Chinese Word Order: A Look Into SVO and SOV Arguments

The Linguistic Review, 2010

Assuming with Ting (2003) that the derivation of the particle suo in (Mandarin) Chinese targets V/I/T categories on a par with Romance pronominal clitics, I investigate the comparable climbing phenomenon of suo in Chinese. An important generalization that emerges from this comparison is that in contrast to the monoclausal properties in Romance clitic climbing, the climbing of suo exhibits properties of a biclausal configuration. I conclude that clitic climbing crosslinguistically is not necessarily associated with restructuring effects and argue that the facts of climbing of suo is best captured by a head movement approach to clitic placement first advocated by Kayne (1989b, 1991). 10. I assume with Teng (1978) that verbs like kaishi, which do not assign a theta-role to the grammatical subject, are raising verbs in Chinese.

The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Volume 11, 2015

Our goal in this paper is to analyze the even-construction in Mandarin Chinese and Italian and the preposed object in the low periphery of Mandarin Chinese. In the first part of the paper, we shall see that the even-construction can play two roles: focus and topic. Although in both cases their semantics stay fundamentally the same, their syntax is crucially different. We shall see that when an even-phrase occurs in sentence-initial position, it is a topic construction; while when it occurs sentence-internally, it is a focus construction. In the second part of the paper, we study the nature of the preposed object in the low periphery of Mandarin. Contrary to the traditional analysis that considers it as a focus item (Ernst and Wang 1995; Shyu 1995, 2001, Zhang 1996, among others), we argue that the preposed object is a Contrastive Topic (i.e., a syntactic topic that gets contrastive stress). We also discuss the fact that the even-construction and the preposed object within the low periphery differ from the elements in the high periphery because they are dislocated via A-movement. Our investigation points to notions of the rules of topic and focus that are more fine-grained than what was traditionally thought. Specifically, we maintain that while the domain of topic has specific syntactic features, its semantics doesn't always have to pertain to old information. We shall also identify interesting differences between the projections in the high periphery versus those in the low periphery. 1 [ 34 ] Cartography of Chinese Syntax [ 36 ] Cartography of Chinese Syntax (8) ??Lian Xiaoyu j , Zhangsan i a, t i dou piping le t j. even Xiaoyu Zhangsan top all criticize fp 'Even Xiaoyu, as for Zhangsan, he didn't criticize.' (9) Hua, lian meiguihua j , t j dou hen pianyi. Flowers even roses all very cheap 'As for flowers, even roses are cheap.' (10) *Lian meiguihua j , hua, t j dou hen pianyi. Even roses flowers all very cheap (11) Gei Xiaoyu, lian na ben hen gui de shu i , To Xiaoyu even that cl very expensive de book, Lisi dou mai le t i. Lisi all buy fp 'For Xiaoyu, even that expensive book, Lisi bought.' (12) *Lian na ben hen gui de shu i , gei Xiaoyu, Lisi even that cl very expensive de book to Xiaoyu Lisi dou mai le t i. all buy fp (13) Zhangsan i , wo gei [na ge shazi] i ji le Zhangsan I to that cl imbecile send asp yi feng xin! one cl letter 'Zhangsan, I sent a letter to that imbecile!' (14) *Wo gei [na ge shazi] i Zhangsan i , ji le yi I to that cl imbecile Zhangsan send asp one feng xin! cl letter When different kinds of topics co-occur, their relative order is fixed. The highest position is occupied by the Aboutness Topic, followed by the Hanging Topic and the Left Dislocaton is in the lowest part in the 'Topic Field' 2 (Badan and Del Gobbo 2010). The lian-XP in sentence initial position occupies always the lowest position of the whole CP, that is it has to be always to the right of all the topics. 2.2. Perfino: Grammatical Outline As lian, perfino can introduce various types of phrases: DP, PP, VP, CP, and time adverbs (see section 2.3). However, it should be noticed that perfino is more frequently found as a DP modifier, differently from the other Focus OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF-FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Mar 23 2015, NEWGEN 9780190241694_Tsai_The Cartography of Chinese Syntax.indb 36 3/23/2015 2:00:31 PM (20) a. *Zhangsan zhe ben shu dou lian kanwan le. Zhangsan this cl book all even read fp b. *Zhangsan lian kanwan zhe ben shu. Zhangsan even read this cl book c. *Zhangsan dou kanwan zhe ben shu. Zhangsan all read this cl book Lian and perfino can introduce various types of phrases, which are considered to be the different domains of the particles DP (as in (21)), PP (22), VP (23), and adverbs (24):

TILTM 2022 Topical Issues of Linguistics and Teaching Methods in Business and Professional Communication, 2022

The typology of the Chinese language is a systemic phenomenon (not an "exoticism") due to its external and internal determinants, which have influence at all levels: topic-comment syntax, "banal metaphor", a lack of agreement in syntax, an absence of "usual" words and sentences, as well as different values of language levels, and so forth. In modern practical textbooks of the Chinese language (isolating, topicprominent): a) theory and typology are not sufficiently covered, b) grammar is explained as similar to the grammar of "European" (inflectional, subject-prominent) languages.The goal of this paper is the typological justifying of the minimal necessary set of linguistic features which could form the basis for Chinese language textbooks, using the methods of systemology, topic-subject analysis, and the contrastive comparison of typologically different languages. As a result, brief descriptions of Chinese syntax and syllable structure, in addition to parts of the speech morphology and the "value" of language levels (which include "strong" and "weak" ones, and their properties and order in Chinese are directly opposite to such properties and order in European languages) are presented.

2011

This paper challenges a widely held assumption that the existence of constructions in Archaic Chinese in which an object appeared in preverbal position provides evidence that Pre-Archaic Chinese had OV basic word order. I argue that the preverbal objects in questions – wh-phrases and focused NPs – could not have been base-generated in their surface positions but rather must be analyzed as having undergone syntactic movement. I further show that the trigger for this movement was focus.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011

Recent work in comparative linguistics suggests that all, or almost all, attested human languages may derive from a single earlier language. If that is so, then this language-like nearly all extant languages-most likely had a basic ordering of the subject (S), verb (V), and object (O) in a declarative sentence of the type "the man (S) killed (V) the bear (O)." When one compares the distribution of the existing structural types with the putative phylogenetic tree of human languages, four conclusions may be drawn. (i) The word order in the ancestral language was SOV.