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Universal Concord and Two Types of Universal Constructions in Chinese. Hongyuan Dong Chinese Linguistics Workshop of the DC Metro Area March 16, 2014 @ The George Washington University. Outline. Two universal structures :“ mei … dou …” and “ wh … dou …”
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Universal Concord and Two Types of Universal Constructions in Chinese Hongyuan Dong Chinese Linguistics Workshop of the DC Metro Area March 16, 2014 @ The George Washington University
Outline • Two universal structures :“mei…dou…” and “wh…dou…” • Their syntactic and semantic properties. • A new interpretation based on “universal concord” H. Dong: Universal Concord
Two Universal Constructions 1. mei … dou… meibenshui, wodouxihuanti 2. wh…dou… shenmeshui, wodouxihuanti H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei..dou… [conditions] Leftness Condition • *wodouxihuanmeibenshu Co-occurrence Condition • *woxihuanmeibenshu • *meibenshuwoxihuan H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [exceptions] Complex NPs improve acceptability (Cheng 1991) • Woxihuan ta xiedemeibenshu Ditransitives improve acceptability (Cheng 1991) • Zhangsangei le meigerenyibenshu Indefinite NPs improve acceptability (Huang 1995) • Meigerenkeyinaliangbenshu Reflexives also improve acceptability (Huang 1996) • Meigehouxuanren tan-le-tan ziji H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [exceptions] Constrastive focus stress improves acceptability (see also Cheng 1991) • A: nihaoxiangzhixihuanzhebenshu! • B: sheishuo de? WoxihuanMEIbenshu H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [summary] • Generally speaking, the mei-phrase should occur to the left of the adverb “dou”. • In certain cases, mei-phrase can stay in situ without “dou” H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [issues] • Syntactically, the leftward movement needs to be accounted for • Semantically, the co-occurrence condition needs to be accounted for • Semantically “mei” is usually translated as “every”; “dou” as “all/both” H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [issues cont’d] • “every” is a universal quantifier • “all” is a distributive adverb, similar in its quantification force as a universal quantifier. • Compositionally, they cannot be in the same sentence. H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou…[issues cont’d] • In terms of SLA, students of Chinese as L2 always leave out the “dou”. • This suggests that the follow might be false conceptually: • “mei”=“every” & “dou”=“all/both” H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [previous solutions] • Huang (1996) : “mei”involves subsets relations; “dou” is a sum operator on events. • Meigerendoumai-le yibenshu • The set of people is a subset of book buyers • There is an individual event for each book buying. “Dou” sums up these individual events into a plural book buying event. H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [previous solutions] • Lin (1998): “meigeren” denotes a set of individuals. (i.e. more or less like a plural noun, e.g. renmen, zhexieren, etc.) • “dou” is the usual distributive quantifier • Meigerendou you yibenshu • For each of the individuals among the set of individuals denoted by “meigeren”, the individual has a book. H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [my proposal] • Intuitively: both “mei” and “dou” have some kind of universal quantification force. • Accordingly, Huang’s (1996) theory about “dou” seems to be going further away from such a basic meaning of “dou”. • Lin’s (1998) approach about “mei” strips it of its quantification meaning H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [my proposal] • Thus I propose to combine Lin’s (1998) theory with Kratzer’s (2006) theory on concord. • The basic idea is that: both mei and dou have quantificational force. • Dou is a real quantifier • Mei only carries an agreement feature that needs to be checked off by dou H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [my proposal] Negative Concord: • I didn’t say nothin’ [English non-standard] • Ichhab’ keinem Mensch keinWortnichtgesagt. [German non-standard] • I didn’t say nothin’ to no one. H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [my proposal] Existential Concord • Du musstirgendwemirgendwasschenken. • You must someone something give • You must give something or other to somebody or other as a gift • FOR SOME […x…y…] H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [my proposal] • Universal Concord: • Kratzer (2006) didn’t have any example but only said it is a possibility. • FOR ALL […x…y…] • Note here “FOR SOME” and “FOR ALL” are propositional quantifiers H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [my proposal] • The mei-phrase carries an uninterpretable quantifier feature. • Dou carries an interpretable quantifier feature • The feature on mei needs to be checked off by Dou via a local configuration • vP and IP corresponds to propositions • Movement should preserve scope relations H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [my proposal] • Syntax: H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… [my proposal] Semantics H. Dong: Universal Concord
Wh…dou… • As argued by Dong (2009), Chinese wh-words do not have any inherent quantification power, but instead just denotes a set of alternatives. • E.g. shei[+wh, +focus]: {x| person(x)} • [Zhangsanxihuanshei[+wh, +focus]] • No movement. [+wh] can be checked by feature movement. • [+focus] is realized as the prosodic pattern of the sentence with “shei” bears the prosodic prominence. H. Dong: Universal Concord
Wh…dou… • Movement is needed to check of the [+wh] feature. • [+focus] is still needed because in this structure, the WH should bear the prosodic prominence H. Dong: Universal Concord
Wh…dou… • sheidou hen gaoxing • [IPdou [vPshei[+wh, +focus] hen gaoxing]] • [IPshei[+wh, +focus] dou [vP t hen gaoxing]] H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… vs. Wh…dou… (remaining issues) Multiple association • Meigelaoshibameibenshugeimeigexueshengdoujieshao le yixia • Sheibashenmedongxidoureng-le • *everyone threw out everything • Who threw out everything? Wh…dou… does not allow multiple associations The most adjacent one is associated with dou H. Dong: Universal Concord
Mei…dou… vs. Wh…dou… (remaining issues) • Hao, meigerendoudao le, women kaishiba! • Hao, *nageren/shenmerendoudao le, women kaishiba! Wh…dou… seems to have a wider domain. H. Dong: Universal Concord