations and Structures of Possessive-Containing Nominals
This subsection focuses on the interpretations of nominals in which the possessive precedes the bare noun or the possessive is used together with the [Nume + Cl] sequence in a nominal.
Nominals in which the possessive and the demonstrative determiner co occur will be discussed in section 6.3. At the end of the subsection, I propose the syntactic structures of the possessive containing nominal in Mandarin.
The possessive behaves differently in different languages in terms of its collocation with other determiners within a nominal and its relatedness with the (in)definite interpretation of the matrix nominal 35 . In languages like English, the possessive cannot co occur with definite determiners in a nominal and renders the matrix nominal definite, while in other languages like
Italian, the possessive can collocate with (in)definite articles and the (in)definiteness of the matrix nominal is indicated by (in)definite determiners (as shown by the examples in (8) below).
Based on these differences, Lyons (1985, cited in Lyons, 1999) classifies languages into determiner genitive (DG) languages (like English) and adjective genitive (AG) languages (like
Italian). The possessive in DG languages occupies the position reserved for definite determiners and in AG languages it occurs in adjectival or some other position (Lyons, 1999: 24). Alexiadou
(2004) refers to possessives in DG languages as possessive determiners and those in AG languages as possessive adjectives. Similarly, to account for the different features of 35 Here we discuss nominals with the possessor phrase which itself is definite, such as his books or the teacher’s books . As to whether nominals like a teacher’s book are definite or not, scholars’ views differ. Lyons (1999) thinks that such nominals are definite and a teacher’s book means ‘the book of a teacher’. Jackendoff (1977), on the other hand, claims that the (in)definiteness of a possessive containing nominal depends on whether the possessor is (in)definite.
133 possessives in different languages, Giorgi & Longobardi (1991: 155) propose the following parameter: Possessive elements are syntactically specified to be realized on the surface either as adjectives (as in Italian), or as determiners (as in English and French). The following examples from English and Italian illustrate the differences of the two types of possessives.
(7) (*the) my books (8) a. il mio libro the my book ‘my book’ b. un mio libro a my book ‘a book of mine’ c. i miei libri the my books ‘my books’
Another difference between the two types of possessives (Giorgi & Longobardi, 1991,
Schoorlemmer, 1998, cited in Alexiadou, 2004) is that possessive pronouns in AG languages, just like other adjectives, can be used in ellipsis and predicative contexts, while in DG languages, a distinct pronominal form, different from the prenominal one, is used in ellipsis and predicative contexts. The following examples illustrate this point. The Italian examples are from Giorgi &
Longobardi (1991) and the English ones are from Alexiadou (2004).
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(9) a. John will bring his car and I will bring mine . (ellipsis context) b. This book is mine. (predicative context) (10) a. Metti i tuoi libri vicini ai miei . (ellipsis context) put the your books next to my ‘Put your books next to mine.’ b. Questo libro e mio . (predicative context) this book is my ‘This book is mine’
Alexiadou (2004: 33) notes that Old English, Old French and Old High German were AG languages. In those languages, possessives could co occur with definite determiners and then they underwent a change in which possessive adjectives became possessive determiners. This change coincided with the emergence of distinct pronominal forms used in ellipsis and predicative contexts in English, due to the breakdown of agreement morphology. Like Lyons
(1999), Alexiadou assumes that the possessive does not have an inherent specification of the
(in)definiteness feature and that (in)definiteness of the matrix nominal is related to the structural position that the possessive occupies.
Mandarin, an isolating language, lacks agreement morphology, yet typologically it seems to be an AG language, as Mandarin possessives share some features of adjectives. The possessive has the following adjective like features in Mandarin. Firstly, there is a marker (‘ de ’) between the possessor and the head noun/the following elements in the nominal expression, just as a relative clause (12) or an attributive adjective (13) needs de to connect with the head noun.
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(11) wo de shu I DE book ‘my book(s)’, ‘some books of mine’ (12) wo gang mai de shu I just buy DE book ‘the book(s) that I have just bought’ (13) youyong de shu useful DE book ‘useful book(s)’
Secondly, the possessive, like an adjective, can occur in ellipsis and predicative contexts as shown in (14) and (15) respectively.
(14) a. ta chi-le da-de pingguo, wo chi-le xiao-de . he eat Perf big DE apple I eat Perf small DE ‘He ate the big apple, I ate the small one.’ b. ta chi-le ta-de pingguo, wo chi-le wo-de. he eat Perf he DE apple I eat Perf I DE ‘He ate his apple, I ate mine.’ (15) a. zhe ben shu youyong . This Cl book useful ‘This book is useful.’ b. zhe ben shu (shi) wo-de . This Cl book (be) I DE ‘This book is mine.’
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Thirdly, the position of the possessive in a nominal expression is flexible and it can co occur with demonstratives, just like adjectives in Mandarin. Compare the following two pairs of examples.
(16) a. wo-de na san ben shu I DE that three Cl book ‘those three books of mine’ b. na san ben wo-de shu that three Cl I DE book ‘those three books, which belong to me’ (17) a. youyong-de na san ben shu useful DE that three Cl book ‘those three useful books’ b. na san ben youyong-de shu that three Cl useful DE book ‘those three books, which are useful’
(16) and (17) illustrate respectively that the Mandarin possessive and the adjective can precede the demonstrative determiner or come after the [Dem + Nume + Cl] in a nominal.
Lastly, several possessives can occur in a nominal expression, just as several adjectives can modify one head noun.
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(18) a. wo-de Zhao Yuanren-de yuyanxue-de shu I DE Zhao Yuanren DE linguistics DE book ‘Chao Yuanren’s book on linguistics that belongs to me’ 36 (Tang, 1990: 422) b. yi ge weida-de, yonggan-de, qinlao-de minzu 37 one Cl great DE brave DE hard working DE people ‘a great, brave, hard working people’
In (18a), two possessives are used, one expressing the theta role of possession ( wo-de ‘my’) and
the other of agent ( Zhao Yuanren-de ‘Zhao Yuanren’s’) and in (18b) three adjectives modify the
head noun.
The above mentioned characteristics indicate that the possessive in Mandarin, like that in
Italian, is a possessive adjective, not a possessive determiner. However, unlike Italian, Mandarin
does not have any (in)definite article and the (in)definite interpretation of its possessive
containing nominals depends on context.
To the best of my knowledge, there has been no systematic study about the possessive
construction in Mandarin. With regard to its interpretation, there are conflicting ideas among
different scholars. Huang (1982, 1987) and Chen (2004) both touch upon the (in)definiteness of
the possessive containing nominal. Huang (1987) mentions in passing that possessive containing
nominals in Mandarin may be definite or indefinite, depending on context. Let’s consider the
following two examples taken from Huang (1987: 239).
36 The English translation was suggested by Dr. Marlyse Baptista. 37 When several adjectives modify a noun, the modification marker ‘ de ’ can be deleted except for the one following the final adjective.
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(19) ta da-le wo-de pengyou . he hit Perf my friend ‘He hit (one/some of) my friends.’ (20) you wo-de pengyou zai wuzi li . have my friend at room in ‘There is/are a/some friend(s) of mine in the room.’
The possessive pronoun is followed by the head noun in the above two examples. According to
Huang, the possessive containing nominal in (19) may be definite or indefinite and the one in
(20), which is an existential sentence, can only have an indefinite interpretation. On the other hand, Huang (1982: 64) also points out that the following example (21) is ungrammatical.
(21) * you Zhang San de san ben shu zai zher . exist Zhang San DE three Cl book at here
Both (20) and (21) are existential sentences and the only difference between the nominal in (20) and that in (21) is that there is the numeral san ‘three’ between the possessor and the head noun in (21). Huang’s judgment of the (un)grammaticality of (20) and (21) seems to suggest that the
[Poss + Nume + Cl + N] nominal in Mandarin only has a definite interpretation, while the [Poss
+ N] nominal can be both definite and indefinite. I cannot see any reason why (20) is grammatical and (21) is ungrammatical.
Chen (2004), however, holds just the opposite view. He claims that whether the possessive containing nominal is to be interpreted as identifiable or non identifiable in Mandarin
139 depends on the presence or absence of an indefinite determiner between the possessor and the head noun (p.1157). He gives the following examples for illustration.
(22) zhe shi wo-de yi ge pengyou gaosu wo de . this be my one Cl friend tell I DE ‘A friend of mine told me this.’ (23) Wo-de qianbi zenme zhao bu dao le ? my pencil how find not arrive CRS 38 ‘How come I cannot find my pencil/*a pencil of mine?
Chen (2004) argues that the possessor phrase imposes a definite interpretation on the matrix nominal when there is no indefinite determiner in between and that the nominal is indefinite when an indefinite determiner is inserted between the possessor phrase and the head noun. So, in
Chen’s view, the Mandarin [Poss + N] nominal only has a definite interpretation and the [Poss +
Nume + Cl + N] nominal is indefinite. Although Chen (2004) said that the possessor phrase in
(23) imposes a definite interpretation, the nominal still has a definite interpretation even if the possessive pronoun is deleted. Their example sentences cited above and their interpretations indicate that Huang and Chen have different or opposite views about the (in)definiteness of the
Mandarin possessive containing nominal.
Except for the interpretation of (21), I agree with Huang’s and Chen’s respective interpretations of their examples. My intuition tells me that (21) is perfectly grammatical. I 38 CRS stands for Currently Relevant State. As a sentence final particle, the basic function of le is to signal a ‘Currently Relevant State’, which means “a state of affairs has special current relevance with respect to some particular situation” (Li & Thompson, 1981: 240).
140 assume here that the possessive containing nominal in Mandarin can have definite and indefinite interpretations, no matter whether or not there is an indefinite determiner between the possessor phrase and the head noun, just as bare nouns can have definite and indefinite interpretations.
Whether a possessive containing nominal has a definite or indefinite interpretation depends on both linguistic and situational context. For example, let us examine how different contexts influence the interpretation of two nominals ‘ wo-de shu’ (literally ‘my book’) and wo-de liang ben shu (literally ‘my two books’).
(24) A. ni weisheme bu gaoxin? your why not happy ‘Why are you not happy?’ B. wo-de shu /wo-de liang ben shu bei ren tou le. I DE book /I DE two Cl book be person steal SFP ‘A (some) book(s) of mine/two books of mine has/have been stolen.’
In (24), the nominal usually can only have an indefinite interpretation. The possessive containing nominal in B’s answer lacks the two main semantic features of a definite expression: identifiability and uniqueness/inclusiveness. The referents of the nominal (i.e., the (two) book(s) stolen) are not identifiable to A. In a normal situation, a person has more than two.
However, we can also imagine a context in which the two possessive containing nominals have a definite interpretation. For example, two classmates each took two books to the library and were preparing for a test together there. After one hour, they went out for a break and left their bookbags on the table. When they returned, one found his books were gone. In such a
141 context, the nominals have a definite interpretation and (24B) should be translated into ‘My (two) books have been stolen’. The hearer knows that the speaker has only two books and he knows which two books were stolen in that situation.
One thing that I need to point out here is that the English possessive construction has the feature of uniqueness/inclusiveness of a definite expression. So the English possessive
containing nominal ‘my three books’ has the implication that the speaker has only three books.
The possessive containing nominal of the [Poss + Nume + Cl + N] sequence in Mandarin does not have such an implication, so it can be interpreted as definite and indefinite, depending on contextual factors. Lyons (1999: 278) proposes that definiteness (or what he informally terms
‘semantic/ pragmatic definiteness’) in languages like Chinese where it is not grammaticalized normally lacks the implication of uniqueness/inclusiveness. Nongrammaticalized definiteness means definiteness that is not indicated by some grammatical means like articles a, the in
English. As a semantico pragmatic notion, definiteness is a language universal; the referents of some nominals in every language are identifiable or known to the participants in communication.
However, not every language has grammatical devices to indicate the (in)definiteness of a nominal expression and bare nouns in some languages can have definite interpretation. Chinese is such a language. Lyons (1999: 27) also notes that neither inclusiveness nor identifiability applies to some definite possessive nominals in English. The referents of those nominals are usually inalienable or other intimate possessions. Consider the examples (25a) and (26b) taken from Lyons (1999: 26).
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(25) a. I’m going to stay with my brother for a few days. b. Joe has broken his leg .
The possessive nominal in (25a, b) does not imply that the speaker has only one brother or Joe has only one leg. We can replace ‘my brother’ with ‘a brother of mine’ and ‘his leg’ with ‘one of his legs’ in (25a, b). So, the definite possessive construction in English can have an indefinite sense (Lyons, 1999: 128).
The possessive containing nominals we discussed above are those in which the possessive is in the initial position followed either by the head noun or the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence.
When the possessive occurs after the [Nume + Cl] sequence or it co occurs with a demonstrative in a nominal, the (in)definiteness of the matrix nominal is easy to determine. If the possessive co occurs with a demonstrative in a Mandarin nominal, the nominal has a definite interpretation, no matter whether the possessive or the demonstrative is in the initial position. I repeat (4) and (6) in 6.1.1 here for convenience.
(4) wo de zhe (san) ben shu I DE this (three) Cl books ‘this (these three) book(s) of mine’ (6) tai xiang jie zhe (san) ben wo de shu . he want borrow this (three) Cl I DE book ‘He wants to borrow this (these three) book(s), which belong(s) to me.’
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Speakers have different views about whether the two nominals in (4) and (6), involving a possessive and a demonstrative, are in free variation or have difference in meaning. My intuition tells me that there is slight difference in meaning. I will discuss the interpretation and the syntactic structure of nominals in which the possessive and the demonstrative determiner co occur in section 6.3.
When the [Nume + Cl] sequence precedes a possessive, the matrix nominal has an indefinite interpretation and it is usually considered to have a partitive reading (Huang, 1982;
Tang, 1990). I repeat (5) here for illustration.
(5) ta na le san ben wo de shu . he take Perf three Cl I DE book ‘He took three of my books/three books of mine.’39
Following Alexiadou (2004, 2005) and Lyons (1999), I assume that the possessive does not inherently encode the definiteness feature and that definiteness in the possessive containing nominal is related to the structural position that the possessor phrase occupies. As I discussed above, the possessive in Mandarin behaves like an adjective and it can occur in different positions in the possessive containing nominal. I conclude that the possessive occupies the specifier position of different phrasal categories. So the definite and indefinite interpretations of the possessive nominal of wo-de san ben shu (literally ‘I DE three Cl book’, meaning either ‘my three books’ or ‘three books of mine’) can be represented as (26) and (27) respectively.
39 To me, there is no compelling reason to consider the object nominal in (5) to have a partitive reading.
144
(26)
‘my three books’
145
(27)
‘three of my books’
As the two trees (26) and (27) show, I assume that the possessive of the definite nominal is in the
[Spec DP], and that of the indefinite nominal is in the [Spec NumeP].
Besides the flexibility of its position in a nominal, the Mandarin possessive containing
nominal has another feature: multiple possessives can occur in one nominal. These multiple
possessives realize different theta roles. Besides the theta role of possessor proper, the possessive
in Mandarin can also realize the theta roles of agent and theme. When multiple possessives are in
one nominal, the order of the possessives realizing different theta roles is fixed. It conforms to
146 the possessivization hierarchy that Cinque (1980, cited in Dimitrova Vulchanova & Giusti, 1999:
170) proposes for Italian: the “possessor>agent>theme” hierarchy.
When only one possessive occurs in a nominal, the possessive can realize any of the afore mentioned three theta roles. Consider the following nominal.
(28) Lu Xun-de shu Lu Xun DE book ‘(a/the) book(s) written by Lu Xun’, ‘(a/the) book(s) owned by Lu Xun’ ‘(a/the) book(s) about Lu Xun’
Example (28) can mean ‘(the) book(s) owned by Lu Xun’, in which case the possessive realizes the theta role of possessor. When (28) means ‘(the) book(s) written by Lu Xun’, the possessive realizes the theta role of agent. If (28) means ‘(the) book(s) on Lu Xun’, then the theta role of theme is realized. Similarly, the English possessive can also express the three theta roles. For example, John’s picture can mean ‘the picture owned by John’ (possessor), or ‘the picture taken by John’ (agent) or ‘the picture of John’ (theme).
When two possessives are used in a nominal, the orders of the theta roles realized are possessor>agent, possessor>theme, agent>theme, which cannot be reversed. Consider the following possessive containing nominals.
(29) a. ta-de Zhao Yuanren-de shu (possessor>agent) he DE Zhao Yuanren DE book ‘a/the book(s) written by Zhao Yuanren and owned by him’
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b. ni-de Xianglinsao-de xiaoshuo (possessor>theme) you DE Xianglin aunt DE novel ‘the novel about Aunt Xianglin owned by you’ c. Luxun-de Xianglin-sao-de xiaoshuo (agent>theme) Luxun DE Xianglin aunt DE novel ‘the novel about Aunt Xianglin written by Luxun’
The interpretations of the nominals in (29) given above are the usual ones in normal context, since Zhao Yuanren (a Chinese linguist) and Xianglinsao (a character in a novel) are well known to educated Chinese people. Of course, the three nominals can have other interpretations. For example, (29a) can mean ‘a/the book about Zhao Yuanren written by him’, in which case the agent and the theme theta roles are realized. However the nominals are interpreted, the possessivization hierarchy is still observed.
When three possessives are used in one nominal, the only order that the three theta roles are realized is possessive>agent>theme as the following example shows.
(30)? Zhang San-de Luxun-de Xianglin-sao-de xiaoshuo40 Zhang San DE Luxun DE Xianglin aunt DE novel ‘the novel about Aunt Xianglin, written by Luxun, owned by Zhang San’
In this section, we discussed the nominal with the possessive in the initial position.
Next, we deal with the nominal with personal pronouns or proper names in the initial position. 40 This sentence seems not quite grammatical to some speakers, although it is understandable. They tend to use a relative clause instead of the possessive realizing the agent theta role or use a preposition phrase for the possessive realizing the theme theta role.
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6.2 Personal Pronouns and Proper Names
Personal pronouns and proper names are inherently definite. They can function independently as a nominal expression. They can also be part of a nominal expression, functioning as a kind of definite determiners in Mandarin. I analyze Mandarin nominal expressions with personal pronouns in the initial position in 6.2.1 and discuss nominal expressions containing proper names in 6.2.2.
6.2.1 Personal Pronouns as Determiners in Mandarin
Personal pronouns in Mandarin can be followed by a noun (31), a [Nume + Cl + N] sequence (32) or a [Dem + Nume + Cl + N] (33).
(31) ni-men laoshi hen hao .41 You Col teacher very nice ‘You teachers are very nice.’ (32) tai-men san ge ren qu dianyinyuan le. He Col three Cl person go cinema SFP ‘The three of them went to the cinema.’ (33) wo-men zhe san ge xuesheng zhoumo dai zai xuexiao . I Col this three Cl student weekend stay at school. ‘We three students / The three of us students will stay on campus at the weekend.’
41 The expression ‘ni-men lao shi ’ is ambiguous. It can mean both ‘you teachers’ and ‘your teacher(s)’. If it means ‘your teacher(s)’, the modification marker ‘ de ’ can be inserted after the pronoun ( ‘ni-men de lao shi ’, which is unambiguous.)
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What is the relationship between the personal pronouns and the following noun, the [Nume + Cl
+ N] sequence and [Dem + Nume + Cl + N] sequence in the above three examples? Are they just two nominals in apposition or do they form one nominal constituent with the personal pronouns functioning as determiners?
In English linguistics, some scholars (Postal, 1969; Abney 1987; Lyons, 1999) argue that personal pronouns are determiners. Postal claims that the so called personal pronouns are definite articles and that pronouns like I, she derive transformationally from the underlying forms
Ione , sheone . The hypothetical pronoun stem one surfaces in nominals like you great ones , we religious ones (Postal, 1969). Lyons (1999: 141) calls personal pronouns occurring within full noun phrases like we men , you professors ‘personal determiners’. Lyons observes the similarity between personal pronouns and pronouns of other types like this , that (demonstrative pronouns), one , some (indefinite pronouns), in that they all can occur prenominally as determiners and independently as pronouns. On the other hand, other scholars (Hawkins, 1974; Delorme &
Dougherty, 1972) consider the personal pronoun and the noun in nominal expressions like we men to be in an appositional relationship with each other. Jespersen (1954, cited in Postal, 1969) implies that nominals like we men are derived from appositive relative clauses; that is, we men is the reduced form of we, who are men. However, Postal argues that this is not the case, as nominals like we men can occur in contexts where nominals cannot have appositive relative clauses. For example, certain negative contexts exclude appositive relative clauses, but nominals like you men can occur in such contexts, as the following examples (taken from Postal, 1970: 70) show.
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(34) *They never insulted the men, who were Democrats. (35) They never agreed with us planners.
If Postal’s and Lyons’ analyses of nominal expressions like we men are on the right track, can personal pronouns in Mandarin function as determiners too? The Mandarin nominals like ni-men laoshi (‘you teachers’) cannot be considered as the reduced form of an appositive relative clause, as Mandarin relative clauses are all prenominal. Can the personal pronoun and its following element be in an appositional relationship?
Let’s discuss very briefly the linguistic phenomenon of ‘appositive’. An appositive is a word or group of words that means the same thing as the element that precedes it (Skwire &
Wiener, 2005: 630). So, when two nominals are in apposition, they should refer to the same entity or entities. Appositives can be either restrictive or nonrestrictive. A nonrestrictive appositive gives additional information to the preceding noun, but the additional information is not essential to identify the noun, while the information supplied by a restrictive appositive is necessary to identify the noun it follows (Skwire & Wiener, 2005: 630). In English, nonrestrictive appositives are separated from other elements in a sentence by commas in writing.
In speech, nonrestrictive appositives characteristically have the so called comma intonation.
Consider the following English sentences.
(36) The popular U.S. president John Kennedy was known for his eloquent speeches. (37) John Kennedy, the popular U.S. president , was known for his eloquent speeches.
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In (36), the appositive ‘John Kennedy’ is restrictive. Without the appositive, we do not know which popular U.S. president the speaker is talking about. The appositive ‘the popular U.S. president’ in (37), which is set off by commas, on the other hand, adds non essential descriptive information about John Kennedy, without which the meaning of the sentence is still complete.
The nonrestrictive appositive in Mandarin can be separated from other elements by commas in writing, while the restrictive one cannot. Consider the following Mandarin examples, which are similar to the subjects of (36) and (37) in structure.
(38) weida-de zuojia Luxun yi ta de duipian xiaoshuo wenming . great DE writer Luxun with he DE short novel well known ‘The great writer Luxun was well known for his short stories.’ (39) Luxun, yi ge weida-de zuojia, yi ta de duipian xiaoshuo wenming . Luxun, one Cl great DE writer with he DE short novel well known ‘Luxun, a great writer, was well known for his short stories.’
In (38) Luxun is a restrictive appositive, while yi ge weida-de zuojia (‘a great writer’) in (39) is a nonrestrictive appositive, separated by commas.
It seems, however, that the comma intonation typical of nonrestrictive appositive does not always apply in speech and a nonrestrictive appositive is usually not set off by commas in writing in Mandarin if the preceding element is a personal pronoun. However, the speaker can always use the comma intonation in producing the nonrestrictive appositive and separate it from other elements by commas if he wants to. Consider the following example.
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(40) wo yi ge qiong jiaoshi mei nengli mai fangzi . I a Cl poor teacher not ability buy house a. ‘I, a poor teacher, can’t afford to buy a house/ an apartment.’ b. ‘I am the only poor teacher who can’t afford to buy a house/an apartment.’ (implying other poor teachers can afford to buy a house/apartment.)
Example (40) is ambiguous. When it has (40a) as its meaning, yi ge qiong jiaoshi ‘a poor teacher’ is a nonrestrictive appositive. The speaker can have the comma intonation in saying (40) or have the appositive set off by commas if he wants to, but he does not have to. The appositive seems to explain why the speaker cannot afford to buy a house. If the meaning is (40b), the pronoun wo ‘I’ is usually stressed and there cannot have a pause after it in speech. The pronoun limits the reference of its following element. So, I would consider the pronoun wo ‘I’ as a determiner if the (40b) interpretation is the intended one. Similarly, in English, we and you are always stressed and with a full vowel when used as determiners and they can be stressed or unstressed when used as pronouns (Sommerstein, 1972; cited in Lyons, 1999: 27 28).
Let us examine the Mandarin nominals containing personal pronouns to see whether they have the typical features of appositives. Firstly, in some nominal expressions with a personal pronoun, the personal pronoun and its following element do not have the same referent.
For example:
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(41) wo zuotian pengdao ta liang kouzi .42 I yesterday meet he two person ‘Yesterday I met him and his wife.’
In (41), the personal pronoun ta ‘he’ is singular and the following element liang kouzi ‘two persons’/‘couple’ refers to two individuals.
Secondly, if the personal pronoun and its following element are in apposition, the appositive should be nonrestrictive, since the information that it adds to the sentence is not crucial to the identification of the referent of the personal pronoun. However, in speech, nominal expressions like ni-men laoshi (‘you teachers’) can never have the comma intonation which is possible though not obligatory for Mandarin nonrestrictive appositives and in writing no commas are inserted after the personal pronouns as the ungrammaticality of (42) illustrates.
(42) * ni-men, laoshi, dou hen fuzhe you Col teacher all very responsible
Another linguistic fact relevant to my argument here is that either of the two nominals in apposition can stand as subject or object of a sentence, since they designate the same entity. Take
(43) for example.
(43) My brother John is older than your brother David. 42 The sentence was provided by Zhongheng Jia in email correspondence. The plural marker men can be added to ta ‘he’ in the sentence.
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In (43), ‘my brother’ and ‘John’ are in apposition and ‘your brother’ and ‘David’ are in apposition too. So, instead of saying (43), one can say either ‘My brother is older than your brother’ or ‘John is older than David’.
This is not the case with Mandarin nominals like wo-men nanren ‘we men’ and ni-men nüren ‘you women’. One can say:
(44) wo-men nanren bi ni-men nüren liqi da. I Col man than you Col woman strength big ‘We men are stronger than you women’
But when we delete the personal pronouns wo-men ‘we’ and ni-men ‘you’ in (44), then the nominals nanren ‘man’ and nüren ‘woman’ in the resulting sentence (45) have a generic interpretation in normal circumstances:
(45) nanren bi nuren liqi da . man than woman strength big ‘Men are stronger than women.’
The different interpretations of the nominals in (44) and (45) show that the personal pronouns and the following nouns in (44) have different referents and so they are not in apposition. Their relationship is comparable to the one between ‘this’/’that’ and ‘book’ in the following English sentence (46).
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(46) This book is more interesting than that book.
So, I conclude that personal pronouns in nominals like wo-men nanren ‘we men’ are determiners.
In Mandarin, only plural personal pronouns can be used this way when the following element is a bare noun; singular personal pronouns cannot as example (47) shows.
(47) a. *ni xuesheng (literally ‘you (sg.) student’) b. * ta laoshi (literally ‘he student’) c. *wo laoshi (literally ‘I student’)
I cannot come up with an explanation of why this is so. Interestingly, only the plural first and second person plural pronouns in English can function as determiners ( we students , you teachers ).
The third person plural pronoun cannot be used this way in standard English ( *them scholars ) and the singular personal pronouns cannot function as determiners at all (* I student , * he student ).
When the personal pronoun is followed by the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence, the structure can be ambiguous as example (40) illustrates. Here is another example.
(48) ta yi ge xiao haizi bu hui zuo zhe jian shi . he one Cl small child not able do this Cl thing a. ‘He, a small child, is unable to do this thing.’ b. ‘He is the only small child who is unable to do this thing.’
If the intended meaning is (48a), then there can be a pause after the pronoun ta ‘he’ in speech. In that case, the pronoun and the following [Nume + Cl + N] sequence are in apposition. When
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(48b) is the intended meaning, there cannot be a pause after the pronoun ta ‘he’ and the pronoun functions as a determiner and is usually stressed. When followed by the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence, both the plural and singular personal pronouns can function as determiners.
In certain contexts, the personal pronoun in Mandarin functions like a demonstrative determiner. Suppose that a teacher is assigning students to clean the classroom and saying the following sentence (49).
(49) ni-men liang ge tongxue tuo diban, ni-men liang tongxue you Col two Cl student mop floor you Col two student ca chuanghu . clean window ‘You two students mop the floor and you two students clean the windows.’
When saying (49), the teacher usually points to the students. The personal pronouns used in (49) are like the demonstratives in the following English sentence.
(50) These two books are mine and those two books are yours. (the speaker pointing to the books when saying the sentence)
Where are pronouns base generated in Mandarin? Cheng & Sybesma (1999: 509) claim that pronouns in Mandarin are base generated in N and then it moved to Cl, as, in their view,
Mandarin definite nominal expressions are ClPs, not DPs. In support of their argument, they
157 cite the fact that pronouns, like proper names, can be preceded by numerals and classifiers in
Mandarin. Let’s consider their example.
(51) Cong nei-ge jing-zi, wo keyi kandao wu-ge wo . from that Cl mirror I can see five Cl I ‘From that mirror, I can see five copies of myself (five I’s/me’s).’
Apparently, it is true that the [Nume + Cl] sequence precedes the pronoun wo ‘I’. In their
English translation, they put ‘five I’s/me’s’ into parentheses. Ontologically speaking, ‘I’ can refer to only one person, i.e., the speaker. Actually, the pronoun wo ‘I’ means ‘image of me in the mirror’ in (51). So, the meaning of wo ‘I’ in (51) is different from the meaning of wo ‘I’ in (52), which cannot be preceded by the [Nume + Cl] sequence. Chao (1968: 628) notices that the non pronominal nature of such use of pronouns as in (51) and regarded wo ‘I’ as quasi quoted.
(52) wo shi xuesheng . I be student ‘I’m a student.’
Based on the usage of Mandarin pronouns and following other scholars (Postal, 1967;
Abney, 1987; Lyons, 1999), I assume pronouns are definite determiners and pronouns are generated in D in Mandarin. Also following Abney (1987), I assume that pronouns do not take a nominal complement when they are used independently. So, nominal expressions like ta-men wu-ge xuesheng (literally ‘he Col five Cl student’) have the following structure (53).
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(53)
‘the five students of them’
As to the structure of the nominal in which the personal pronoun is followed by the [Dem
+ (Num) + Cl + N] sequence, I discuss it in section 6.3, where nominal expressions involving demonstrative determiners are treated.
I analyze nominals involving proper names in the next subsection.
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6.2.2 Mandarin Nominals Containing Proper Names
This subsection is concerned with the use of proper names in a full nominal expression in Mandarin. First, I present some examples to illustrate their collocation with other elements in the nominal. Then I analyze their syntactic structures. The nominal in which proper names and demonstrative determiners co occur will be discussed in section 6.3.
Proper names can collocate with several elements in a Mandarin nominal. They can be followed by the third person pronouns
(54) Zhang San ta bu qu . Zhang San he not go ‘Zhang San will not go.’ (55) Zhang San ta-men bu qu . Zhang San he Col not go ‘Zhang San and the others will not go.’ or by the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence
(56) a. Zhang San yi-ge xuesheng hui jiao ni shenme ? Zhang San one Cl student can teach you what ‘As/being a student, what can Zhang San teach you?’ b. quan ban zhiyou Zhang San yi-ge xuesheng jige . whole class only Zhang San one Cl student pass ‘Zhang San is the only student in the class that passed the test.’/ ‘Only Zhang San passed the test in the class.’
160 or by the [Pron + Nume + Cl + N]
(57) Zhang San ta-men san-ge xuesheng bu qu. Zhang San he Col three Cl student not go ‘Zhang San and the two other students will not go.’ or by the [Dem + (Nume) + Cl + N]. (58) Zhang San zhe-ge ren hen hao. Zhang San this Cl person very good. ‘Zhang San is a very nice person.’ (59) Zai xiao-menkou wo pengdao Zhang San zhe san-ge xuesheng .43 at school gate I meet Zhang San this three Cl student ‘I met Zhang San and the other two students at the gate of the school.’
In addition, proper names can also be preceded by the [Dem + Cl] sequence.
(60) Zhe-ge Zhang San zhen bu jiangdaoli. This Cl Zhang San really not reasonable. ‘This Zhang San is really unreasonable.’
From the above examples, we can see that proper names, which are definite, can co occur with other elements, which are either indefinite (56) or definite (54), (55), (57), (58), (59), and (60).
43 I myself will not use such nominals as Zhang San zhe san-ge xuesheng (literally ‘Zhang San this three Cl student’). Such nominals came to my attention when I heard a person using it in a TV program. Lichao He (p.c.), who is from Beijing, confirmed that such nominals are grammatical to her.
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What is the relationship between the proper name and its following element? Are they in apposition with each other?
It was mentioned in 6.2.1 that two nominals in an appositional relationship refer to the same entity or entities and that there is a comma intonation if the apposition is nonrestrictive. As the proper name itself is definite, the appositive must be nonrestrictive if they are in apposition. Let’s apply these criteria to the nominal expressions in the above examples to see if the proper name and its following elements are in apposition.
Zhang San and the third person singular pronoun ta ‘he’ in (54) refer to the same person named Zhang San . In addition, there can be a pause between them in speech. So, it can be concluded that they are in apposition. In the linguistic literature, pronouns like ta ‘he’ in (54) are called resumptive pronouns. The structure of the subject in (54) is a DP, which itself is composed of two DPs. It can be represented as follows (61).
(61)
When Zhang San is followed by the third person plural pronoun ta-men ‘they’ as in (55),
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Zhang San and the plural pronoun cannot have the same referent(s) 44 . In speech there is no pause between them. That means they cannot be in apposition. In 6.2.1, I argue that pronouns in
Mandarin are in D, as they can be followed by the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence. So the proper name can only be in the specifier position of the DP. The structure of the nominal Zhang San ta-men (literally, ‘Zhang San they’) in (55) can be represented as (62).
(62)
‘Zhang San and the others’
In (56), Zhang San yi-ge xuesheng (literally ‘Zhang San one Cl student’), just like ta yi-ge xuesheng (literally ‘he one Cl student’) discussed in 2.6.1, is ambiguous. In (56a), there can be a pause between Zhang San and yi-ge xuesheng , although the speaker does not necessarily have to use the comma intonation in speech. They are two nominals in apposition. The non restrictive appositive yi-ge xuesheng can be considered to function adverbially. I translate the appositive into ‘being/as a student’. (56a) has the implication that ‘Zhang San, being/as a student, can teach you nothing.’ On the other hand, Zhang San yi-ge xuesheng in (56b) cannot have a pause after the proper name Zhang San and Zhang San specifies the referent of yi-ge
44 Yuanren Chao (1968) considers the third person plural pronoun ta-men used after proper names as a plural suffix.
163 xuesheng ‘a student’. I assume that Zhang San functions like a determiner and is base generated in D and takes yi-ge xuesheng ‘a student’ as its complement. So the structure of the nominals in
(56a) and (56b) can be represented respectively as (63) and (64). (63)
‘Zhang San, a student’ (64)
‘the one student Zhang San’
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The subject of (57) Zhang San ta-men san-ge xuesheng (‘Zhang San he Col three Cl student’) seems to be a combination of Zhang San ta-men and ta-men san-ge xuesheng . Since there cannot be a pause after Zhang San or after ta-men ‘they’, it can be concluded that they cannot be in an appositional relationship. So, the third person plural pronoun ta-men is in D and takes a numeral phrase san-ge xuesheng ‘three students’ as its complement. The proper name is in the specifier of DP. The structure of the subject nominal in (57) can be represented as (65).
(65)
‘Zhang San and the two other students’
In summary, when proper names, personal pronouns or/and the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence co occur, they can be either in an appositional relationship or in a head complement or specifier head relationship. If they are in apposition, there can always be a comma intonation in
165 speech. It is claimed that personal pronouns are in D and proper names are either in D or the specifier position of DP.
In the next section, nominals containing demonstrative determiners are analyzed.
6.3 Demonstrative Determiners
This section deals with demonstrative determiners in Mandarin. I first discuss the uses of demonstratives in general. Then I present examples of nominals containing demonstrative determiners and analyze the structures of these nominals.
6.3.1 Uses of Demonstratives
Demonstratives can have pronominal, adjectival and adverbial uses. Consider the following English examples.
(66) a. This is your textbook. b. This textbook is yours. c. The textbook is this thick.
In (66a), the demonstrative this is a pronoun. In (66b) this is called a demonstrative adjective in traditional grammar. We use ‘demonstrative determiner’ to designate demonstratives in such use as in (66b). In (66c) this functions as an adverb.
We are concerned only with the adjectival uses of demonstratives here. Demonstrative containing nominals are similar to nominals with the definite article, proper names and personal
166 pronouns; they are all definite. In addition to being definite, demonstratives are deictic: specifying the spacio temporal location of a referent from the perspective of the speaker or the hearer in a speech situation or referring to an entity in prior or subsequent discourse.
Every language has at least two demonstratives locating referents at two different points on a distance scale; they are the proximal and distal demonstratives (Diessel, 1999). The proximal demonstrative refers to an entity close to the deictic center, which usually is the speaker, while the distal demonstrative directs the hearer’s attention to a referent distant from the deictic center. In English, the proximal demonstrative is this and the distal one is that . The proximal demonstrative in Mandarin is zhe and the distal one is na .45
The uses of demonstratives fall into four types: situational, anaphoric, discourse deictic and recognitional (Himmelmann, 1996; Diessel, 1999; Chen, 2004).
The situational use of demonstratives directs the hearer’s attention to entities in the situational context. They are often accompanied by some gesture. When saying (67), the speaker probably was pointing at the book.
(67) ba na-ben shu gai wo . prep that Cl book give me ‘Give me that book.’ 45 Some scholars (Huang, 1999; Lü, 1980) also consider zhe-ge ‘this Cl’ and na-ge ‘that Cl’ as the proximal and dismal demonstrative respectively.
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In the anaphoric use, the nominal with the demonstrative refers back to another nominal in the previous discourse. The two nominals are co referential; they refer to the same entities.
(68) gangcai you yi-ge xuesheng lei zhao ni, zhe-ge xuesheng just now have one Cl student come look for you this Cl student kanshangqu san-shi shui zuoyou . look three ten year about ‘A student was looking for you just now. He looks about thirty years old.’
In (68) yi-ge ren ‘a student’ and zhe-ge xuesheng are co referential.
In the discourse deictic use, the demonstrative refers to a proposition; it is not co referential with any previous nominal. Consider the following example.
(69) A: John got a perfect score on the test. B: That ’s not true.
The demonstrative that in (69) does not refer back to any previous nominal; it refers to the propositional content of the sentence that A said.
Demonstratives in recognitional use activate shared knowledge and do not have a referent in the previous discourse. They can introduce a new referent into the discourse. Consider the following example taken from Himmelmann (1996: 230).
(70) It was filmed in California, those dusty kind of hills that they have out here by Stockton and all.
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In (70), ‘dusty hills…’ was introduced into the discourse for the first time, but the demonstrative those shows that the hearer is familiar with the ‘dusty hills’. Demonstratives in recognitional use often imply emotional closeness, sympathy and shared beliefs (Diessel, 1999).
Next, I analyze nominals in which demonstrative determiners co occur with other elements prenominally in Mandarin.
6.3.2 Demonstrative-Containing Nominals
This subsection analyzes the uses of the demonstrative determiner in Mandarin. The demonstrative is said to be inherently definite (Lyons, 1999), but its uses in different languages vary. For example, the demonstrative determiner cannot co occur with other definite determiners like the definite article or the possessive pronoun in English, whereas in Spanish the demonstrative can co occur with the definite article and in Bosnian the demonstrative can co occur with possessive pronouns (Brugè, 2002) as witnessed in the following examples.
(71) a. *The this book is very useful. b. el libro este (Spanish, Brugè, 2002:15) the book this ‘this book’ c. knjiga ova tvoja o sintaksi (Bosnian, Brugè, 2002: 35) book this your of syntax ‘this book on syntax of yours’
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Demonstratives in Mandarin can occur together with personal pronouns, proper names, possessive pronouns prenominally. In the following I give some examples to illustrate the distributions of demonstratives in a nominal.
Demonstratives can occupy the initial position of a nominal and be followed by a noun, the [(Nume) + Cl + N] sequence.
(72) Zhe/na liang ben shu shi wo-de . This/that two Cl book be I DE ‘These/those two books are mine.’ (73) a. Zhe/na yi ben shu hen youyong . This/that one Cl book very useful b. Zhe/na ben shu hen youyong . This/that Cl book very useful c. Zhe/na shu hen youyong . This/that book very useful ‘This/that book is very useful.’ (74) Zhe/na (ge) Zhang San zhen yonggong . This/that (Cl) Zhang San really diligent ‘This /that Zhang San is really diligent.’ (75) Wo faxian zhe nüren quan si sixinyan .46 I find this woman all be stubborn ‘I have found out that women are all stubborn.’
46 This example is taken from Liu (2002), who cited Fang (2002).
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The demonstrative in (72) and (73a) is followed by the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence. When the numeral is yi ‘one’, it can be deleted (73b). When the numeral yi ‘one’ is omitted, the classifier can also be omitted (73c). The demonstratives in (72) and (73) have their usual deictic meaning; the proximal demonstrative refers to books close to the speaker, while the distal demonstrative refers to books at a distance from the speaker. The full nominals in (72) and (73) can have either an anaphoric reference, meaning that they may refer to some entity or entities mentioned in the previous discourse, or an exophoric reference – they then refer to some entity or entities in a situational context.
The demonstratives in (74), followed by the [(Cl) + proper name] sequence, do not have much deictic meaning 47 . There is no difference in meaning whether the proximal or distal demonstrative is used before a proper name. The demonstratives in (74) convey some emotional meaning. Lakoff (1974) and Lyons (1999) observe the similar use of demonstrative determiners in English. Lakoff (1974) calls such use “emotional deixis”. Lyons (1999: 122) notes that nominals such as ‘this/my Peter’ can pick out Peter from others of the same name and that in such case the proper name is no longer unique and it is recategorized as a common noun. Lyons also writes that the use of determiners in ‘this/my Peter’ can be non restrictive and have affective value. The following English example is from Lakoff (1974).
(76) That Henry Kissinger sure knows his way around in Hollywood . 47 In rare cases, when several people have the same name, then the demonstrative determiner used before the proper name has deictic meaning to pick out one person among those of the same name.
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Diessel (1999:106) calls such use of ‘that’ in (63) ‘recognitional use’, which often implies that the interlocutors share similar view or sympathize with one another. The speaker of (76) share some view with the hearer about Henry Kissinger.
The use of the proximal demonstrative zhe ‘this’ in (75) has recently been observed by scholars (Fang, 2002; Liu, 2002). The nominal has a generic reference and no classifier can be inserted after the proximal demonstrative. According to Fang (2002), the distal demonstrative does not have such use. Fang (2002) and Liu (2002) consider ‘ zhe ’ as the definite article that has developed from the proximal demonstrative whose deictic meaning has been bleached out.
From the uses of the demonstratives in (72), (73), (74) and (75), it seems natural to conclude that the demonstrative in Mandarin occupies D, as they occur at the initial position of the nominals. This is the view that Li (1998) and Tang (1990) assume. Before proposing my own view, I present other examples in which the demonstratives are preceded by possessive pronouns or personal pronouns and demonstratives do not necessarily occur in the initial position.
(77) a. Wo-de zhe liang ben shu hen youyong . I DE this two Cl book very useful ‘These two books of mine are very useful.’ b. Zhe liang ben wo-de shu hen youyong . This two Cl I DE book very useful ‘These two books, which are mine, are very useful.’ (78) a. Ta / Zhang San zhe/na ge xuesheng hen yonggong . He/Zhang San this/that Cl student very diligent ‘He/ this student Zhang San is very diligent.’
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b. Ni-men zhe/*na xie xuesheng hen yonggong . You Col this/that Quan student very diligent ‘You students are very diligent.’ c. Zhang San ta-men zhe/na xie xuesheng hen yonggong . Zhang San he Col this/that Quan student very diligent ‘Zhang San and the other students are very diligent.’
In (77a), the possessive precedes the demonstrative in the nominal, while in (77b) it follows the [Dem + Nume + Cl] combination. To some native speakers, the two nominals have the same meaning and the nominal in (77a) sounds more idiomatic. Zhongheng Jia (p.c.) thinks that there is a slight difference in meaning. When the possessive precedes the demonstrative as in
(77a), the nominal has a contrastive implication. So the nominal (77a) means ‘these two books of mine’ in contrast with ‘books of yours/hers/his’ or ‘these/those two books of yours/hers/his’.
When the possessive follows the [Dem + Nume + Cl] combination, the nominal does not have such a contrastive implication. In addition, the possessive seems to be non restrictive and the definiteness of the nominal is indicated by the demonstrative. I translate the possessive in the subject of (77b) into a non restrictive relative clause.
In (78a, b, c), a proper name or personal pronoun precedes the demonstrative. The demonstrative in such cases does not have much deictic meaning, or its deictic meaning is weakened. The demonstrative expresses some emotional meaning. Zhe xie ‘this+Quan’ can be deleted in (78b) without changing the lexical meaning of the nominal. Ni-men zhe xie xuesheng
‘you Col this Quan students’ and ni-men xuesheng ‘you students’ have the same referents. The
173 only difference is that there is some emotional effect when the demonstrative is used. While the deictic meaning of the demonstrative is weakened when preceded by a proper name or a personal pronoun, it seems that the deictic meaning still obtains. Only the proximal demonstrative is used when the preceding pronoun is the first or second person pronoun, whereas both the proximal and distal demonstratives can be used if a proper name precedes the demonstrative or the preceding pronoun is the third person pronoun as shown in (78a, b, c) and the following example
(79).
(79) wo zhe/*na ge ren bu hen yonggong . I this/*that Cl person not very diligent ‘I’m not a very diligent person.’
Is the subject in (78a, b, c) one nominal with the personal pronoun or the proper name base generated in D or is the subject composed of two nominals in apposition? I will assume that the subject is only one nominal for the following reasons. First, there is no comma intonation in speech. If the subject in (78) consists of two nominals in apposition, then the apposition must be non restrictive, in which case the comma intonation is typical. Second, the demonstrative does not have much deictic meaning and in some cases like (78b), the omission of the demonstrative does not give rise to change in lexical meaning. The demonstrative in (78) usually does not carry stress and does not have any contrastive implication. Third, to some people, the following example (80) is grammatical, in which the pronoun and the following element do not have the same referent. Two nominals in apposition should refer to the same entity or entities.
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(80) Zhang San zhe san ge xuesheng 48 Zhang san this three Cl student ‘The three students (including Zhangsan)
To sum up, demonstratives in Mandarin can have three different meanings.
(a) expressing spacio temporal deictic meaning,
(b) expressing emotional deictic meaning,
(c) the proximal demonstrative zhe ‘this’ used as a definite article.
The following table summarizes the functions of demonstratives and their collocations in
Mandarin.
Position/collocation Examples
(a) Full deictic Preceded by the possessive; zhe/na shu ‘this/that book’; meaning Followed by a common noun or [(Num)+Cl+(Poss)+N], wo zhe/na (yi) ben shu ‘I this/ that (one) Cl book’ ‘this book of mine’
(b) weakened deictic Followed by (Cl)+ proper zhe/na (ge) Zhang San ‘this/that meaning (emotional name; preceded by proper Zhang San’, wo/ta/Zhang San zhe ge meaning) names or personal pronouns ren ‘I/he/Zhang San this Cl person’
(c) zhe ‘this’ as a Followed by a common noun zhe nüren/yan ‘women/cigarettes’ definite article, no (generic reference) deictic meaning
Table 6.1: Meanings and Functions of Demonstratives in Mandarin
48 To some people, the third person plural pronoun ta-men ‘they’ is omitted after the proper name Zhang San .
175
Following Brugè (2002), who argues that demonstratives are base generated in the specifier position of FP (functional projection) at a lower level within DP and move to [Spec DP] either overtly or covertly at LF to check its referential feature, I assume that demonstratives in
Mandarin can also be base generated at a lower level within DP when they have deictic meaning.
However, I assume that demonstratives are base generated in the head position of DemP, just as
Nguyen (2004) proposes for the Vietnamese demonstrative, because possessives and adjective phrases can precede the demonstrative in Mandarin as the following example (81) indicates.
(81) Ta na-zou le wo-de hen hou-de zhe/na liang ben shu . He take walk Perf I DE very thick DE this/that two Cl book ‘He took these/those two very thick books of mine.’
The demonstrative zhe ‘this’ followed directly by a common noun without any other element like classifiers in between, which has a generic reference and is called ‘definite article’ in Fang (2004) and Liu (2004), is assumed to be base generated in D. I repeat here example (75) for convenience.
(75) Wo faxian zhe nüren quan shi sixinyan . I find this woman all be stubborn ‘I have found out that women are all stubborn.’
The syntactic structures of the demonstrative containing nominals (75) and (81) are represented as (82) and (83) respectively.
176
(82)
‘women’ (generic reference)
(83)
‘these/those two thick books of mine’
In Section 6.1, I argued that the possessive in Mandarin does not necessarily impose a definite interpretation on the nominal. As the demonstrative, not the possessive, in the nominal
177
(81) give rise to the definiteness of the phrase, I assume the demonstrative base generated in the head position of DemP moves to D to check its referential feature as Brugè (2002) proposes for
Spanish demonstratives.
When the demonstrative follows the proper name or personal pronoun, it mainly expresses emotional meaning or ‘emotional deixis’. I assume the proper name and the personal pronoun are in D and the demonstrative stays in its base position. If both the proper name and the personal pronoun occur in one nominal, followed by the demonstrative, as in (78c), the proper name is in [Spec DP] and the pronoun in D. The structure of the nominal in (78c) can be represented as (84).
(84)
‘Zhang San and the other students’
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As for the demonstrative preceding a proper name or the [Cl + proper name] sequence, it does not contribute to the definiteness of the nominal. The demonstrative does not have its usual deictic meaning and only expresses some emotional meaning. So the demonstrative just stays in the head position of DemP and the proper name in that of NP. The nominal zhe/na ge Zhang
San ‘this /that Cl Zhang San’ in (74) has the following syntactic structure (85).
(85)
‘this/that Zhang San’
In summary, I argued in this chapter that personal pronouns are determiners in Mandarin and are base generated in D. Proper names can be in different positions; they are in [Spec DP] when followed by a personal pronoun and the proper name and the pronoun are not in apposition, in D when followed by the [Dem + (Nume/Quan) + Cl + N] or the [Nume + Cl + N] sequence, and they are in N when preceded by the [Dem + (Cl)]. As to the demonstrative, it can have different functions in Mandarin. If the demonstrative zhe ‘this’ functions as a definite article in a generic nominal expression, it is base generated in D. When the demonstrative has its usual
179 deictic meaning (i.e. time temporal deictic and discourse deictic meaning), it is base generated in the head position of DemP and moves to D to check its referential feature. When the demonstrative expresses the emotional deictic meaning, it stays in its base position.
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CHAPTER: SEVEN
CONCLUSION
This dissertation investigated the uses of classifiers in Chinese and compared specifically
Mandarin with the Wu dialect in terms of classifier usage. It also analyzed the complex nominal in Mandarin with prenominal possessives, personal pronouns, proper names and demonstrative determiners. This chapter summarizes the findings of this dissertation.
It was assumed in this dissertation that the classifier in Chinese only encodes the syntactic feature of countability. I argued against Cheng & Sybesma’s (2005) view that the classifier encodes the features of definiteness and number. The use of classifiers in Chinese is different from that of articles in some Western languages. I argued that ClP in Chinese is not equivalent to DP in French or other Western languages in terms of definiteness, number and noun classification as Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) imply or argue.
In Western languages, the structural position of articles is high in a nominal expression and in most cases articles are in the initial position, whereas in Chinese, classifiers are lower in position in the nominal and many elements can precede them. In Mandarin, the surface form [Cl
+ N] can never have a definite interpretation. I argued in this dissertation that the [Cl + N] expression in Mandarin is a numeral phrase with the numeral yi ‘one’ deleted. Contrary to Cheng
& Sybesma’s (1999, 2005) view that the indefinite [Cl + N] expression in Chinese can only have
181 a nonspecific interpretation, I provided substantial evidence to show that the [ yi ‘one’ + Cl + N] nominal and the indefinite [Cl + N] nominal both can have specific and nonspecific interpretations. The two different interpretations are related to the verb tense; the past tense tends to induce a specific interpretation. The fact that the [yi ‘one’ + Cl + N] expression can be used and the [Cl + N] nominal cannot in certain contexts was argued to be due to prosodic reasons.
The definite [Cl + N] expression in Wu was assumed to be a DP in this dissertation, not a
ClP as Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) argue. The structural position of classifiers is too low in the nominal for them to turn an NP into an argument. Classifiers are assumed to be base generated in Cl and they move to D when the [Cl + N] expression is definite in Wu.
In terms of the number feature, I argued against the view that Cl is the locus of grammatical number as Cheng & Sybesma (1999, 2005) suggest. Although xie is assumed to be a plural marker or a plural classifier in the literature, I refuted these two views with linguistic facts of the usage of xie in this dissertation. First, xie , like ‘some’ in English, can be used with both count nouns and mass nouns in Mandarin. If xie is really a plural marker as some scholars suggest, it cannot be used with mass nouns. So, xie cannot be a plural marker. Second, in the
Mandarin nominal, some individual classifiers can be inserted after xie and a nominal can only have one classifier, so it cannot be a plural classifier. As to why the individual classifier is optional after xie , I suggested that xie does not do exact counting and the individuality of referents is deemphasized when the classifier is not used. If Cl really encodes the number feature, we cannot explain why the so called plural classifier xie cannot be used with numerals other than yi ‘one’ and why the same individual classifier is used no matter whether the referent(s)
182 of the nominal is/are one or more than one. I concluded that xie is a quantifier which can be used with both count nouns and mass nouns in Mandarin.
To draw parallels between the classifier in Chinese and the article in French, Cheng &
Sybesma (2005) suggest that both the classifier and the article function as devices of noun classification. I just mention here briefly that they are different. Classifiers in Chinese classify nouns into different categories, based on the meaning of their referents. However, the encoding of the gender feature in articles in French has nothing to do with the meaning of the referents denoted by nouns. The classification function of the classifier is meaning based while the encoding of the gender feature in articles is a grammatical requirement.
I provided evidence to show that possessives in Mandarin are like adjectives. Unlike their counterparts in English, possessive containing nominals in Mandarin are not necessarily definite.
A [Poss + (Nume + Cl)+ N] expression can have either a definite or an indefinite interpretation, just like bare nouns in Mandarin. The possessive is assumed to be in [Spec DP] when it occurs in the initial position of the definite matrix nominal. When the matrix nominal is indefinite, the possessive is assumed to be in [Spec NumeP].
I also argued in this dissertation that personal pronouns in Mandarin are determiners and base generated in D. The [Pron + Nume + Cl + N] sequence can be one nominal, in which case the pronoun is stressed and there is no break in speech between the pronoun and the following element, or two nominals, in which case the pronoun functions independently as a nominal and it is in apposition with the following [Nume + CL + N] nominal. There can always have the comma intonation in speech when they are in apposition.
183
Proper names are argued to be in different syntactic positions. They can occur in different positions in a nominal. They are in the specifier position of DP when followed by pronouns.
Proper names are in the position of N when they are preceded by the demonstrative with affective value.
Demonstratives have three functions in Chinese: (1) expressing spacio temporal deictic meaning; (2) expressing emotional deictic meaning; (3) the proximal demonstrative zhe ‘this’ used as a definite article. The demonstrative is argued to project its own phrasal category DemP when it has deictic meaning. When the demonstrative has its usual spacio temporal meaning in a nominal, then it moves to D to check its referential meaning. If the demonstrative expresses emotional deictic meaning, it stays in its base position Dem. When the proximal demonstrative zhe ‘this’ expresses generic meaning, it is assumed to be base generated in D.
184
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