The Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese

This article proposes a pro analysis for split questions (SQs) in Chinese, dissimilar to the biclausal account employing focus movement and deletion in Arregi 2010 and the one employing the silent head in Kayne 2015 and Tang 2015. SQ consists of a wh-clause and a tag clause. We argue that the entire...

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Autor principal:	Wei Ting-Chi
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Sciendo 2020
Materias:	deletion movement speech act phrase island effects connectivity effects Chinese language and literature PL1001-3208
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/a52ea2acedbe4858b89d6013b5252614
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:a52ea2acedbe4858b89d6013b52526142021-12-02T15:25:32ZThe Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese1017-127410.2478/scl-2020-0001https://doaj.org/article/a52ea2acedbe4858b89d6013b52526142020-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.2478/scl-2020-0001https://doaj.org/toc/1017-1274This article proposes a pro analysis for split questions (SQs) in Chinese, dissimilar to the biclausal account employing focus movement and deletion in Arregi 2010 and the one employing the silent head in Kayne 2015 and Tang 2015. SQ consists of a wh-clause and a tag clause. We argue that the entire SQ is an information/confirmation-seeking question, represented by a Speech Act Phrase (SAP)-shell structure (Speas and Tenny 2003; Oguro 2017, etc.) with wh-clause in its specifier and the tag in its complement. The tag of Chinese SQ is a base-generated clause, [pro (copula) tag ma/ne], composed of an empty subject pro, an optional copula, a tag, and a final particle, instead of being derived from a fully-fledged structure parallel to the wh-part akin to those of English and Spanish SQs. Such a pro analysis overcomes difficulties encountered in the other accounts regarding the distribution of the final particles and their clause-typing, the optionality of the copula, the ubiquitous uses of tag, the connectivity effects, and the island-insensitivity. Analytically, two seeming variants of SQ imply that the derivation of an SQ depends on whether its tag moves and whether a copula exists.Wei Ting-ChiSciendoarticledeletionmovementspeech act phraseisland effectsconnectivity effectsChinese language and literaturePL1001-3208ENStudies in Chinese Linguistics, Vol 41, Iss 1, Pp 1-32 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	deletion movement speech act phrase island effects connectivity effects Chinese language and literature PL1001-3208
spellingShingle	deletion movement speech act phrase island effects connectivity effects Chinese language and literature PL1001-3208 Wei Ting-Chi The Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese
description	This article proposes a pro analysis for split questions (SQs) in Chinese, dissimilar to the biclausal account employing focus movement and deletion in Arregi 2010 and the one employing the silent head in Kayne 2015 and Tang 2015. SQ consists of a wh-clause and a tag clause. We argue that the entire SQ is an information/confirmation-seeking question, represented by a Speech Act Phrase (SAP)-shell structure (Speas and Tenny 2003; Oguro 2017, etc.) with wh-clause in its specifier and the tag in its complement. The tag of Chinese SQ is a base-generated clause, [pro (copula) tag ma/ne], composed of an empty subject pro, an optional copula, a tag, and a final particle, instead of being derived from a fully-fledged structure parallel to the wh-part akin to those of English and Spanish SQs. Such a pro analysis overcomes difficulties encountered in the other accounts regarding the distribution of the final particles and their clause-typing, the optionality of the copula, the ubiquitous uses of tag, the connectivity effects, and the island-insensitivity. Analytically, two seeming variants of SQ imply that the derivation of an SQ depends on whether its tag moves and whether a copula exists.
format	article
author	Wei Ting-Chi
author_facet	Wei Ting-Chi
author_sort	Wei Ting-Chi
title	The Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese
title_short	The Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese
title_full	The Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese
title_fullStr	The Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese
title_full_unstemmed	The Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese
title_sort	structure of split questions in mandarin chinese
publisher	Sciendo
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/a52ea2acedbe4858b89d6013b5252614
work_keys_str_mv	AT weitingchi thestructureofsplitquestionsinmandarinchinese AT weitingchi structureofsplitquestionsinmandarinchinese
_version_	1718387282061295616

The Structure of Split Questions in Mandarin Chinese

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