Resumptivity in Mandarin Chinese

A Minimalist Account

Victor Junnan Pan

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9783110489750
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The use of resumptive pronouns is quite productive in Mandarin Chinese; however, their distribution has rarely been studied in a systematic way. This book not only gives a thorough description of the general distribution of resumptive pronouns in different contexts but also offers a theoretical account in the framework of the Minimalist Program. Different types of A'-dependencies, mediated by gaps and by resumptive pronouns, are derived by different minimalist mechanisms, such as Agree, Match and Move. These mechanisms only apply at Narrow Syntax and do not uniformly obey locality constraints. Importantly, interpretative properties of an A'-bound element, such as reconstruction effects, is only related to its internal structure irrespective of how the A'-chain concerned is derived. From this perspective, resumptivity is an exclusively syntactic-related phenomenon and is thus not subject to any interface condition. Adopting a comparative approach, this study improves the general understanding of resumptivity crosslinguistically.

1Resumptivity: an overview

1.1Introduction

Resumptivity is one of the problems that have long history in the framework of generative grammar (since Ross 1967), and the reason why this phenomenon attracts so much attention from linguists is partially because it is not only a pure syntactic problem. Existing work explores this problem both in syntax and in semantics, which opens the possibility to treat resumptivity at the interface between syntax and semantics. Historically, Doron (1982) is one of the pioneering works developing a full semantic account on resumptive dependencies and on resumptive pronouns. Syntactically, the derivation of a resumptive chain is the center of the debate. In addition, the dual status of the mysterious resumptive pronouns makes this problem even more interesting. Resumptive pronouns display many similar properties of wh-traces; however, at the same time, they are different from wh-traces in that they are morphologically full pronouns. It is difficult to determine whether exploring the nature of resumptive pronouns is a syntactic problem or a semantic problem or both. Needless to say, resumptive pronouns have clear morphological forms which distinguish themselves from empty categories, such as wh-traces or gaps in certain types of A'-dependencies. On the other hand, resumptive pronouns occupy uniquely the variable position in an A'-chain, which suggests that semantically they are comparable with variables. Even if resumptivity is a rather general and common linguistic phenomenon observed in many languages cross-linguistically, it has been revealed that different languages do not always behave alike concerning the use of the resumptive pronouns, which of course makes a complicated problem even more complicated. In this study, I will explore the problems closely linked to resumptivity based on data from Mandarin Chinese. At the end of the monograph, I will not only present a clear detailed picture of the distribution of the resumptive pronouns but also present an interaction of several different factors involved in the derivation of resumption in an even more general sense. The research purpose in this study is not only about Chinese, but also an attempt to see what Chinese tells us about resumptivity in a broad sense and to what extend certain factors can be generalized cross-linguistically. I will concentrate on discussion of the following essential questions:

(i)What are possible syntactic mechanisms that can derive resumptive dependencies?

(ii)What is the nature of resumptive pronouns?

(iii)Are resumptive pronouns merely phonologically spelled out traces?

(iv)When different types of personal pronouns are used as resumptive pronouns, do they function in exactly the same way and give rise to exactly the same syntactic as well as semantic effects?

In this very first chapter, I will start by giving a brief introduction of the general research problems concerning resumptivity and the most important solutions provided in the previous research. I highly recommend the historical review of the problem in Rouveret (2011:1–62) in which the origin of the problem, the different solutions given during different periods of the development of the generative grammar, the advantages as well as the disadvantages of each solution and the remaining open questions have been clearly addressed in great detail. I will of course not repeat every single aspect of resumptivity in this chapter; however, I will single out and highlight several important points concerning resumptivity in Section 2. Again, Section 2 is greatly inspired by Rouveret (2011). In Section 3, I will present the results of my study and the most important generalizations based on the results of the relevant tests in this study as well as the answers that I tentatively suggest to the essential questions listed above.

1.2Resumptivity

1.2.1Resumptive pronouns

Resumptive pronouns located on the variable site in an A'-chain function as variables bound by an operator in an A'-position. They are called resumptive pronouns because in most cases the elements that play the role of resumptives are pronominal ones. As will be detailed in Chapters 2, 3 and 4, certain languges, such as Arabic dialects, do use epithets resumptively and these epithets behave in a similar fashion as “strong pronouns” or “doubled pronouns” in these languages. Resumptive pronouns can only exist in A'-dependencies, for instance, in relative clauses, left-dislocation structures, cleft-focus structures, wh-questions, and Across-The-Board (ATB) constructions involving A'-dependencies. In the Appendix, I present each type of A'-dependency existing both in English and in Chinese in great detail and I will not repeat all of them here for the sake of space.

1.2.1.1Two types of resumptive pronouns

Existing work on resumption makes a distinction between two types of resumptive pronouns or two different uses of resumptive pronouns: the real resumptive pronouns and the intrusive pronouns. Some research work makes the same distinction by employing different terms: the real resumptive pronouns are also called grammatical resumptive pronouns or the grammatical use of the resumptive pronouns or the general/systematic use of the resumptive pronouns, whereas the intrusive pronouns are also referred to as intrusive use of the resumptive pronouns (Sells 1984). The general/grammatical/systematical use of the resumptive pronouns refers to the cases where resumptive pronouns appear systematically in an A'-bound position, i.e. the variable position generally occupied by gaps. This leads some scholars to think that resumptive pronouns and gaps are free alternatives (cf. Borer 1984, Koopman 1983, Engdahl 1980, 1985, Zaenen, Engdhal & Maling 1981). Contrary to the general use, resumptive pronouns can also be used in island contexts to prevent a sentence from eventually violating locality constraints such as Subjacency and ECP. Let us examine two frequently cited classical Hebrew examples from Sells (1984).

In (1), the presence of the resumptive pronoun oto ‘him’ is optional in an island-free context, which could suggest that this resumptive pronoun is in free alternation with gaps. In this case, the pronoun is in its systematic/ grammatical /general use and in other words, it is a “real” resumptive pronoun in the sense of Sells (1984). By contrast, the presence of the pronoun oto ‘him’ becomes obligatory in an island context such as the relative clause in (2), otherwise the sentence will be ungrammatical due to island effects. In this case, the resumptive pronoun oto ‘him’ is in its intrusive use and its presence will avoid potential violation of locality constraints. Therefore, the sentence in (2) remains grammatical with the presence of oto ‘him’.

In (2), there are two relative clauses, the outer one “the boy that Dalya knows…” and the inner one “the woman that loves”. The outer relative clause functions as an island that blocks the relativization of the boy due to violation of the Subjacency. However, since the boy is in the object position inside the inner island, ECP is not violated. In (2a), the insertion of the resumptive pronoun oto ‘him’ prevents the sentence from violating Subjacency. Thus, resumptive pronouns do not have the same function in (1) and in (2).

1.2.1.2Two different points of view

The distinction between these two different uses of resumptive pronouns provokes a long-term debate on the typology of resumptivity. Certain previous studies try to argue that there is a macro-variation existing between languages that only use resumptive pronouns intrusively to avoid potential violation of locality constraints (i.e. as a last resort) and the languages that only use them as a general strategy to form A'-dependencies. In their sense, English and French belong to the former category of languages in that the presence of a resumptive pronoun in an island-free context will simply make a sentence ungrammatical (cf. 3a, b). However, the obligatory use of resumptive pronouns in certain possessive constructions is tolerated in island-free context as illustrated in (3c).

Let us take several often cited classical examples from Ross (1967) and Sells (1987) which illustrate that in English, resumptive pronouns can only be used in strong islands to avoid violation of island conditions or of the ECP.

(4)Island: complex NP (complement clause of noun)
I just saw a girlj [who Long John’s claim that [shej was a Venusian]] made all the headlines.

Ross (1967)

(5)	a.	Island: wh-island created by an indirect question headed by if
		I’d like to meet the linguistj [that Mary couldn’t remember [if she had had seen (himj) before]].
	b.	Island: if-conditionals
		Which of the linguistsj do you think [that [if Mary marries (himj) ] then everyone will be happy]?

Sells (1987)

Postal (1998:111) also points out that resumptive pronouns can take morphologically invisible forms. In my approach, invisible resumptive pronouns are uniformly treated as pro.

Previous works such as Engdahl (1980, 1985), Zaenen, Engdhal & Maling (1981), Koopman (1983) and Borer (1984) argue for a macro-variation typology on resumption. They reveal that in languages like Vata and Swedish, the use of resumptive pronouns merely represents a general strategy to establish an A'-dependency and that resumptive pronouns can appear in every position where a gap appears in an A'-dependency. In other words, resumptive pronouns and the gaps created by wh-movement are free alternatives. In their view, resumptive pronouns are merely treated as spelled out traces. In fact, resumptive pronouns or gaps can only appear in several very restricted and specific positions in these languages.

The macro-variation point of view has been quickly abandoned because more and more research has shown that most languages that dispose of the resumptive strategy use resumptive pronouns in both ways: the general/systematic/grammatical use and intrusive use. In particular, the strongest argument against the macro-variation point of view is based on the fact that in a non-trivial number of cases, resumptive pronouns and gaps can never be free alternatives; in other words, in certain specific positions, the presence of a resumptive pronoun is allowed but that of a gap in the same position is prohibited. I will cite two extreme cases from Aoun & Choueiri (2000) and from Rouveret (1994, 2011).

Aoun & Choueiri (2000) show that in Lebanese Arabic, a relative clause without an island only permits the presen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Resumptivity: an overview
• 2 Syntactic derivation: two types of A'-dependencies
• 3 Reconstruction and internal structures of resumptive pronouns
• 4 Specificity effects
• 5 Concluding remarks
• 6 Appendix: General distribution of the resumptive pronouns in Mandarin Chinese
• References
• Subject index
• Fußnoten