Syntactic dependencies in Chinese and their theoretical implications
Date
2018-06-27
Authors
Xue, Ping
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Abstract
This dissertation discusses antecedent-gap dependencies, specifically topicalization phenomena in various constructions in Chinese. The discussion reveals the relevance of certain general notions essential to the analysis of antecedent-gap dependencies, such as extraction position and extraction domain, which are stated here with reference to both Government Binding (GB) theory and Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG).
The discussion shows that, in the light of these general notions, the distributional facts of empty categories and thus antecedent-gap dependencies in Chinese, which have long been considered problematic for the theories of generative grammar, can be analyzed in the general framework of GPSG. The analysis indicates that proper representation of the relevant phrase structures provides the possibility of accounting in a perspicuous way for a number of central cases by invoking fundamental grammatical principles. For instance, the difference between extraction from relative clauses and from NP complement clauses can be subsumed under the Proper Inclusion Principle, and extraction asymmetries of complex NPs based seemingly on their syntactic location are in fact attributable to the relation of a complex NP to the head of the construction in question.
The result of the analysis suggests that an empty position must be closely connected with the head of the construction containing it, although the notion of head apparently should not be restricted to that of lexical head cross-linguistically. In contrast, languages may vary more freely in terms of the structural domains from which extraction takes place, and thus island constraints should be considered a less unitary phenomenon than has been traditionally assumed.
The organization of this dissertation is as follows. Chapter 1 and chapter 2 briefly introduce issues, assumptions, and background knowledge necessary for the following discussion. Chapter 3 discusses questions and issues in previous analyses in the framework of GB theory. Chapter 4 discusses relevant theoretical issues in the theory of GPSG. Chapter 5 presents a phrase structure analysis of antecedent-gap dependencies in Chinese. Chapter 6 summarizes the general theoretical implications.
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Keywords
Chinese language, Grammar, generative, Generalized phrase structure grammar, Government-binding theory (Linguistics), Lexical-functional grammar.