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Harlow, Steve; Cullen, Connie
Correlative Constructions in Chinese.
Jun 92
19p.; In: Harlow, S. J. and Warner, A. R., Eds. York
Papers in Linguistics, 16; see FL 020 620. An earlier
version of this paper was presented at the autumn
meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great
Britain (1986).
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*Chinese; Foreign Countries; *Grammar; *Language
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*Pronouns; *Sentence Structure
*Anaphora
ABSTRACT
An analysis of correlative constructions in Chinese
that: (1) gives a principled account of the distribution of
correlative markers; and (2) offers an explanation for some puzzling
facts about distribution of anaphoric pronouns is presented. It is
suggested that previous research has misidentified instances of verb
phrase coordination as zero-anaphora in such constructions, which
raises a more general question about zero anaphora. It is suggested
that better criteria for identification of zero-anaphora are required
in languages like Chinese, which lacks corroborative evidence such as
agreement morphology. It is concluded, then, that for at least a
subset of Chinese, a better account is available without
zero-anaphors. (MSE)
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Correlative Constructions in Chinese*
Steve Harlow and Connie Cullen
University of York
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2
CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN CHINESE*
Steve Harlow and Connie Cullen
University of York
Chinese possesses a construction-type known as 'correlative
constructions'. Such constructions are characterised by the presence of a
pairs of morphemes marking the constituent halves of the construction.
Examples (taken from Liu 1981) are as follows in which the markers of
the correlative construction are italicised:
( I)
Zhuxi
yi
chulai,
qunzhong jiu gu-zhang
chairman as-soon-as come-out, masses
then applaud
As soon as the chairman appeared the masses applauded
(2)
Suiran
(3)
An Xian nianji xiao,
although An xian age small,
to qie
shemme dcm hui
he however anything all can
Although An Xian is young, he can do everything
Yinwei Lta Niu sheng bingle,
because big ox grow sick,
suoyi
to mei-lai
Shang ke
therefore he did-not-corue attend class
Because Da Niu is ill he didn't come to class
*
An earlier version of this paper was read to the Autumn meeting of the
Linguistics Association of Great Britain in 1986. The authors would like to
thank participants at that meeting for their comments, in particular Elisabet
Engdahl and Dick Hudson, neither of whom are responsible for our failure to
take their advice.
I
Or in some cases an n-tuple. We restrict our attention in this paper to
pairs, although the analysis that we propose should extend
unproblematically to n-tuples.
York Papers in Linguistics 16 (1992)
0 Steve Harlow and Connie Cullen
1-17
YORK PAPERS IN LINGUISTICS 16
In this paper we propose that the properties of these constructions are
most satisfactorily accounted for if they are treated as being multi-
headed; that is, both halves of the construction arc heads. The
theoretical framework that we assume for concreteness is that of
Generalised Phrase Structure Grammar (GPSG) as presented in Gazdar
et. al. (1985), although we believe that the essentials of our analysis
will transfer to any framework which exploits a feature decomposition
of categories and a schema for constituent coordination. In effect, we arc
proposing a theoretical reconstruction and justification of Chao's (1968)
contention that these are coordinate constructions.2
A fruitful starting point for discussion of the properties of these
constructions is a paper by Liu Feng-hsi (Liu 1981). Liu presents a
more extensive range of examples than those provided so far. More
specifically, the examples in (1-3) only represent a subset of the
possible patterns involving the correlative markers yi.. jiu (as soon
as...then), suiran...que (although...yet), and yinwei...suoyi
(because...therefore). (4)-(7) show that correlative markers fall into four
groups with respect to their permitted linear order relative to the
subject:
(4)
yi
qunzhong jiu gu-zhang
chulai,
Zhuxi
chairman as-soon-as come-out, masses then applaud
As soon as the chairman appeared the masses applauded
b. *Yi zhuxi chulai, flu qunzhong gu-zhang
a.
2
Chao (1968:793) lists the following set of correlative markers
(transcription altered from GR to Pinyin [CJC/SAID: yue...yue !the
more...the more), ye...yelyou...you (both...and), bu...bu (not...unless),
yibian (X...while Y), huoshi...huoshi
/haishi...haishi (either...or). suiran...dansiti (although...yet),
yinwei...suoyi (because...therefore), jiran...jiu (inasmuch as...then),
yaoshilyaoljiaru... jiu (if...then), chufei /chule... bu (unless...not).
chufeilchule...cal (only if...then). bushi...jiushi (if not...then). zhiyao...jiu
(so long as...then), shangqie...hequang (not even...how much more),
budan...bingqie / erqie (not only...but also), ninke...yebu (would
rather...than), yuqllyoude...ningkelburulhaishi (rather than...had better),
jinguan...haishi (not matter if...still), zaildso...ye (no matter how...still),
jiushiljishi...ye (even if...then), gang(cai)...jiu (just as...then), yi.. jiu (as
soon asthen). Many of these pairs will be discussed below.
42
CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN CHINESE
c.
d.
(5)
a.
*Yi zhuxi chulai, qunzhong jiu gu-zhang
*zhuxi yi chulai, jiu qunzhong gu-zhang
Suiran An Xian nianji xiao,
although An Xian age small,
Ia cite
shemme dou hui
he however anything all can
b.
c.
d.
(6)
a.
b.
c.
d.
(7)
Although An Xian is young, he can do everything
An Xian suiran nianji xiao, to que shenme dou hui
*Suiran An Xian nianji xiao, to que shenme dou hui
*An Xian suiran nianji xiao, to que shenme dou hui
Yinwei Da Niu sheng bingle, suoyi mama
because big ox grow sick, therefore mother
hen danxin
very worried
Because Da Niu is ill, therefore (his) mother is very worried
Da Niu yinwei sheng bingle, suoyi mama hen danxin)
*Yinwei Da Niu sheng bingle, mama suoyi hen danxin
*Da Niu yinwei sheng bingle, mama suoyi hen danxin
Bushi ni lai, jiushi wo w
not-is you come then-is I go
Either you come, or I go
b. *Ni bushi lai, jiushi wo qu
c. Ni bushi lai., wo jiushi qu
d. *Ni bushi lai, wo jiushi qu
a.
The four classes of correlative markers have the following properties:
A. in both halves, the subject must precede the correlative marker (4):
yi...jiu.
B.
the correlative marker can either precede (5a) or follow (5b) the
subject. In the secoid half of the construction the correlative
marker always follows the subject: suiran...que.
C. this pattern is like (B) in allowing both order of subject and
correlative marker in the first half of the construction, but differs in
3
5
i
3
YORK PAPERS IN UNGUISTICS 16
the second half where the correlative marker must precede its
subject (6): yinwei ...suoyi.
D. the last class allows two possible orders in both halves, subject to
a parallelism restriction: the order of correlative marker in the
second half of the construction must be the same as that in the first
half (7): bushi ...jiushi.
The table in (8) summarises these ordering properties.
(8)
CM
TYPE A
SUBJ
= (4a)
Zhuxi
CM
yi
SUBJ
qunzhong
jiu
TYPE B
i. = (5a)
SUBJ
An Xian
CM
Suiran
CM
suiran
SUBJ
An Xian
SUBJ
CM
to
clue
SUBJ
CM
to
quo
CM
Yinwei
SUBJ
Da Niu
SUBJ
Da Niu
CM
suoyi
CM
suoyi
SUBJ
mama
SUBJ
mama
CM
Bushi
SUBJ
Ni
SUBJ
ni
CM
bushi
CM
SUBJ
wo
SUBJ
ii. = (5b)
TYPE C
i. = (6a)
ii. = (6b)
TYPED
i. :: (7a)
ii. = (7c)
CM
yinwei
jir.:hi
CM
wo
jiushi
Ordering of subject and correlative markers is one property of correlative
constructions for which an account is required. A second property,
which is the major fa u; of Liu's paper, is the occurrence in these
constructions of phon, togically empty pronouns.As is well-know,
anaphoric pronouns ..an be either phonologically realised or
phonologically empty in Chinese with a very considerable degree of
freedom (cf. Chen 1984,Huang 1984, Li and Thompson 1979 and Xu
1986). The passage given as (9) below exemplifies som° of the
4
ar
CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN CHINESE
possibilities. It is taken from Chen (1984) and zeros are used to mark
positions that have been analysed as being filled by empty NPs.
(9)
ge piqi
Lao Qian you zhemme
Lao Qian had this-kind-of a temperament
O wen 0 pengyou yao shenme dongxi
want what thing
(he) ask (his) friend
0
jiu del gei 0
O like
(he) immediately then must give (him) (it)
O bu gei 0 0
(he) not give (him) (it)
O jiu juede 0 shi qiaobuqi to
(he) then felt
O jitian
(he) is despise him
bu gaoxing
(he) several-days not happy
1,
01d Qian had this kind of personality: if he asked his friend
for something, the friend must give him it immediately; if
he didn't, then Old Qian would feel that the friend must
despise him and would be displeased for several days.
Liu gives the following examples to illustrate the distribution of
pronouns in correlative constructions.3 (10) is an example of Type A,
where the subjects must precede the correlative markers. Here a zero
pronoun is obligatory.
(10)
jiandao wo, (*la) jiu xiang wo
Xiao Ming yi
me
me, she then to
Xiao Ming as-soon-as see
zhao shou
wave hand
As soon as Xiao Ming saw me, she waved at me
3
As usual, (X) denotes that X is optional; (*X) that X is not possible and
*(X) that X is obligatory. The judgements given here are Liu's. Not all
Chinese speakers share them. We will not discuss alternative judgements
here, but will restrict our attention in this paper to the pattern of judgements
given in the text.
5
YORK PAPERS IN LINGUISTICS 16
(11) is an example of Type B, in which alternative orders are possible
in the first half of the construction, and the subject precedes the
correlative marker in the second half. Here zero pronominals are
optional when the subject of the first clause precedes its correlative
marker, but obligatory otherwise.
(11)
An Xian nianji xiao,
although An xian age small,
shemme dou hui
(ta) que
he however anything all can
Although An Xian is young, he can do everything
nianji xiao,
b. An Xian suiran
An xian although age small,
shemme dou hui
( *ta) que
he however anything all can
a.
Suiran
(12) is an example of Type C, in which again both orders arc possible
in the first half, but in the second half, the subject follows the
correlative marker. Here we find that possible zero pronominal
occurrences are similar to those in (11), except that, when the first half
is subject-initial, a zero pronoun is disprefcrred rather than impossible.
(12)
a.
Yinwei Da Niu sheng bingle,
because big ox grow sick,
b.
shang ke
(ta) mei-lai
suoyi
therefore he did-not-come attend class
Because Da Niu was ill, he didn't come to class
Da Niu yinwei sheng bingle, suoyi ?(ta) mei-lai
big ox because grow sick, therefore he did-not-come
shang ke
attend class
Finally, in (13) we have examples of Type D, where there must be
parallel orders in each half. Here an overt pronoun is preferred when it
follows the correlative marker, but is impossible when it precedes.
86
CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN CHINESE
(13)
a.
b.
Bushi Li Si jicuole,
jiushi ?(ta) wangle
not-is Li Si misremember, then-is l
forget
Either Li Si misremembered, or else he forgot
*Li Si bushi jicuole,
wangle
Li Si not-is misremember, he then-is forget
In (14) is a table which is taken from Liu (1981) which summarises
this correlation between ordering properties and zero anaphora.
(14).
TYPE A
SUBJ
CM
SUBJ
CM
= (10)
Xiao Ming
yi
(*ta)
jiu
TYPE B
i. = (11 a)
SUBJ
An Xian
CM
SUBJ
(*ta)
SUBJ
CM
(ta)
que
saran
que
ZEROANAPHORA
Obligatory
Obligatory
CM
ii. = (11b) Suiran
SUBJ
An Xian
TYPE C
i.= (I2a)
CM
Yinwei
SUBJ
ii. = (12b) Da Niu
SUBJ
Da Niu
CM
yinwci
CM
suoyi
CM
suoyi
SUBJ
(ta)
Pronoun preferred
SUBJ
(ta)
Optional
TYPE D
i. = (i3a)
SUBJ
CM
jiushi
SUBJ
SUBJ
(ta)
Pronoun preferred
CM
Bushi
SUBJ
ii. = (13b) Li Si
Li Si
CM
bushi
(*ta)
CM
Optional
CM
jiushi Obligatory
The first two columns give the relative order of the subject and the
correlative marker (CM) for the first clause, and the second par give the
relative order for the second clause. The comments in the final column
under the heading 'zero anaphora' give the status of phonologically
empty pronouns in the subject position of the second clause.
Liu (1981:200) provides the following a descriptive generalisation
about this patterning:
7
9
YORK PAPERS IN LINGUISTICS 16
Zero anaphora is obligatory in parallel structures if the
subject precedes the [correlative] marker; otherwise it is
(15)
optional. (In parallel structures with the subject
following the [correlative] marker the pronoun is
preferred.)
To render the data supporting this generalisation more transparent, we
present in (16) a reorganisation of Liu's table (14) in which we make
the primary sorting key the status of the pronoun, and the secondary
key the order of correlative marker and subject. In Liu's table, the
primary key is the individual correlative markers; a consequence of the
reclassification in (16) is that some correlative markers appear under
more than we heading. This will be significant.
(16) a
b.i
SUBJ
CM
CM
SUBJ
yi
jiu
suiran
bushi
que
SUBJ
c
CM
yinwei
bushi
A
B.i
Obligatory zero
D.ii
SUBJ
CM
crx
suiran
b.ii SUBJ
PRONOUN
CM
CM
CM
yinwei
suoyi
SUBJ
CM
B.ii
Optional
C.ii
Optional
C.i
Overtpreferrecl
SUBJ
SUBJ
suoyi
jiushi
D.i
We now have a generalisation about the distribution, but we do not as
yet have an explanation. It is to this that we now turn.
10
8
CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN CHINESE
The essence of our proposal is the claim that correlative
constructions are in fact coordinate constructions, as Chao (1968)
suggested. To make this claim specific, we provide in (17) a rule
schema to define for these constructions.
(17)
V2
H[CONJ ao], H[CONJ a114
where a E ( <yinwei, suoyi>, <bushi, jiushi>,<suiran, que>,
jiu>, <ye, ye>1
(17) is Gaidar et. al's Binary Coordination Schema (1985: 171), with a
category value assigned to the mother and the lexical values of the
Chinese correlative markers given as value:: of the CONJ feature.5 The
essence of the GPSG analysis of coordinate structures is that all
conjuncts are heads. This ensures (via the Head Feature Convention)
that conjuncts share relevant properties, such as categorial identity.
Hence, in any instantiation of (17), the two daughters will both be
v2.6
4
V2 subsumes both S and VP.
5
The rule says nothing about the relative order of the daughters. This
will be determined by a Linear Precedence (LP) statement. See Gazdar et. al.
(1985: 172) for details.
6 A possible objection to our proposal that correlative constructions are
in fact coordinate constructions might be that they do not possess a uniform
semantics. To this we respond thtt the crucial property defining these
constructions is multi-headedness and we use the term 'coordinate structure'
to refer to this. It does not necessarily follow that such constructions share
a common pattern of semantic interpretation. We would assume, although
we will not attempt to justify it here, that the semantics of these
constructions is compositional and that the coordinating morphemes
themselves make a compositional contribution to the semantics of the
construction as a whole.
A second objection, due to Dick Hudson (personal communication) is
that at least son e of these correlative mutters are, in fact, adverbs and not
conjunctions (in particular ye 'also). While it is true that the label 'adverb'
is applied in this way, it is also a fact that adverbs as a class arc notoriously
difficult to define and the these items do not share the distribution of
Chinese manner advcrbials, nor the distribution of, say, temporal adverbs.
Lest translation equivalents muddy the decision on this point, note that
whereas English also does have a characteristics adverb distribution ('Also,
9
.1
BB 1 COPY AVAILABLE
YORK PAPERS IN LINGUISTICS 16
Thus far,. modulo the different lexical items involved, we are
claiming that coordination in Chinese and English is essentially the
same. We propose, however, that Chinese differs from English in two
crucial respects. The first is that in Chinese the feature CONJ is a
member of the set of head features, as specified in (18).
(18)
CONJ E HEAD
This means that it will be subject to the Head Feature Convention with
the result that we will get the effect of percolation of that feature and its
value down through heads from the position at which it is introduced by
the rules of the grammar.
Secondly, the Chinese rules which spell out the conjunction itself,
(19) and (20), making it a sister of a category identical to the mother,
are, in contrast to their English counterpart, category specific.7
(19)
S[CONJ a]
([SUBCAT a] ) ,
H[CONJ NIL]
where a E (yinwei, suoyi, bushi, jiushi, suiran)
(20)
VP[CONJ a] -->
([SUBCAT a]),
H[CONJ NIL]
where a E yinwei, bushi, jiushi, ye, suiran, que, yi, jiu)
Crucially there are different rules in (19) and (20) for sentences and for
VPs. They differ specifically in respect of the particular coordinating
conjunction that can be instantiated as a sister of the head. So, these
rules specify that suoyi can only appear as a sister of S, and that ye,
que, yi and jiu can only appear as sisters of VP. The remainder (yinwei,
bushi, jiushi, suiran) can occur as sister of either VP or S. These rules,
therefore, will licence the following trees: sentential coordination in
(21), and VP coordination in (22)
he speaks French'; 'He also speaks French'; 'He speaks French also'), this is
not true of ye which can only appear in the pre-VP position specified by
(20).
7
In fact, these restrictions would be enforced on instantiated features by
Feature Coocurrence Restrictions. For simplicity of presentation we have
chosen fto by-pass these details here.
i2
10
we
CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IF CHINESE
.---'s-S
(21)
SICONJ suoyi
S[CONJ yinwei]
CONJ
CONJ
I
1
suoyi
yinwei
S
(22)
VP
NP
VPICONJ jiu ...
VP1CONJ yi ...)
CONJ
VP
CONJ
I
I
yi
jiu
que
jiushi
suiran
bushi
of
Note, however, that although these rules preclude the appearance
the
S
or
VP,
they
do
not
restrict
certain conjunctions as sisters to
instantiation of the CONJ feature on an S or VP node. Indeed, the Head
Feature Convention will ensure that mother and head daughters must
(21) and
share permitted feature instantiations. Ther.lore, in addition to
coordinated
following
trees,
in
which
the
(22), the rules admit the
category is S, but one or more of the coordinating conjunctions appears
as a sister of VP.
11
YORK PAPERS IN UNGUIST1CS 16
(23)
S[CONJ quej
WON; suiran]
NP
CONJ
VP[CONJ que
CONJ
suiran
VP
que
Here the CONJ feature in both conjuncts is introduced at the S level by
rule (17). They differ, however, in the level at which the conjunct
themselves can be realised Suiran (although) is realised at the S level,
but que (yet) is only realised at the VP level. The CONJ feature
'percolates' down the tree as a consequence of the Head Feature
Convention.
(24)
S[CONJ suoyi:
S[CONJ yinwei]
VP[CONJ yinwei] CONJ
NP
CONJ
yinwei
suoyi
Yinwei (because), but not suoyi(therefore), can also be realised at the
VP level. Here too, the CONJ feature percolates down the tree as a
consequence of the Head Feature Convention.
1.4
12
IN CHINESE
CONSTRUCTIONS
CORRELATIVE
jiu)
SjCONJ
(25)
WON.,
NP
/"N
yij
VP[CONJ
yi I
ji Li]
NP
VP
VP
CONS
CONI
jiu
level, although
at the VP
feature
CONS
realised
the
both
Feature
are
Again,
of the Head
as) andjiu(thcn) coordination.
soon
Yi (as
consequence
a sentence-level
as a
precede
in Chineseaccounts
they expressdown the tree
that conjunctsVP sisters
percolates
their
requirement
Convention,
(19)
preceded
that the
above.
subjects
rules like
Note also
discussed
that
facts
and
two separateof coordinating
for theorderingthat having
their heads
out
spellings
objected
to this objection
be
for
straightforwardly
might
response
Our
Now, it
necessary
category-specific
and ad hoc. is in any case
which are
specific,
and (20)
of thing are indeed category
is unmotivated
kind
conjunctions,out that this
conjunctions
is to point
coordinating
because
Chinese,
illustrates.
as (26)
ni dou qu
Wo genlhe you all go
going
I and
are both ye qi
I and you qu,
ni also go
Wo ye
you
I also go
both going
and you are ni qu
*Ye ...vo ye
also you go
also I
going)
you are both
(1 and
yi
13
K.;
YORK PAPERS IN LLNOU1sT1Cs 16
In Chinese we have a situation in which NPs, for instance, take a
different set of coordinating conjunctions to the verbal projections
which we have been discussing above.
The coordination rule for NPs will look like (27),
(27)
NP -.> H(CONJ ao]
H (CONJ al I
where a e (<NIL gen> <NIL he>)
which defines NP coordinating conjunctions to be the morphemes gen
and he. We therefore need category-specific conjunctions for Chinese
anyway. Our proposed analysis of correlative constructions merely
extends this to S and VP. with some degree of overlap between the
two.8
The analysis thus far has only been concerned with the distribution
of correlative markers. We have not yet touched on the issue of zero
anaphora. Recall that, according to Liu's generalisation, we get several
instances of obligatory zero anaphora when in both conjuncts the
coordinating conjunctions occur after the subject. According to our
analysis, the correlative markers occur in this position because they
have been realised at the VP level. They arc therefore by the rules that
we have given for VP coordination. So the simple answer the reason
why there are no overt pronouns in the second conjunct in these cases is
because there is no noun phrase in the second conjunct at all. These
constructions are simply instances of the structure in (22) coordinated
VPs. So the reason also why we do get overt pronouns in the other
Note also that English coordinating conjunctions exhibit some degree
of category-specificity. Both...anct is decidedly awkward with bare S's
i. ?Both John is rich and Mary is fie,.
while being fine with
ii. Max stated both that John is rich and that Mary is rich
Either...or on the other hand is good with both
iii. Either John is rich or Mary is rich
iv. Max stated either that John is rich or that Mary is rich
8
6
14
CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCIIONS IN CHINESE
kinds of structures is because they all involve cases of sentential
coordination?
There is some interesting support for this position from a rather
different kind of evidence. Chen (1984), a study of the distribution of
Chinese zero anaphors in discourse, provides the following statistics for
the occurrence of zero anaphora In the corpus:
(28)
Relative occurrence of zero an phora (Chen 1984:15)
Syntactic position
Numlx,r
Percentage
topic/subject
direct object
indirect object
43
75.4
11
19.3
3
5.3
A glance at these results reveals a striking asymmetry between the
number of occurrences of topic/subject zero anaphors and the number of
occurrences of their direct object and indirect object counterparts, with
the former being by far and away the most frequently occurring kinds of
empty categories. Why should there be this asymmetry? Our analysis
It is valid to ask how one can be sure that one is dealing with VP
9
coordination, rather than sentential coordination, where the subject of the
second conjunct is a zero-pronoun. This is a difficult question to answer
conclusively. What can be demonstrated is that there is indeed evidence that
Chinese actually allows VP coordination. On the assumption that zero-
pronouns in Chinese are simply the covert versions of their overt
counterparts and, in particular, that they serve the same anaphoric
functions, the fact that there are coordinate structures such as (i) below
which do not permit an oven pronoun in the second conjunct, should serve
to argue that we have here a situation in which a pronouns are not permitted.
The only remaining option is VP coordination.
i.
Mcigc rca ye dou hui shuo Hanyu,
every man both all can speak Chinese
(ta) ye dou hui shuo Yingyu
(he) and all can speak English
Everyone can speak both Chinese and English
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provides the bisis for an explanation. Since Chen does not consider the
possibility of VP coordination, all such potential instances VP
coordination are treated as examples a zero subject anaphora. A
plausible account of the much greater frequency of occurrence of zero
subject anaphors is that more than one construction is involved. A
combination of VP coordination with genuine zero discourse anaphora
provides a double source for the number of apparent empty topic/subject
positions. For object positions, by contrast, there is no coordination
possibility which has the appearance of a zero pronoun; in these cases
we are only going to get missing objects where there are, indeed,
missing objects. So we suggest that the statistics which Chen has
produced are the result of a kind of conspiracy between real empty NPs
and the facts of VP coordinatior..
What we have tried to do in this paper is to outline an analysis of
Chinese correlative constructions which not only gives a principled
account of the distribution of correlative markers, but which also offers
the prospect of an explanation for some puzzling facts about the the
distribution of anaphoric pronouns. Our suggestion is that Liu and
Chen have misidentified instances of VP coordination as zero-anaphora
in such constructions. This leads us to raise a more general question
about zero-anaphora. It seem clear to us that better criteria are required
for the identification of zero-anaphors in languages like Chinese, which
lack corroborative evidence (such as agreement morphology). There is a
danger that the implicit criteria are simply that if what could be an NP
position is empty, it ..iust in fact be occupied by a zero-anaphor.
Sometimes (but not with respect to the data we have discussed in this
paper), it even seems that the occurrence of an overt pronoun in an
English translation is sufficient evidence to warrant the postulation of a
zero-anaphor in Chinese. We have shown in this paper that, for at least
a subset of Chinese, a better account is available without zeroanaphors.1°
10 We should point out that our analysis is certainly not the last word on
the subject. While it is correct to say that when VP coordination is the only
possibility oven subject pronouns are excluded and where sentential
coordination is possible then overt subject pronouns are possible, there is a
third situation for which our analysis does not provide a complete account.
(as soon ss...then) type, we propose
For correlative markers of the
1S
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CORRELATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN CHINESE
REFERENCES
Chao Yuen-ren (1968) Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Chen Ping (1984) A Discourse Analysis of Third Person Zero Anaphora in
Chinese. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Gazdar, Gerald; Ewan Klein; Geoffrey K. Pullum and Ivan A. Sag (1985)
Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar. Oxford: Blackwell and
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Huang James C-T. (1984) On the distribution and reference of empty
pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 15.4:531 573
Li Charles N and Sandra Thompson (1979) Third person pronouns and zero-
anaphora in Chinese discourse. In Talmy Givon (ed). Syntax and
Semantics. Volume 12. Academic Press
Liu Fcng -hsi (1981) Zero-Anaphora in Mandarin Chinese. CLS 17:197-204
Xu Lie-jiong (1986) Free empty category. Linguistic Inquiry. 17.1:75-93
that there is sentential coordination, but that the correlative markers are
spelled out at the VP level. This is because they occur in post-subject
position. The other aspects of our analysis would lead us to expect that,
because the second conjunct contains a subject position, an overt pronoun
should be possible there. This is not in fact the case:
S
Ne
S
NP.
VP
CONJ
/\\VP
VP
CON!
*la
VP
U
Clearly, additional factors are at work here which serve to limit the
permissible structure to VP coordination.
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