Cover not available

In:Interfaces in Grammar
Edited by Jianhua Hu and Haihua Pan
[Language Faculty and Beyond 15] 2019
► pp. 133–166

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 6
System repairing strategy at interface

Wh-in-situ in Mandarin Chinese

 | The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Institut Universitaire de France, CNRS
Published online: 15 April 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.15.06pan
Abstract
Wh-words in Chinese are ambiguous in specific contexts. In actual conversational situations, when speakers put different combinations of stress with intonation on sentences, the relevant wh-words are no longer ambiguous. The encoded prosodic forms can be analyzed as phonological features in the feature bundles associated with a given lexical item in the Lexical Array. Since these prosodic features have semantic effects on the output of the computational system at the Conceptual-Intentional interface, they satisfy Legibility conditions and therefore, they do not violate the Inclusiveness condition. Prosodic marking is only activated as a last resort in cases where semantic ambiguity arises, which can be viewed as a system repairing strategy at interfaces in the sense of Reinhart (2006).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Historical review of the problem
    • 1.2Main proposals
  • 2.Prosodic licensing of wh-in-situ in Chinese
    • 2.1General consideration
    • 2.2Underspecified wh-words
    • 2.3Licensing contexts
      • 2.3.1Unambiguous licensing contexts
      • 2.3.2Ambiguous licensing contexts
        • 2.3.2.1Prosodic licensing of wh-in-situ
        • 2.3.2.2∃ and Q readings
    • 2.4Arguments from wh-topicalization
  • 3.Theoretical consequences
    • 3.1The cases that the prosodic licensing does not look into
    • 3.2Last-resort status and interpretative redundancy
    • 3.3How is my analysis compatible with the previous ones?
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (47)
References
Aoun, Joseph and Y.-H. Audrey Li. 1993. Wh-Elements in Situ: Syntax or LF? Linguistic Inquiry 24, 199–238.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Carl L. 1970. Notes on the description of English questions: the role of an abstract question morpheme. Foundations of Language 6, 197–219.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa L.-S. 1991. On the Typology of WH-Questions. Ph.D.diss., MIT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa L.-S. and Johan Rooryck. 2000. Licensing wh-in-situ. Syntax 31, 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1977. On Wh-movement. In P. Culicover, T. Wasow & A. Akmajian (eds.), Formal Syntax, 71–132. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: the framework. In R. Martin, D. Michaels & J. Uriagereka (eds.), Step by step, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. Derivation by phase. In M. Kenstowicz (eds.), Ken Hale: a Life in Language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Beyond explanatory adequacy. In A. Belletti (eds.), Structures and Beyond, 104–131. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. On phases. In R. Freidin, C. Otero & M.-L. Zubizarreta (eds.), Foundational Issues in Linguistic Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feng, Shengli (冯胜利). 2000. Prosodic-Syntax in Chinese [汉语韵律句法学]. Shanghai: Shanghai Educational Press [上海教育出版社].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heim, Irene. 1982. The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. Ph.D.diss., University of Massachusetts Amherst.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Higginbotham, James & Robert May. 1981. Questions, Quantifiers and Crossing. The Linguistic Review 1, 41–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hu, Jianhua. 2002. Prominence and Locality in Grammar: The Syntax and Semantics of Wh Questions and Reflexives. Ph.D.diss., City University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hu, Jianhua & Haihua Pan (胡建华 潘海华). 2003. Referential property, discrete property and set: a study on questions in islands [指称性、离散性与集合：孤岛中的疑问句研究]. Studies and Exploration in Grammar [语法研究和探索], Vol. 12. Beijing: Commercial Press [商务印书馆], 309–316.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1982. Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Ph.D.diss., MIT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. Chinese passives in comparative perspective. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, New Series 29(4), 423–509.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ishihara, Shinichiro. 2005. Prosody-Scope Match and Mismatch in Tokyo Japanese Wh-questions. English Linguistics 22, 347–379. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
King, Brian. 1986. Ne – a discourse analysis. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 21, 21–46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krein, Kristi. 2007. Prosodic Licensing of French WH-in-situ: An Agree-base Approach, in University of Washington Working Papers in Linguistics (UWWPL) 36, 1–9.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Boya. 2006. Chinese Final Particles and the Syntax of the Periphery. Ph.D.diss., Leiden University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-Wang. 1996. Polarity Licensing and Wh-phrase Quantification in Chinese. Ph.D.diss., University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pan, Haihua (潘海华). 2006. Focus, Tripartite Structures and the Semantic Interpretation of Dou [焦点、三分结构与汉语”都”的语义解释]. Studies and Exploration in Grammar [语法研究和探索], Vol. 13, 163–184 (reprinted in 2011, 471–488). Beijing: Commercial Press [商务印书馆].Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pan, Victor Junnan. 2011a. Interrogatives et quantification en chinois mandarin : une approche générative (Interrogatives and Quantification Theory in Mandarin Chinese: A Generative Approach). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011b. ATB-topicalization in Mandarin Chinese: an Intersective Operator Analysis. Linguistic Analysis 37, 231–272.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Wh-ex-situ in Chinese: Mapping Between Information Structure and Split CP. Linguistic Analysis 39, 371–413.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015a. Mandarin Peripheral Construals at Syntax-Discourse Interface. The Linguistic Review 32, 819–868. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015b. Syntactic and Prosodic Marking of Contrastiveness in Spoken Chinese. In M. M. J. Fernandez-Vest & R. D. Van Valin Jr (eds.), Information Structure and Spoken Language from a Cross-Linguistic Perspective, 191–210. De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015c. Prosodic Licensing of Wh-in-situ in Mandarin Chinese. In Tao, Hongyin and al. (eds.), Proceedings of The 27th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics, 305–321. University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016a. Resumptivity in Mandarin Chinese: A Minimalist Account. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs (TiLSM), Vol. 298. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016b. Resumptivity and Two Types of A’-dependencies in Minimalist Program. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics (IJChL) 3, 46–79.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. Architecture of The Periphery in Chinese: Cartography and Minimalism. London/New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pan, Victor Junnan & Waltraud Paul. 2016. Why Chinese SFPs are neither optional nor disjunctors. Lingua 170, 23–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paris, Marie-Claude. 1981. Problèmes de syntaxe et de sémantique en linguistique chinoise. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paul, Waltraud & Victor Junnan Pan. 2017. What you see is what you get: Chinese sentence-final particles as head-final complementisers. In J. Bayer & V. Struckmeier (eds.), Discourse Particles – Formal Approaches to their Syntax and Semantics, 49–77. De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pesetsky, David. 1987. Wh-in-situ: movement and unselective binding. In Eric J. Reuland, Alice G. B. ter Meulen (eds.), The Presentation of (In)definiteness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1997. Quantifier scope: how labor is divided between QR and choice functions. Linguistics and Philosophy 20, 335–397. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. Wh-in-situ in the framework of the Minimalist Program. Natural Language and Semantics 6, 29–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Interface Strategies: Optimal and Costly Computations. MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sichel-Bazin, Rafèu, Carolin Buthke and Trudel Meisenburg. 2012. Does information structure influence prosody in Occitan and French wh-questions? Talk given at ‘Information Structure in Non-Assertive Speech Acts’, Workshop at the 34th Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), Frankfurt, Germany.
Tang, C.-C. Jane. 1988. Wh-topicalization in Chinese. Ms., Cornell University, Ithaca.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 1994. On Economizing the Theory of A’-Dependencies. Ph.D.diss., MIT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan & Yang Yang. 2017. An Experimental Study of the Prosodic Syntax of Force Shift. Paper presented in the 4th International Conference on Chinese Prosodic Grammar (ICCPG4), Henan University, China.
Wu, Guo. 2005. The discourse function of the Chinese particle ne in statements. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 40, 47–82.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wu, Jian-Xin. 1999. Syntax and semantics of quantification in Chinese, Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Hongming. 2017. Syntax-Phonology Interface: Argumentation from Tone Sandhi in Chinese Dialects. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Lei (张蕾), Li, Bao-lun (李宝伦) & Pan, Haihua (潘海华). 2012. The Semantic Requirement of Dou: a Study of Its Rightward Association. [“都”的语义要求和特征–从它的右向关联谈起]. Studies in Language and Linguistics [语言研究], Vol. 32, 63–71.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zubizarreta, Maria Luisa. 1998. Prosody, focus, and word order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka
2025. Interrogative and standard disjunction in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Semantics DOI logo
Huang, Rui, Jeannette Schaeffer & Xiaowei He
2025.  Mandarin non-interrogative wh -words distinguish between children with Developmental Language Disorder and language-impaired autistic children . Language Acquisition 32:4 ► pp. 574 ff. DOI logo
AN, DUK-HO
2024. Clause types, intonation and stranded embedded clauses. Journal of Linguistics 60:1 ► pp. 51 ff. DOI logo
Choi, Jiyoung, Huy-Linh Dao, Victor Junnan Pan & Sumikazu Nishio
2022. Interfaces morphosyntaxe-sémantique-prosodie : étude des mots interrogatifs en chinois, coréen, japonais et vietnamien. Éla. Études de linguistique appliquée N° 204:4 ► pp. 451 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Changsong & Mingming Zheng
2020. A Morphosyntactic Analysis of Patient-Subject Constructions in Chinese. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 41:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2024. Wh-island Effects in Chinese [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 282], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue