Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T00:47:57.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Gaps in Parts of Speech in Chinese and Why?

from Part Two - Morpho-lexical Issues in Chinese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2022

Chu-Ren Huang
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Yen-Hwei Lin
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
I-Hsuan Chen
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Yu-Yin Hsu
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Get access

Summary

This article compares the presence of some functional categories which are at play in English or in French to their absence in Mandarin. It shows that rather than being ‘absent’ these categories are inactive, due to the analyticity of the language. For instance, Mandarin ‘lacks’ (i) subject–verb agreement, (ii) plural markers on nouns, (iii) a complementizer as a head of a clause in subject or in object position, and (iv) verb gapping.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abney, Steven. 1987. The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Bošković, Željko. 2008. What will you have DP or NP? Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 37:101114.Google Scholar
Bošković, Željko. 2009. More on the no-DP analysis of article-less languages. Studia Linguistica 63(2):187203.Google Scholar
Bošković, Željko, and Gajewski, Jon. 2011. Semantic correlates of the NP/DP parameter. Proceedings of NELS 39:121134.Google Scholar
Bošković, Željko, and Hsieh, I-Ta Chris. 2013. On word order, binding relations and plurality in Chinese noun phrases. Studies in Polish Linguistics 8(4):173204.Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2001. Radical construction grammar. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eifring, Halvor. 1995. Clause combination in Chinese. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Fukui, Naoki. 1988. Deriving the differences between English and Japanese. English Linguistics 5:249270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fukui, Naoki, and Sakai, Hiromu. 2003. The visibility guideline for functional categories: verb raising in Japanese and related issues. Lingua 113:321375.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1972. Numeral classifiers and substantival number: Problems in the genesis of a linguistic type. Working Papers on Language Universals 9:139.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul, and Thompson, Sandra. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56(6):251299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsieh, Miao-Ling. 2008. The internal structure of noun phrases in Chinese. Taipei: Crane Publishing.Google Scholar
Huang, Chu-Ren, and Ahrens, Kathleen. 2003Individuals, kinds and events: classifier coercion of nounsLanguage Sciences 25(4):353373.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1984. On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 15(4):531574.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 2015. On syntactic analyticity and parametric theory ? In Chinese syntax in a cross-linguistic perspective, ed. Li, Audrey, Simpson, Andrew and Tsai, Wei-Tian Dylan, 150. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jiang, Yan. 2017. Presupposition triggers. In Encyclopedia of Chinese language and linguistics (vol. III), ed. Sybesma, Rint 455460. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Kemmerer, David. 2014. Word classes in the brain: Implications of linguistic typology for cognitive neuroscience. Cortex 58:2751.Google Scholar
Konietzko, Andreas, and Winkler, Susanne. 2010. Contrastive ellipsis: Mapping between syntax and information structure. Lingua 120:14361457.Google Scholar
Kuroda, Sige-Yuki. 1988. Whether we agree or not. Linguisticae Investigationes 12:147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Y.-H. Audrey. 2013. Case, tense and clauses. In Breaking down the barriers: Interdisciplinary studies in Chinese linguistics and beyond. A Festchrift for Professor Alain Peyraube, ed. Cao Guangshun, H. Chappell, R. Djamouri, and Wiebusch, T., 205235. Taipei: Academia Sinica.Google Scholar
Li, Y-H. Audrey. 2014. Born empty. Lingua 151:4368.Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-Wang. 2003. Temporal reference in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 12:259311.Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-Wang. 2006. Time in a language without tense: the case of Chinese. Journal of Semantics 23:153.Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-Wang. 2010. A tenseless analysis of Mandarin revisited: A response to Sybesma 2007. Linguistic Inquiry 41:305329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, Jo-Wang, and Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 2015. Restricting non-restrictive relatives in Mandarin Chinese. In Chinese syntax in a cross-linguistic perspective, ed. Li, Audrey, Simpson, Andrew, and Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan, 100127. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. 1997. Vietnamese. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Paris, Marie-Claude. 1977. Le morpheme de et la relativation en mandarin. Cahiers de linguistique Asie Orientale 2:6576.Google Scholar
Paris, Marie-Claude. 1979. Nominalization in Mandarin Chinese. The morpheme de and the shi de constructions. Paris: D. R. L., Université Paris VII.Google Scholar
Paris, Marie-Claude. 1981. Problèmes de syntaxe et de sémantique en linguistique chinoise. Mémoires de l’Institut des hautes Etudes Chinoises XX. Paris: Collège de France.Google Scholar
Paris, Marie-Claude. 1995. Type de prédication et copie du verbe en chinois standard. In Langues et langage: problèmes et raisonnement en linguistique. Mélanges offerts à Antoine Culioli, 173184. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Paris, Marie-Claude. 1998. Syntaxe et sémantique de quatre marqueurs de transitivité en chinois standard: ba, bei, jiao et rang. Colloque sur “La transitivité”. Université de Lille III, 15–17 Novembre 1995, 355370. Lille: Presses du Septentrion.Google Scholar
Paris, Marie-Claude. 2007. Un aperçu de la réduplication nominale et verbale en mandarin. Faits de Langue 29:6576.Google Scholar
Simpson, Andrew, Wu, Zoe, and Li, Yan. 2016. Grammatical roles, coherence relations and the interpretation of pronouns in Chinese. Lingua Sinica 2(1):120.Google Scholar
Tang, Sze-Wing. 2001. The (non)existence of gapping in Chinese and its implications for the theory of gapping. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 10(3):201224.Google Scholar
Teng, Shou-hsin. 1987. Relative clause in Chinese. In Wang Li memorial volumes, ed. The Chinese Language Society of Hong Kong, 423434. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-tien Dylan. 1995.Visibility, complement selection and the case requirement of CP. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 4(4):281312.Google Scholar
Wei, Ting-Chi. 2017. Ellipsis and gapping. Encyclopedia of Chinese language and linguistics (vol. II), ed. Sybesma, Rint, 159165. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Zhang, Niing. 2014. Expressing number productively in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 52(1):134.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×