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Form and meaning: negation and question in Chinese

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Form and meaning: negation and question in Chinese

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Content FORM AND MEANING: NEGATION AND QUESTION IN CHINESE by Miao-Ling Hsieh A Dissertation Presented to the FACUL TV OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (LINGUISTICS} May 2001 Copyright 2001 Miao-Ling Hsieh UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA The Graduate School University Park LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 90089~ 1695 This dissertation, written by Miao-Ling Hsieh Under the direction of h.~r. .. Dissertation Committee, and approved by aU its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate Schpol, in partial fuffiUment of requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY iSVl ~ .. '";') ... c.;,;;;;_,p' ·-·······---·-······ .. ··········· -··· _:.:~ .......... ·- """ . ·····-····-··--··-····· ... -· .. ········-·-·-·-········ "EEc!an of Graduate Studies Date May 11, 2001 DISSERTATIONCO!v/MITTEE ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a special debt to the members of my dissertation committee: Y.-H. Audrey Li, Hajime Hoji and George Hayden. Without their help, it would not have been possible for me to finish this dissertation. My committee chair, Audrey, deserves a special credit for her support from the beginning through the end of my study at the University of Southern California (USC). She painstakingly read through every draft of this dissertation and provided detailed comments. She always made herself available when I needed her. I also thank her and the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures for offering me a teaching assistantship. Hajime is a respectful syntactian. I thank him for his comments on my dissertation and the excellent Japanese Linguistics classes that I took from him. My outside member George Hayden has been a great source for the data in early Chinese. I thank him for his help and encouragement. I would also like to thank Joseph Aoun, Barry Schein, and Namkil Kim for serving as the committee members for my qualifying exam. I thank Joseph for his patience in listening to some of my crazy ideas and for his guidance along the way. Barry is fun to talk to and always shows interests in what I want to say. My gratitude extends to my other teachers at the USC: Jean-Roger Vergnaud, Maria Luisa Zubizarreta, and Bernard Comrie. Jean-Roger and Maria-Luisa are always enlightening. Bernard is an excellent person to talk to about different types of languages. I thank him for his help and for his discussion with me on the issues of tense and aspect. I also benefited greatly from Yuki Kuroda's seminar at USC and from the discussion with Hagit Borer. iii I am grateful for the staff members of the linguistics department, especially our Student Affairs Advisor Laura Reiter and Administrative Coordinator Linda W. Culver. Laura understands the difficulty that a graduate student has to undergo. She does her best to accommodate each graduate student's needs. Linda also makes things easier for graduate students. I also want to thank the following graduate students at USC: Hiroshi Aoyagi, Nancy Atrim, Robert Bell, Lina Choueiri, Jose Camacho, Chih-Ping Chang, Sylvia Chen, Dae-Ho Chung, Abdesslam Elomari, Gorka Elordieta, Jin-Man Guo, Roland Hinterholzl, Kaoru Rorie, Charles Kim, Ibtissam Kortobi, Uffe Larsen, Fang Li, Hui-Ju Grace Li, Bingfu Lu, Elabbas Benmamoun, Yuki Matsuda, Keiko Miyagawa, Hiro Oshita, Hong-Keun Park, Liliana Sanchez, Patricia Schneider-Zioga, Tim Dingxu Shi, Shu-Ing Ingrid Shyu, Shaoyi Sun, Ayumi Ueyama, Maki Watanabe, Shin Watanabe, Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu, Emily Xiao Yu, and Ke Zou. They wrap me up with their friendship and advice over those years. I would also like to thank linguists outside of USC, including Kathleen Ahrens, William Baxtor, Yung-0 Biq, Claire Chang, Sam Epstein, Tom Ernst, Francesca Del Goboo, Teresa Griffith, One-Soon Her, Chu-Ren Huang, Ruoh-Mei Hsieh, Hui I Kung, Chingkwei Lee, Mei Li, Xiaoguang Li, Tzong-Hong Lin, Chen-Sheng Liu, Hui-Chuan Lu, Sui-Sang Mok, John Moore, Shawn O'Connell, Sandra Thompson, Waltraud Paul, Eric Potsdam, Ljiljana Progovac, Duanmu Shan, Guo-Ming Sung, Wei-Tien Tsai, Yuzhi Shi, Andrew Simpson, Sze-Wing Tang, Di Wu, Sue-Mei Wu, and Hongming Zhang. Special thanks go to Ljiljana Progovac for her comments on my dissertation and to Sam Epstein for allowing me to sit in his syntax class. iv I am also indebted to C.-T. James Huang, Lisa L.-S. Cheng and Moira Yip. The Workshop at the University of California at Irvine was a memorable experience for me to meet other researchers in this field. During my teaching at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), the Chinese instructors, Ping Chang, Qian He and Xiaogong Cha, made my stay there very pleasant. Special thanks also go to the Chair of the Chinese program at UCSD, Paul Pickowicz, for his confidence in me as a language instructor and for his gracious friendship. In addition, I would also like to thank my colleagues at the University of Michigan, Qinghai Chen, Hsin-Hsin Liang, Hilda Tao and Laura Grande, for their help. My three wonderful teachers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa deserve my sincere thanks: Robert L. Cheng, Hsin-I Hsieh, and Ying-Che Li. I thank Robert and Ying-Che for offering researchship, and Hsin-I for encouraging me to pursue my interest in generative grammar. Without them, my one-year study at the University of Hawaii at Manoa would not be as rewarding as it was. Back in Taiwan where it all began, I thank my teachers, I-Chin Fu, P. Jen-Kuei Li, and Joseph H. Hsu. I also owe almost everything to Shuan-Fan Huang, who has always been a mentor for me. I shall never forget my classmates at Fu Jen Catholic University and their support of my study in the U.S. They are Dorothy Hung, Doris Hwang, Suzy Su, Lucy Tsai, Yu-Fang Wang, Chui Ka-Wai, and Ming-Nuan Yang. I also have to thank Pastor Tsung-Cheh Lai and his wife from Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in San Diego and Pastor Lyian-Syian Chiohh and his wife from Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor. I want to thank my other friends Gerry DiCarlo, Susan Lin, Hifumi Ito, Jack Wang, Li-Chi Huang, Ching-Fang Yang, Wen-Wei Chang, and Miranda Kato for their support. For those who helped me v during the final stage of the dissertation, I want to thank Anita Adhikary, Jianyin Chen, Hueichun Chu, Xiaoxin Li, and Lineke Zuiderweg. Finally, I reserve my deepest thanks for my family. My wholehearted thanks go to my husband Kuo-Min Tseng and my daughter Sharon. Without their sacrifice, love and support along the long journey, it would not be possible for me to finish my Ph.D. and to be "the best Mom in the whole universe" for Sharon. I thank God for all the wonderful things that happen to me and His mercy on me. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................... ii ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................. viii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Affinity between Negation and Question ................................................. 1 1.2 The Scope of Our Study .................................................................... 3 1.3 Framework .................................................................................... 11 1.3.1 Computational System ........................................................... 12 1.3.2 Types ofFeatures ................................................................. 13 1.3.3 Feature Checking and Feature Mismatch ..................................... 13 1.4 Overview of the Thesis ..................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 2: AGREEMENT REQUIREMENT BETWEEN NEGATION AND VERB/ ASPECT 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 17 2.2 Problems with Previous Analyses ......................................................... 18 2.2.1 Completion vs. Incompletion .................................................. 18 2.2.2 Telicity vs. Atelicity Situations ................................................. 19 2.2.3 Boundedness vs. Unboundedness Situations ................................. 20 2.2.4 Realis vs. lrrealis Mood ......................................................... 22 2.2.5 Realized vs. Unrealized Situations ............................................. 25 2.2.6 Past vs. Non-past ................................................................. 29 2.2. 7 Summary .......................................................................... 30 2.3 Ontological Issues ........................................................................... 30 2.4 Negation and Verb/ Aspect ................................................................. 33 2.4.1 Negative Markers are Independent from Aspectuality ...................... 33 2.4.2 Two Hypotheses .................................................................. 37 2.5 Tense Interpretations of Negative Sentences ............................................ 52 2.6 Conclusions ................................................................................... 54 CHAPTER 3: A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF NEGATION 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 56 3.2 Previous Analyses ........................................................................... 56 3.3 Our Syntactic Proposal ...................................................................... 59 3.3.1 Negation is Lower than TP and AspP ......................................... 61 3.3.2 NegP or not ........................................................................ 66 3.3.2.1 Clausal Negation vs. Constituent Negation ........................ 67 3.3.2.2 You in Mei(you) is not a Verb ...................................... 72 3.3.3 PredP vs. VP ...................................................................... 74 3.3.4 Adjunction to V' ......... , ....................................................... 84 3.3.5 Summaries ......................................................................... 91 3.4 Conclusions ................................................................................... 91 CHAPTER 4: NEGATIVE PARTICLE QUESTIONS AND A-NOT-A QUESTIONS vii 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 92 4.2 Problems with Previous Analyses ......................................................... 95 4.3 Two Possible Analyses ..................................................................... 102 4.4 Our Unified Analysis ........................................................................ 105 4.4.1 The Projection of Question and Operator Movement ....................... 105 4.4.3 A More Elaborate Structure'for Negative Particle Questions .............. 128 4.4.4 Summary .......................................................................... 135 4.5 Bu as a Negative Question Particle in Other Varieties of Mandarin .................. 136 4.6 Conclusions ................................................................................... 142 CHAPTER 5: NEGATIVE QUESTION PARTICLES AND PREDICATE-INITIAL QUESTION MARKERS IN SOUTHERN MIN AND OTHER DIALECTS 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 143 5.2 Previous Analyses of Negative Question Particles in Southern Min ................. 145 5.3 Our Analysis of Negative Question Particles in Southern Min ........................ 150 5.3.1 Negative Question Particles Generated in the Regular Negation Position .................................................................................... 151 5.3.2 Q Position ......................................................................... 155 5.3.3 Tag Questions ..................................................................... 162 5.4 [A not AB] Type of A-not-A Question in Southern Min ............................... 167 5.5 Predicate-Initial Question Markers in Suzhou and Southern Min .................... 170 5.6 Comparison between Singapore Teochew and Southern Min ......................... 178 5.7 Conclusions ................................................................................... 187 CHAPTER 6: NEGATION EXPRESSED BY A FORM OF QUESTION 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................... 189 6.2 Distribution of the Na(r) Rhetorical Question ........................................... 190 6.3 Two Possible Analyses ..................................................................... 196 6.4 Our Syntactic Analysis ...................................................................... 202 6.4.1 Overt Realization of the Operator .............................................. 202 6.4.2 The Interpretation of a Wh-word in a Na(r)-Rhetorical Question and the Licensing of a Minimizer ...................................................... 203 6.4.3 Our Feature System vs. Aoun and Li's Feature System ..................... 209 6.4.4 The Problem with Ne ............................................................ 216 6.5 Conclusions ................................................................................... 219 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUDING REMARKS 7.1 The Results of Our Study ................................................................... 221 7.2 Theoretical Contributions .................................................................. 222 REFERENCES .................................................................................... 223 APPENDIX A: ASPECT IN CHINESE ....................................................... 234 APPENDIX B: TENSE AS A GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY IN CHINESE .......................................................................................... 261 A: ASP: BA: CL: DE: E: KA: KAM: PRT: ABBREVIATIONS predicate-initial question marker A in Souzhou aspectual marker object marker ba in Mandarin Chinese classifier structural particle de in Mandarin Chinese structural particle ~ in Southern Min object marker ka in Southern Min; predicate-initial question marker ka in Singapore Teochew predicate-initial question marker kam in Southern Min sentence-final particle viii ix ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the issue of form and meaning as manifested in negation and question in Chinese. The affinity between negation and question is investigated. We are interested to see what it means when negation implies question, and when question implies negation. The former refers to the case where question employs a form of negation, and the latter to the case where negation is expressed by a form of question. For the first purpose, we study negative particle questions (NEG-PRT -Q) and A-not-A questions in Mandarin Chinese and other dialects. As for the second purpose, we investigate a Mandarin question form that expresses a negative proposition obligatorily. According to Thompson (1998), the marking of clausal-level interrogation tends to occur in sentence peripheral positions (with exceptions like A-not-A questions in Chinese and continental southeast Asian Languages); in contrast, standard negation for clauses is generally indicated by a special word or an affix that is positioned with regards to, and must be described, in terms of the predicate. However, negation and question seem to be closely related as exhibited in cases where negation implies question, and question implies negation. The study of NEG-PRT-Qs and A-not-A questions shows that a locus of negation and question is a position between TP and PredP. We call it QP, adopting from Aoun & Li (1993, and references cited there). The question at this level is a wh-question. It is marked with the [+WH] feature at Q, and it contains an operator in the Spec of QP. This [+Q] operator raises to the appropriate Spec of CP for its scope. We assume the movement is driven by the feature checking with the strong [ +Q] feature of the appropriate co. X Our QP analysis provides a unified analysis for NEG-PRT-Qs and A-not-A questions. They fall into three major categories under a QP analysis: one has a morphologically complex word, one contains a coordinate structure including the positive conjunct and the negative conjunct (with anaphoric ellipsis or VP ellipsis), and one contains a question particle that sits in Q. The morphologically complex A not-A form is marked with the [+WH] feature, and raises to Q for feature checking its [+WH] feature with Q. This conforms to the spirit of Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995), which postulates that words are assigned to structures in their full, surface morphological form. The existence of a QP is further supported by the study of the question form that necessarily implies a negative proposition, i.e. the na(r) question in Mandarin. It is argued that .lli!(r} is an overt realization of the operator of the Spec of QP. This operator has the [+NEG] feature, which is responsible for licensing a special type of negative polarity items, i.e. the minimizers such as ban dian don~xi 'half bit of thing.' Following the split-INFL hypothesis originated with Pollock (1989), we have established the existence of QP, AspP and NegP. The hierarchy between the latter two is AspP and NegP, and QP occurs higher than AspP. Postulating the above functional categories and employing a feature checking mechanism allow us to characterize the syntax of negation and question in Chinese in a precise way. They provide a way to articulate the non-one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning as exhibited in negation and question. 1 CHAPTER! INTRODUCTION 1.1 Affinity between Negation and Question In this study we examine the affinity between negation and question. Semantically speaking, a yes-no question is more closely related to negation than a wh-question. 1 Consider a wh-question first. A wh-question is a many-valued function, which presupposes the disjunction of a set of propositions. Each member of the set differs from the others in that it supplies a different value for the variable. For example, (1) Who left the door open? The wh-question in ( 1) presupposes the disjunction of the set of propositions expressed by the statements that could be made by uttering (2a)- (2c) and others. (2) a. John left the door open. b That little boy left the door open. c. Uncle Harry left the door open. In particular, (1) presupposes the proposition expressed by (3). (3) Someone left the door open. The discussion of this section is based on Lyons (1977). 2 The indefinite pronoun 'someone' in (3) can also be thought of as a variable whose range of possible values depends upon the universe-of-discourse. An open yes/no question can also be treated as a function that contains a two- valued variable. 2 Consider the yes/no question in ( 4 ). ( 4) Is the door open? The question in (4) is equivalent to the bipartite disjunctive question as given in (5). (5) Is the door open or not? The appropriate answer to (4) is either 'Yes' or 'No.' The 'Yes' answer implies the proposition expressed by the statement in (6a), and the 'No' answer implies the proposition expressed by (6b). ( 6) a. The door is open. b. The door is not open. Thus just as the wh-question in ( 1) presupposes the truth of the proposition expressed by the indefinite statement in (3), a yes/no question presupposes the truth of the disjunction of (6a) ('p') and (6b) ('-p'). In this sense, a yes/no question seems to be more closely related to negation. 2 Questions are open in the following senses: (i) they are neutral with respect to any indication of the speaker's beliefs as to the truth-value of the preposition 'p,' when they are asked of an addressee, unless they are given a particular prosodic or paralinguistic modulation, they convey no information to the addressee that the speaker expects him to accept 'p' or reject 'p.' 3 From a different point of view, negation and question are marked at different positions. According to Thompson (1998), marking of clause-level interrogation (except A-not-A questions in Chinese and continental Southeast Asian Languages) tends to occur in sentence-peripheral positions. In contrast, standard negation for clauses is generally indicated by the use of a special word or affix that is positioned with respect to, and must be described, in terms of the predicate. The difference in marking seems to suggest that negation is independent from question. However, there are question types in Chinese that clearly indicate that a negative form can contribute to the formation of a question. They are the so-called negative particle question and A-not-A question. The former contains a negative question particle at the end of a sentence, while the latter is composed of a negative part and an positive part. Furthermore, there is a question form in Chinese that necessarily implies a negative proposition. The question is then how negation is related to question and how to characterize such a relation. Thus our study concerns the form and meaning of question and negation, and ultimately none one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning. In the section that follows, we will introduce the scope of our study. Section 1.3 is a brief introduction of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995), a framework that we rely on for our study. The overview is included in Section 1.4. 1.2 The Scope of Our Study There are five forms of negation in Mandarin Chinese: bu 'not,' meiCyou) 'not(have),' bu shi 'not be,' buyao 'don't' and hie 'don't.' The latter two are prohibitive markers. Shi in bu shi is a focus marker when it is not used as a copulative verb. 4 We will only focus on the two main negative markers, i.e. bu and mei(you). in this dissertation. Descriptively speaking, as S. Ding (1963) notes, bu is used before adjectives, verbs and modal verbs: (7) a. Zhe-tiao malu bu ping. (by + adjective) this-CL road not level 'This road is not level' b. Zilaishui bu qing. (by + adjective) tap:water not clear 'The tap water is not clear.' (8) a. Tabu da ren, ye burna ren. (by+ verb+ ..... ) he not hit person also not scold person 'He does not hit people, nor does he scold people.' b. Ta shenme ye bu shuo. (bu +verb+ ..... ) he what also not say 'He did not want to say anything.' (9) a. Wo bu neng zheme zuo. (bu +modal verb+ ..... ) I not can this:way do 'I cannot do so.' b. Ta bu ken qu. he not willing go 'He is not willing to go.' 5 Bu negates an adjective in (7), a verb in (8) and a modal verb in (9). It can also precede certain preverbal elements such as the object marked by baas in (lOa), or a prepositional phrase as in (lOb): (10) a. Tabu ba dongxi gei ta. (hu + BA NP + .... ) she not BA thing give he 'She did not want to return the thing to him.' b. Ta conglai bu xiang ren yao yi-dian dongxi. (bu + PP + ..... ) he ever not from person ask one-bit thing 'He never asks anything from other people.' Finally, it can be inserted in a resultative compound, meaning 'not possible': (11) a. Wo ting-bu-jian tamen shuo shenme. (V+bu+V) I listen-not-arrive they say what 'I couldn't hear what they said.' b. Wo na-bu-dong. (V+bu+V) I take-not-move 'I cannot move it.' Mei(you), according to S. Ding, has two functions. One function of mei(you) is to negate the possessive verb you 'have': (12) a. Ta mei (you) pengyou. he not have friend 'He does not have friends.' b. Ta you pengyou. he have friend 'He has friends.' 6 The other function of mei(you) denies that an action (xin~wei) has taken place. In this case, the counterpart of (13a) is (13b). (13) a. Ta mei(you) lai. he not(have) come 'He didn't come.' b. Ta lai le. he come ASP 'He came.' J. Wu (1982, p. 157) contends that bu and mei(you) are used to deny the occurrence of an action (don~zuo xin~wei de fashen~) (by can deny the existence of a state as well). But their meanings are different. Bu, when used with certain predicates, can be the negation of the subjective desire (zhu~uan yiyuan), or the negation of objective possibility (ke~uan kenen~). The former means the subject is not willing to have an action (don~zuo xin~wei). In contrast, mei(you) is the negation of an existing action. It is not subjective. For example, (14) a. Ta mei(you) si. = he not(have) die 'He didn't die.' Tahuo-zhe. he live-ASP 'He is alive.' b. Tabu si. he not die = 'He does not want to die.' Tayaohuo. he want live 'He wants to live.' 7 For J. Wu, when mei(you) is used, what is denied is an action that has been realized. It either denies the perfective aspect or the experiential aspect. Thus a mei(you) sentence has a past or a present interpretation, but not a future interpretation: (15) Ta zuotian mei(you) qu, jintian you mei(you) qu, mingtian jiu he yesterday not(have) go today again not(have) go tomorrow then suoxing bu/*mei(you) qu le. go:all:the:way not/not(have) go ASP 'He didn't go yesterday. He didn't go today again. And he will not go tomorrow.' Bu, in contrast, is used to deny the actual (xianshi) existence of an action or a state, or to deny that of a habitual action. It is independent of aspect and tense. Thus, it can be used to denote present, past or future. (16) Ta zuotian bu qu, jintian 121! qu, mingtian ye bu qu. he yesterday not go today not go tomorrow not go 'He did not want to go yesterday. Neither did he want to go today. He does not want to go tomorrow either.' Given the above descriptions, we know bu can be used to denote present, past or future, while mei(you) only has a past or present interpretation. We also know that 8 in contrast to a bu sentence, a mei(you) sentence does not describe a subjective desire. However, it is still not clear why the two negative markers behave differently in these ways. In Chapter 2, we will show that crucial distinction is between a dynamic and a non-dynamic situation. As far as questions are concerned, Chinese has the so-called negative particle questions and A-not-A questions. A negative particle question employs only a negative marker to mark it as a question: (17) Ni kan-wan na-ben shu meiyou? you read-finish that-CL book not.have 'Did you finish reading that book?' On the other hand, according to C.-T. Huang (1991), the A-not-A paradigm includes examples like (18): (18) a. Ta xihuan zhe-ben shu (haishi) tabu xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like this-CL book or he not like this-CL book 'Does he like this book or doesn't he like this book?' b. Ta xihuan zhe-ben shu bu xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like this-CL book not like this-CL book 'Does he like this book or doesn't [he] like this book?' c. Ta xihuan bu xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like not like this-CL book 'Does he like or doesn't [he] like this book?' 9 d. Ta xihuan zhe-ben shu bu xihuan ?3 he like this-CL book not like 'Does he like this book or doesn't [he] like [it]?' e. Ta xi-bu-xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like-not-like this-CL book 'Does he like or not like this book?' The A part in an A-not-A form can be part of a verb, a verb, a verb phrase, or even a clause. C.-T. Huang refers to the four question types in (18b-e) as A-not-A questions, and to the type in (18a) as disjunctive question. In their analysis of negative particle questions, Cheng, Huang and Tang (1997) argue that this kind of question is formed by the movement of a negative marker from its preverbal position to the sentence-final position. On the other hand, C.-T. Huang (1991) argues for a modular approach for A-not-A questions. The modular approach breaks up the paradigm in (18) into three separate sub-paradigms. Sentence (18a) is a true disjunctive question that may undergo coordinate deletion, resulting in reduced haishi 'or' questions. Sentences (18c) and (18e) are [A not AB] questions that are derived via reduplication from a simplex D-structure. Sentence (18d) is an [AB not A] question with a base-generated coordinate VP which undergoes a process of anaphoric ellipsis. And sentence (18b) may be analyzed either as type [A not AB] or as type [AB not A] (where B is null). From now on, we 3 Conversely, C.-T. Huang (1982, p. 280) marks the same sentence by'*?.' In fact, according to J. Shao (1996, p.111), this type of sentence (the one using mei) is rarely used, except when the verb is monosyllabic: (i) Lingyun, ni daodi gy,k mri..gy? Lingyun you indeed go ASP not go 'Lingyun, did you go?' 10 follow C.-T. Huang in referring to the four question types in (18b)-(18c) as A-not-A questions, and the first type in (18a) as disjunctive questions. In our study, we are interested in where the negative question particle occurs and how to characterize all the question types involving negation. We shall argue against Cheng, Huang and Tang's analysis for negative particle questions. Given the similarities of negative particle questions and A-not-A questions (e.g. the way they are answered and island effects), we will propose a QP analysis to unify both A-not A questions and negative particle questions. This analysis will be shown to be able to characterize the relevant data from Southern Min and other dialects of Chinese. Our study also concerns a type of question that obligatorily implies a negative proposition, the na(r) rhetorical question as exemplified in (19). (19) a. Ta na(r) zhidao?! he where know 'How would he know?!' b. Wo na(r) qu-guo Zhongguo?! I where go-ASP China 'How can I have been to China?!' Generally speaking, such a question is called a rhetorical question because the speaker knows the answer, and does not intend to elicit an answer from the addressee. It is true that other questions can be used rhetorically: (20) Ta zhidao shenme? he know what 'What does he know?' 11 However, unlike other wh-questions that are used rhetorically, the na(r) question can only be a rhetorical question. We are concerned with the position of na(r) and how to characterize the relation between negation and question as exhibited in this kind of question. We propose that na(r) is an overt realization of the negative operator in the Spec of QP. It is marked with the [+NEG] feature. 1.3 Framework The framework that we adopt for our study is the Minimalist Program as in Chomsky (1995). In this section we will briefly discuss some important features of the framework, and the assumptions that are relevant to our study. The Minimalist Program is derived from the Principles and Parameter framework (see Chomsky and Lasnik 1993). It aims at a minimalist design for linguistic theory. The components and operations of the theory of grammar are "conceptually necessary." The only levels of representations are the (conceptually necessary) interface levels: the articulatory-perceptual (PF) and conceptual-intentional (LF) interfaces. The levels known as D-Structure and S-Structure in earlier frameworks are eliminated. The overall design of the framework is exhibited in (21) (Taken from Abraham, Epstein, Thrrunsson and Zwart 1996): (21) Merge&Move ~ LexicotTTt-/- ....... ,."'" 1 -----I·~LF Spell Out • PF 12 The most noticeable feature of this framework is that movement is morphologically driven (i.e. by feature-checking). Movement takes place only when certain morphological features cannot be checked otherwise (Chomsky 1995, p. 199). The Minimalist Program is a strong lexical approach in the sense that words are assumed to emerge from the Lexicon fully inflected. Thus there is no affixation of inflectional morphemes via the application of syntactic head-adjunction. Instead, lexical heads are fully inflected, and they must move to functional heads to check their matching functional features in the syntactic structure. Language variation is expressed solely in terms of the features of functional heads. 1.3.1 Computational System The computational system of human language recursively constructs syntactic objects from items listed in a numeration and from syntactic objects already formed. Its purpose is to map the numeration onto the only two interfaces: PF and LF. The term 'numeration' refers to an array of items that can potentially be joined to form a larger syntactic object and ultimately a grammatical sentence formed from a convergent derivation. Derivations are viewed as a series of the operations Select and Merge followed by the operation Attract/Move. Select chooses a lexical item from the numeration and introduces it into the derivation. Merge combines the newly selected lexical items with syntactic objects already formed to create a new syntactic object. The derivation converges when these two operations have exhausted all the items listed in the original numeration. Movement is an operation by which a word, phrase or set of features is moved from one location in a structure to another. Attraction is an operation by which features carried by one constituent percolate up to (and are inherited by) another constituent. 13 1.3.2 Types of Features Movement is driven by feature checking. Features can be interpretable or non interpretable. Interpretable features include the <1>-features of nouns, and categorial features such as [V] and [N]. Some uninterpretable features are the Case features of nouns, the Case assigning features ofT, and the <I>-features of verbs and adjectives. A [+interpretable] feature does not need to be checked, unless it is [+strong]. But it can still take part in checking relations. While [-interpretable] features must be erased, [+interpretable] features are not deleted when checked. 1.3.3 Feature Checking and Feature Mismatch Features are checked by entering into a checking relation with a targeted element's sublabel, or list of features. There are three configurations in which features can be checked: substitution, adjunction to an XP, and adjunction to a head. (22) a. Substitution (a specifier position is created) XP ~ yp X' [F] / xo [F) b. Adjunction to XP (a two-segment XP is created) XP ~ YP XP [F] / xo [F] 14 c. Adjunction to xo (new zero-level maximal projection is created) For covert checking, features can only be adjoined to xo. 1.4 Overview of the Thesis The rest of the dissertation is organized as follows: Chapter 2 addresses the agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect. We first categorize the previous analyses into six categories, and point out the problem(s) with each category. We then discuss two hypotheses. According to one, the distinction between the two negative markers bu and meiCyou) is sensitive to situation types. According to the other, these markers are sensitive to grammatical aspect. We conclude that the distinction between the two negative markers should be characterized as a distinction between a dynamic and non-dynamic situation. A non-dynamic situation is an unchanged situation, which can express volition, habituality, or future reference. Chapter 3 explores the syntax of the two negative markers. It begins with a brief summary of the previous syntactic analyses on negation. These analyses differ with respect to syntactic categories, scope properties, and syntactic positions. In contrast to all previous analyses, we argue that mei(you) heads NegP, which is lower than AspP and higher than PredP. We assume AspP is headed by the sentence-final particle le. On the other hand, bu is adjoined to Pred' or V'. 15 In Chapter 4, we discuss negative particle questions and A-not-A questions in Chinese. We argue against Huang, Cheng and Tang's (1997) raising proposal in which negative question markers in Mandarin move from the base-generated preverbal negation position to the sentence-final position. We propose a QP analysis for negative particle questions as well as A-not-A questions. The Q is marked with the [+WH] feature and the Spec of QP is occupied by an operator because these question types are wh-questions and they respect islands. We argue that the negative particle question involving meiyou in Mandarin consists of a QP that takes a coordinate structure with VP ellipsis. In contrast to C.-T. Huang (1982), we propose that the [A not AB] type of A-not-A questions contains a word that is marked with the [+WH] feature. The [+WH] feature raises to Q in order to check its [+WH] feature with the Q head. Chapter 5 discusses negative question particles and predicate-initial question markers in Southern Min and other Chinese dialects. Southern Min has quite a few negative question particles. We argue that m with a prolonged mid-level tone (mm), si-m· 'be-not,' and si-bo· 'be-not.have' mark tag questions, as opposed to boe· 'not.yet,' be· 'notable,' and m·, and bo· 'not.have.' The latter four Neg-particles exhibit island effects and are answered like wh-questions. We propose that all of them involve a QP. Boe· and be· consist of a QP that takes a coordinate structure with VP ellipsis, whereas bo· heads a QP and m· moves from a regular negative position to Q. The predicate-initial question marker krun in Southern Min is argued to mark a yes/no question, and is generated in T. It is marked with the [ +Q] feature, and raises to co to check its strong [ +Q] feature with co. In contrast, the predicate initial question marker A in Suzhou is generated in Q, and is marked with [+WH] 16 feature because it marks a wh-question. Data from Singapore Teochew is also discussed. Chapter 6 studies the na(r) rhetorical question as a case in which negation is expressed by a question form. We argue that na(r) is an overt realization of the negative operator. This negative operator, which is marked with the [+NEG] feature, is responsible for the licensing of a special type of negative polarity item (i.e. minimizers like the ban 'half phrase). This negative operator captures the relation between negation and question in a lli!(rl rhetorical question. Finally, Chapter 7 concludes the dissertation. CHAPTER2 AGREEMENT REQUIREMENT BETWEEN NEGATION AND VERB/ASPECT 2.1 Introduction 17 As we have noted, there are two primary negative markers in Mandarin Chinese, bu and mei(you). The agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect has been an object of study for a long time, and a great deal of proposals has been made to explain it. However, there is still very little consensus among Chinese linguists as to the best way to characterize the difference between the two negative markers. Part of the reason for this is the complexity of the interaction between aspect/tense and negation. A more unfortunate reason, in our opinion, is the difference in terminology. To avoid this problem and to facilitate my presentation, we have included two appendices. In Appendix A, we include a discussion of four common situation types (states, achievements, accomplishments, and activities in the sense of Vendler (1967)) and grammatical aspect in Chinese. In Appendix B, we argue that hui 'will,' but not yao 'want,' should be considered a (relative) future tense marker. In this chapter we will only focus on the interaction between negation and verb/aspect. We will argue that the best way to characterize the aspectual difference of the two negative markers is the opposition between a dynamic and non-dynamic situation. That is, mei(you) is used to deny a dynamic situation, while bu is used to deny a non-dynamic situation. A non-dynamic situation is defined as an unchanged situation, which can express volition, habituality, or future reference. 18 This chapter is organized as follows. Section 2.2 discusses the problems of previous analyses. Section 2.3 discusses ontological issues raised by our study. This is followed by a discussion of our two hypotheses about the agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect in Section 2.4. In Section 2.5, we discuss the time references of the two negative sentences. Finally, Section 2.6 concludes the chapter. 2.2 Problems with Previous Analyses In this section, we will divide the relevant literature into six categories, and discuss one or two representative works within each category. 2.2.1 Completion vs. Incompletion One view regarding negation in Chinese is that mei(you) denies the completion of a situation, and bY has no relation with completion. For example, Li and Thompson (1981) claim that bu is a neutral negative marker, whereas mei(you) denies the completion of a situation. According to Li & Thompson, bu in (la) simply denies the existence of a state, and mei(you) in ( 1 b) denies the completion of an event or an action. ( 1) a. Zhangsan bu congming. Zhangsan not intelligent 'Zhangsan is not intelligent.' b. Zhangsan mei(you) he jiu. Zhangsan not(have) drink wine 'Zhangsan didn't drink wine.' 19 This position, however, cannot be maintained. As X. Liu (1988) points out, if mei(you) denies the completion of a situation, sentence ( 1 b) would mean Zhangsan stopped in the middle of the process of drinking without completing it. In other words, it should be able to mean that the action started but was not completed. However, this is not the case--mei(you) in (lb) denies action entirely (S. Lii 1983). 2.2.2 Telicity vs. Atelicity Situations Another view that is common in the literature is that the distinction between bu and mei(you) lies in telicity. The claim that the two negative markers can be distinguished by telicity is exhibited in M. Li (1999). Utilizing features to contrast mei(you) with bu, Li claims that bu is marked with a [-telic] feature, while mei(you) has a [ +telic] feature. Telicity is a notion that distinguishes an accomplishment ('John is making a chair') from an activity ('John is singing.') 4 The former refers to a telic situation because it has a terminal point. 5 The situation automatically terminates when the chair is complete (Comrie 1976, pp. 44-48). The latter describes an atelic situation because it lacks such a terminal point, and can be protracted indefinitely or broken off at any point. However, M. Li's line of analysis is not satisfactory for the following reason. Consider the examples in (2). 4 See Appendix A for the discussion of situation types in more details. 5 For Comrie (1976), only accomplishments can be telic because telicity requires a process leading to the terminal point as well as a terminal point. Thus, 'John reached the summit,' which describes an achievement, is not telic because we cannot speak of the process leading up to John's reaching the summit by saying 'John is reaching the summit.' In contrast, both accomplishments and achievements are marked with [+telic] in Smith (1991) because both contain natural end points, rather than arbitrary end points. To be safe, we will restrict our discussion to accomplishments. (2) a. Zhangsan kan-le yi-ben shu. Zhangsan read-ASP one-CL book 'Zhangsan read a book.' b. Zhangsan mei(you) kan shu/*yi-ben shu.6 Zhangsan not(have) read book/one-CL book 'Zhangsan didn't read a book.' 20 The event denoted by (2a) is telic because it contains a natural end point as denoted by the specific object. When the book is read, the event is over. In contrast, the mei(you) sentence in (2b) does not denote a telic situation. It is thus dubious to say that mei(you) denies a telic situation or it can change a situation from atelic to telic, as M. Li would argue. Thus, the claim that a distinction between the two negative markers is related to telicity cannot be maintained. 2.2.3 Boundedness vs. Unboundedness Situations Some have argued that the difference between .!;rn and mei(you) is related to the notion of boundedness. Specifically, they claim that bu denies an unbounded 6 C.-T. Huang (1987, p. 253) notes that specific NPs are positive polarity items and thus the object NP in (i) must be construed as having wide scope with respect to negation. (i) John didnl. see a certain man. The Chinese equivalent of (i) as given in (ii) is ungrammatical because the inversed scope reading is generally not possible in Chinese as C.-T. Huang (1982) points out. (ii) *Zhangsan mei(you) kanjian yi-~e ren. Zhangsan not(have) see one-CL person 'Zhangsan didn't see a certain man.' 21 situation, while mei(you) denies a bounded situation. Most noticeably, such a claim is seen in J. Shen (1995).7 Let us consider the notion of 'boundedness.' If 'unbounded' is understood to be 'atelic' as in Dahl (1981), then 'bounded' is telic. This faces the same problem we have seen in examples such (2b ), where mei(you) denies an atelic situation. Even if a 'bounded' situation can have an arbitrary final point, it is still hard to say that mei(you) denies a bounded situation in (2b ). One might argue what mei(you) denies in (2b) is a bounded situation because a mei(you) sentence seems to deny the existence of a positive bounded event, which is indicated by the perfective marker - le. 8 However, it should be noted that (2b) can simply denote the non-existence of an event. It does not have to deny the existence of a positive bounded situation. More importantly, the positive counterpart of (2b) is ungrammatical: (3) *Zhangsan kan-le shu.9 Zhangsan read-ASP book 'Zhangsan read.' Furthermore, mei(you) can be used to negate a progressive sentence, which should not be considered bounded in any sense. 7 In Ernst (1995), while he claims that the occurrence of 1m requires 'an unbounded aspectual situation,' he does not explicitly claim that ~ requires a bounded situation. For him, the presence of UHti depends on the perfective marker~· 8 9 (i) W. Wang's (1965) syntactic proposal is based on this assumption. This sentence becomes grammatical if the sentence-final k is added. See Appendix A. Zhangsan kan-le shu le. Zhangsan read-ASP book ASP 'Zhangsan has read.' 22 ( 4) Zhangsan mei(you) zai tiaowu. Zhangsan not(have) in dance 'Zhangsan is not dancing.' Thus the claim that the distinction between bu and mei(you) lies in boundedness cannot be maintained. 2.2.4 Realis vs. lrrealis Mood L. Liu ( 1997) explicitly argues that the distinction between the two forms of negation in Chinese, bu and mei(you), is one of mood. That is, bu or bu hui is used for an irrealis situation, while mei(you) is used for a realis situation only. She proposes the following correspondences: (5) positive negative realis mei(you) 'not(have)' irrealis hui 'will,' 0 bu 'not,' bu hui 'not will' Le in (5), for L. Liu, can be the verb final perfective -le or the sentence-final particle le.1° Furthermore, as given in (5), a positive sentence and its negative counterpart have the same realis or irrealis categorization. Let us consider the notion of mood first. Mood is concerned with the actuality of an event or a state. According to Bhat (1999, p. 63), there are three parameters that are used by languages in establishing modal distinctions: lO The use of the two aspectual markers is discussed in Appendix A. For a recent discussion of the distinction between the two hl.'s, see Sybesma (1997). 23 (6) a. a speaker's opinion or judgement regarding the actuality of an event b. the type of evidence that is available for the speaker to form this judgement c. the type of need or requirement which forces the speaker (or someone else) to get involved in an event (or to carry out an action) The first two parameters establish 'epistemic' (knowledge-based) moods, and the third one establishes 'deontic' moods. The most important distinction in the category of epistemic is the one between realis and irrealis. According to Mithun (1995), this is a distinction between events or states that are portrayed as actualized or as actually occurring on the one hand, and the ones that are still within the realm of thought, on the other. In a language that distinguishes realis from irrealis mood, situations that are portrayed as having occurred or are actually occurring are marked by the realis marker(s), while all other situations are marked by the irrealis marker(s). The distinction does not have to correspond to reality. As pointed out by Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994 ), the grammatical categories referred to by realis and irrealis are far from uniform cross-linguistically. Construction types marked as irrealis in one language may be marked as realis in another or vice versa. Negative constructions, as Mithun (1995, pp. 380-384) points out, generally show the same irrealis or realis categorization as their positive counterparts. However, the situation is quite different in a language called Caddo. In this language, questions and negatives are systematically categorized as irrealis, irrespective of the irrealis/realis types of their non-question, positive counterparts. 24 The question is then whether the distinction of the two negative markers in Chinese is actually the manifestation of the realis/irrealis mood distinction, as L. Liu claims. Now let us move back to L. Liu's proposal. Under L. Liu's proposal, the realis of a positive sentence is marked by le, and the irrealis of a positive sentence is marked by the modal hui 'will' or by the zero marker. This proposal predicts that sentences that contain other modals should be divided into two categories. They are irrealis when their positive counterpart has no le (verb -le, or sentence-finalle), and they should be realis when there isle. And given the correspondence provided by L. Liu above, bu should be used in the former situation, while meiCyou) should be used in the latter situation. The prediction is borne out for modals such as nenggou 'can.' (7) a. Zhangsan nenggou lai. Zhangsan can come 'Zhangsan can come.' b. Zhangsan bu nenggou lai. Zhangsan not can come 'Zhangsan cannot come.' (8) a. Zhangsan nenggou lai le. Zhangsan can come ASP 'Zhangsan can come now.' b. Zhangsan meiCyou) nenggou lai. (Y.-R. Chao 1968, p. 666) Zhangsan not(have) can come 'Zhangsan couldn't come.' However, the prediction fails for modals such as keyi 'may': (9) a. Zheli keyi gai fangzi. here may build house 'Houses may be built here.' b. Zheli bu keyi gai fangzi. here not may build house 'Houses are not allowed to be built here.' (10) a. Zheli keyi gai fangzi le. here may build house ASP 'Houses may be built here now.' b. *Zheli mei(you) keyi gai fangzi. here not(have) may build house 'Houses were not allowed to be built here.' 25 The examples in ( 10) show keyi 'may' can occur with the sentence-finalle, which indicates a change of state, but mei(you) cannot occur with keyi. This thus constitutes evidence against L. Liu's proposal. 2.2.5 Realized vs. Unrealized Situations Some believe that mei(you) denies an actually realized situation, while bu denies a situation that is not actually realized. This realized/unrealized distinction is based on reality. It is thus different from the realis/irrealis mood analysis discussed above because the realis/irrealis mood distinction depends on how a language makes 26 a distinction between a realized and an unrealized situation, and may not correspond to reality. This proposal, however, cannot be on the right track. The first piece of evidence against this proposal comes from the observation that a bu sentence can occur as the complement of a perception verb such as kanjian 'see.' For example, ( 11) a. Wo kanjian tabu chi yu. we see he not eat fish 'I saw him not eat fish.' b. Wo kanjian tabu ~an xia shui youyong. I see he not dare descend water swim 'I saw him dare not to go in the water to swim.' Crucially, the sentences in ( 11) denote direct perception. If a bu sentence denotes an unrealized situations, it should not be able to be directly perceived. Thus the fact that a bu sentence can occur as the complement of kanjian 'see' as shown in ( 11 b) clearly indicates that bu does not necessarily denote unrealized situations. More examples along this line are given in (12). (12) a. Wo kanjian ta yi-dong ye bu dong. I see he one-move also not move I saw him not budge.' b. Wo kanjian ta mei(you) dong. I see he not(have) move 'I saw him not move.' 27 Sentence (12a) further shows that a bu sentence can describe a realized situation just like the mei(you) sentence in (12b). The second piece of evidence concerns factive verbs such as Y.i!Yi 'surprised' and yihan 'regret.' Bu, as shown in (13), can negate the complement offactive verbs. (13) a. Wo hen yayi tabu hui youyong. I very surprise he not can swim 'I was surprised that he could not swim.' b. Wo hen yihan ta bu nen~ lai. I very regret he not can come 'I regretted that he couldn't come.' Since complements of factive verbs denote 'realized' situations, the situation denoted by the bu complement should be considered 'realized.' Therefore, not all bu sentences denote 'unrealized' situations. Thus the 'realized' and 'unrealized' distinction does not distinguish the use of the two negative markers bu and mei(you). A similar view, which makes reference to aspectual markers, is proposed in D. Xu (1997). According to D. Xu, the distribution ofbu is characterized in the form of the following constraint: (14) Bu and aspect markers The Mandarin negative marker bu 'not' is semantically incompatible with aspect markers denoting 'realization.' The statement in (14) implies the existence of two types of aspect markers--one denotes 'realization,' and the other does not or has nothing to do with realization. It says that bu can only occur with those aspect markers that do not denote 'realization.' 28 This view, again, faces problems very similar to what we have discussed. Consider the two examples in (15). (15) a. *Na-ke shu 1m dang-zhe. that-CL tree not block-Asp 'That tree is not blocking.' b. Ni zhua-zhe wo de shou. you grab-ASP I DE hand (i) 'You are holding my hand.' (ii) 'Hold on to my hand.' In order to rule out (15a), -zhe has to be an aspect marker that denotes realization. The sentence in (15b), however, is ambiguous. As pointed out by F.-H. Liu (1997, p. 78), (15b) can have a realized reading, or an unrealized reading. It describes either a resultative state or a command to bring about a change of a state. The former is realized, while the latter is clearly not. If -zhe denotes 'realization' as D. Xu would claim, it is not clear why (15b) is ambiguous. 11 Furthermore, bu can indeed occur with -zhe in some cases: (16) Ta 1m zuo-zhe. he not sit-ASP 'He does not want to sit.' 11 One might think that the use of -zhe in a command also indicates a realized situation. However, this cannot be an actual realized situation because the situation is yet to happen and can only be in the realm of the speaker's mind, hoping that this situation will be realized. 29 Similarly, the occurrence of -le cannot determine a situation to be realized or not. For example, (17) a. Wo xie-le yi-shou ge. I write-ASP one-CL song 'I wrote a song.' b. Women mingtian chi-wan-le zaofan, jiu chufa. we tomorrow eat-finish-ASP breakfast then set:off 'We will set off after we eat our breakfast tomorrow morning.' Sentence ( 17 a) denotes a realized situation, while sentence ( 17b) denotes an unrealized situation. The event that is denoted by the first clause in ( 17b) is at best 'realized' as relative to the event that is denoted by the second clause. But this is different from saying that it denotes a realized situation. 2.2.6 Past vs. Non-past Finally, another analysis that has been suggested in the literature is that bu denies a non-past event, or a state, and meiCyou) a past event. B. Chiu (1993), based on (18a), argues such a position. However, this position cannot be maintained in view of sentences like (18b): (18) a. Zhangsan mingtian bu/*mei(you) qu. Zhangsan tomorrow not/not(have) go 'Zhang san will not go tomorrow.' b. Zhe-ge difang yiqian bu qiong. this-CL place before not poor 'This place was not poor before.' 30 Example ( 18b) shows that a bu sentence can have a past time reference. Thus, the past/non-past distinction does not distinguish the two negative markers. 2.2.7 Summary We have shown above that the aspectual notions such as 'telicity' and 'boundedness' do not characterize the difference between the two negative markers. We have also shown that the distinction between the two negative markers also does not lie in tense or mood. In Section 2.4, we will discuss two hypotheses that address the relation between negation and verb/aspect. According to one, the distinction between bu and mei(you) is sensitive to situation types, and according to the other the two markers are different in terms of grammatical aspect as marked by aspectual markers. However, before we can discuss the two hypotheses, we must first discuss ontological issues related to negation. 2.3 Ontological Issues Ontologically speaking, there are several different kinds of entities: first-order entities, second-order entities and third-order entities.I2 All first-order entities (persons, animals and things) are relatively constant as their perceptual properties; are located in time and space; and are publicly observable. Events, processes, and states-of-affairs, according to Lyons (1977), are second-order entities, which are 12 The discussion ofthe three kinds of entities is based on Lyons (1977). 31 located in time. Finally, abstract entities such as propositions, which are outside space and time, are third-order entities. Whereas second-order entities, just like first order entities, are observable and, unless they are instantaneous events, have a temporal duration, third-order entities are unobservable and cannot be said to occur or to be located either in space or in time. Third-order entities are such that 'true,' rather than 'real,' is more naturally predicated of them; they can be asserted or denied, remembered or forgotten, and they can be reasons, but not causes. Lyons (1977, p. 445) assumes that the notion of existence applies primarily to first-order entities. Second-order entities in English are said to occur or take place, rather than to exist. On the other hand, Lyons (1977, p. 723) claims that a proposition cannot be true, of some world (or world-state), unless the situation that it describes actually exists in the world (or world-state) in question. Truth is the third-order correlate of what for first-order entities is existence in space, and a statement like 'That is so' (where 'that' refers to a proposition) is structurally comparable with a statement like 'X exists' (where X refers to a first-order entity). With this perspective, let us consider some relevant Chinese data. As shown in (19), mei(you) can be used to describe the non-existence of both first-order entities and second-order entities: (19) a. Ta mei(you) pingguo. he not(have) apple 'He does not have apples.' b. Ta mei(you) chi pingguo. he not(have) eat apple 'He didn't eat the apple.' More abstractly, meiyou can be used to deny the truth of a proposition: (20) a. Ta meiyou bu qu. 13 he not.have not go 'I didn't not go.' b. Wo meiyou bu xihuan xiandai yinyue. I not.have not like modem music 'I don't not like modem music.' 32 Unlike in (19b ), meiyou in (20) is not used to deny the existence of a second order entity. Thus, while it is possible for the former use to occur with the aspect sensitive adverb you 'again' as shown in (21a), this is not possible for the latter use as shown in (21b). (21) a. Ta zuotian mei(you) qu, jintian you mei(you) qu. he yesterday not(have) go today again not(have) go 'He didn't go yesterday and he again didn't go today.' b. *Ta you meiyou bu qu. he again not.have not go 'He didn't not go again.' 13 In the studies of negation, some researchers include this kind of sentence, while others reject them. For example, Cheng and Li (1991) is an example of the former, while L.-H. Yeh (1995) is one of the latter. 33 Besides this, unlike (19b), sentences like (20) do not occur as context-free assertions. Similar examples from English are given in (22).14 (22) a. I don't not like modem music. b. I don't dislike modem music. In what follows, we will not include the third use of mei(you). When we say that distinction between bu and mei(you) is sensitive to the situation type of a sentence, we mean the use of either bu or meiCyou) depends on the situation type that is located in time. 2.4 Negation and Verb/Aspect Before we can characterize the relation between negation and verb/aspect, we must ensure that the negative markers bu and mei(you) are independent from aspectuality. We undertake this task in Section 2.4.1. The discussion of the two hypotheses is in Section 2.4.2. 2.4.1 Negative Markers are Independent from Aspectuality Following W. Wang's (1965) well-known work, many assume that mei(you) marks the perfective aspect. W. Wang proposes that the verb -le and ~ are allomorphs of a perfective morpheme, based on the fact that mei(you) is in the complementary distribution with the perfective-leas given in (23): 14 This is noted in Lyons (1977, p. 773). (23) a. Zhangsan kan-k na-ben shu. Zhangsan read-ASP that-CL book 'Zhangsan read that book.' b. Zhangsan mei(you) kan-(*k) na-ben shu. Zhangsan not(have) read-ASP that-CL book 'Zhangsan didn't read that book.' 34 This approach has been met with a great deal of criticism. Li and Thompson (1981, p. 435), for example, provide two pieces of evidence challenging this analysis. First, they point out that there are cases in which -le does not alternate with mei(you): (24) a. Ta he-le jiu yihou, wo jiu gen ta shuo hua. he drink-ASP wine after I then with he talk speech 'After he drinks, I'll talk to him.' b. Ta bu/*mei(you) he jiu yihou, wo jiu gen ta shuo hua. he not/not(have) drink wine after I then with he talk speech "After he stops drinking, I will talk to him.' For Li and Thompson, the verbal-le indicates a bounded event. It can signal that an event is bounded by a following event. Mei(you), however, cannot be used this way. Secondly, they note that there are a number of verbs that do not occur with -le, but they can be negated by mei(you). For example, (25) a. Wo tingshuo(*-le) ta lihun le. I hear-ASP he divorce ASP 'I heard that he got divorced.' b. Wo mei(you) tingshuo ta lihun le. I not(have) hear he divorce ASP 'I didn't hear that he got divorced.' 35 Thus, W. Wang's analysis of -you and -k is untenable. The most serious problem with this analysis, in our opinion, is its empirical inadequacy. Consider the following sentences: (26) A: Tamen zai tiaowu rna? they in dance PRT 'Are they dancing?' B: Tamen meiCyou) tiaowu. Tamen chang gene. they not(have) dance they sing song PRT 'They are not dancing. They are singing.' (27) Zhangsan shou shang mei(you) na dongxi. Zhangsan hand top not(have) take thing 'Zhangsan is not holding anything.' The sentences in (26) appear in 'Practical Chinese Reader (p. 253),' which is a standard Chinese textbook. The context shows that mei(you) sentences are used to denies the existence of an imperfective situation despite the fact that the imperfective marker zai does not appear in the negative sentence. Similarly, (27) can be used to 36 describe a situation in the present. Thus, mei(you) itself does not indicate perfectivity. Another analysis that is relevant here is to treat meiCyou) as a Perfect marker, which is a category between aspect and tense according to Comrie (1976). Such a view is advocated by Y. Shi (1999). According toY. Shi, the mei(you) sentence in (28a) has a past time reference because mei(you), as a Perfect marker, indicates that the situation occurs prior to the reference time, which is 'now' in (28a). Similarly, when the reference time refers to a future time reference as shown in (28b ), mei(you) indicates that the situation occurs prior to the future reference time. (28) a. Zhangsan mei(you) biye. Zhangsan not(have) graduate 'Zhangsan didn't graduate.' b. Mingnian zhe-ge shihou Zhangsan yiding *(lliill meiCyou) biye. next: year this-CL time Zhangsan definitely still not(have) graduate 'Zhangsan will definitely still have not graduated by this time next year.' However, (28a) is different from the grammatical (28b) because hai 'still' is required in the latter. If mei(you) marks Perfect, it is not clear why hai is required. Furthermore, if mei(you) really marks Perfect, it should not be restricted at all with respect to the type of predicate it can negate. However, this is not the case. Consider the examples in ( 1 0), repeated here as (29). While le can occur with the predicate headed by the auxiliary keyi 'can' to indicate a change of state, meiCyou) cannot negate it. (29) a. Zheli keyi gai fangzi le. here may build house ASP 'Houses may be built here now.' b. *Zheli mei(you) keyi gai fangzi. here not(have) may build house 'Houses were not allowed to be built here.' 37 The restriction on the type of predicate that mei(you) can negate is unexpected if mei(you) were a Perfect marker. 2.4.2 Two Hypotheses In this section, we will move on to the discussion of our two hypotheses: one argues that the two negative markers are sensitive to situation types, and the other relates the difference to the grammatical aspect as indicated by aspectual markers (e.g. perfective and imperfective). 1 5 The two hypotheses can be formed as follows. (30) a. Situation-Type Hypothesis (STH) Negation is sensitive to the situation type of a sentence. b. Grammatical-Aspect Hypothesis (GAH) Negation is sensitive to the grammatical aspect of a sentence. First, let us start with GAH by considering how sentences with two perfective markers -le and -guo are negated: l5 Traditionally, aspect refers to the presentation of events through grammaticalized viewpoints such as perfective and imperfective. It is only recently that the notion of aspect has been broadened to include the temporal properties of the situations themselves, internal event structure or Aktionsart (cf. Smith 1991). 38 (31) a. Zhangsan kan-le na-ben shu rna? Zhangsan read-ASP that-CL book PRT 'Did Zhangsan read that book?' b. Ta mei(you) kan(*-le) na-ben shu. he not(have) read-ASP that-CL book 'He didn't read that book.' (32) a. Zhangsan qu-guo Zhongguo rna? Zhangsan go-ASP China PRT 'Has Zhangsan been to China?' b. Ta mei(you) qu-guo Zhongguo. he not(have) go-ASP China 'He hasn't been to China.' GAH correctly rules out the following sentences because it predicts that bu cannot occur with aspectual markers. (33) a. *Ta .lrnjingchang na-cuo-k shu. he not often take-wrong-ASP book 'He does not take the wrong book often.' b. *Ta cong bu qu-guo Zhongguo. he ever go-ASP China 'He has never been to China.' However, consider the examples in (34). While the stative adjective xian 'free' cannot occur with the perfective -le, and cannot be negated by mei(you), it can occur with -guo, and be negated by mei(you) when -guo is present. For example, 39 (34) a. *Ta xian-le yi-dian. he free-ASP one-bit 'He is freer.' b. *Ta mei(you) xian. he not(have) free 'He is not free.' c. Ta mei(you) xian-~uo. he not(have) free-ASP 'He has never been free.' Under GAH, if we want to rule out (34a), we must assume that xian 'free' cannot occur with a perfective marker, and thus cannot be negated by mei(you). However, this does not explain why the same verb can occur with the perfective -~ as in (34c) unless different types of perfective aspect are distinguished. Thus GAH fails to make a distinction between (34b) and (34c). Furthermore, consider the sentences with the imperfective marker -zhe. As we discuss in Appendix A, the imperfective marker has two different uses: one focuses a resultative state, and the other indicates a progressive situation. For the first use, consider verbs of position and location as exemplified in (35) and (36). (35) a. Ta mei(you) zuo-zhe. he not(have) sit-ASP 'He is not sitting.' b. Ta bu zuo-zhe. he not sit-ASP 'He does not want to sit.' 40 (36) a. Ta jia de men mei(you) guan-zhe. he home DE door not(have) close-ASP 'The door of his home is not closed.' b. Ta jia de men cong 1m guan-zhe. he home DE door ever not close-ASP 'The door of this home is never closed.' The fact that sentences with the resultative -zhe can be negated either by mei(you) or bu in (35) and (36) shows that the presence of -zhe does not play a role in deciding which negative marker to use. Now consider the stative verbs or adjectives that occur with the resultative -zhe as shown in (37)-(39). 1 6 They can also be negated by either bu or mei(you). (37) a. Zhangsan mei(you) xian-zhe. Zhangsan not(have) free-ASP 'Zhangsan wasn't free.' 16 Note that stage-level predicates, but not individual-level predicates, can occur with -zhe, as pointed out by M. Yeh (1993). (i) a. *Ta yixiang chengshi-.zM. he always honest-ASP 'He is always honest.' b. *Ta zhidao-~ zhe-ge huida. he know-ASP this-CL answer 'He knows the answer.' c. *Ta conghui-~. he intelligent-ASP. 'He is intelligent.' M. Yeh (1993) gives two question markers for the grammaticality of (ia) and (ib). However, we feel both of them are unacceptable. b. Zhangsan cong bu xian-zhe. Zhangsan ever not free-ASP 'Zhangsan is never free.' (38) a. Tamen mei(you) ge-zhe yiding juli. they not(have) separate-ASP certain distance 'They didn't separate from each other by a certain distance.' b. Tamen cong bu ge-zhe juli. they ever not separate-ASP distance 'They are never separated by any distance.' (39) a. Tamen meiCyou) mianlin-zhe xiangtong de wenti. they not(have) face-ASP same DE problem 'They are not facing the same problems.' b. Tamen bu jingchang mianlin-zhe xiangtong de wenti. they not often face-ASP same DE problem 'They do not often face the same problems.' 41 Both bu and mei(you) sentences are grammatical. Similarly, the progressive use of the imperfective marker -zhe can be negated by meiCyou) or bu: (40) a. Na-ge yanjiang zhongjian de difang wo meiCyou) renzhen de that-CL talk middle DE place I not(have) careful DE ting-zhe, suoyi houlai jiu ting-bu-dong le. listen-ASP therefore later then listen-not-understand ASP 'I wasn't listening carefully in the middle of the talk, so I couldn't follow it later on.' 42 b. Wo jiushi 1m renzhen de ting-zhe, ni neng ba wo zenmeyang? I just not careful DE listen-ASP you can BA I how 'I just don't want to be listening carefully, what can you do with me?' Note that for the both uses of -zhe, mei(you) can be simply used to deny the existence of an event. This can be shown by the use of the aspect-sensitive adverb you 'again': (41) a. Men zuotian mei(you) suo-zhe, jintian you mei(you) suo-zhe. door yesterday not(have) lock-ASP today again not(have) lock-ASP 'The door was not locked today and it again wasn't locked today.' b. Zuotian yanjiang de shihou, ta mei(you) renzhen de ting-zhe, jintian yesterday talk DE time he not(have) careful DE listen-ASP today you mei(you) renzhen-de ting-zhe. again not(have) careful DE listen-ASP 'During yesterday's talk, he wasn't listening carefully and he again wasn't listening carefully today.' Now let us consider the imperfective marker zai. A sentence with imperfective aspect is negated by mei(you), as shown in ( 42) (Taken from Practical Chinese Reader, p. 253): (42) A: Tamen zai tiaowu rna? (=(26)) they in dance PRT 'Are they dancing?' 43 B: Tamen mei(you) tiaowu. Tamen chang gene. they not(have) dance they sing song PRT 'They are not dancing. They are singing.' The imperfective marker does not show up when mei(you) occurs. However, Beijing speakers easily accept ( 43a) while they reject ( 43b )P (43) a. Tamen mei(you) zai tiaowu. (=(4)) they not(have) in dance 'They aren't dancing.' b. *Tamen bu zai tiaowu. (Taiwanese Mandarin: ...J) 18 they not in dance 'They are not dancing.' This use of mei(you) can also be used to deny the existence of an event: ( 44) Wo zuotian huijia de shihou, ta meiCyou) zai lian qin, jintian I yesterday retum:home DE he not(have) in practice piano today huijia de shihou ta you mei(you) zai lian qin. return: home DE time he again not(have) in practice piano 'He wasn't practicing piano when I came home yesterday and he again wasn't practicing piano when I came home today.' 17 Standard Mandarin is based on the Beijing dialect. 18 It has been noted in the literature that progressive can change a progressive situation into stative (Vlach 1981), or progressive presents a dynamic situation in a static way (Smith 1991). As we will argue in the text below that 1m negates a non-dynamic situation, the fact that 1m is used for negating a progressive sentence in Taiwanese Mandarin is not surprising since a progressive sentence can be viewed non-dynamic. 44 We summarize what we have so far in the following table: (45) resultative - progressive - imperfective zai perfective .: perfective - zhe zhe gy_o le bu -..J -..J * * * mei (- y_ou.} -..J -..J -..J -..J * Table 1: Aspectual Markers and Negative Markers The results displayed above indicate that the existence of a particular aspectual marker does not determine which negative marker to use. Therefore, the GAH is untenable. Now let us move on to STH. Generally speaking, predicates that describe states can be negated by bu: ( 46) a. Ta bu congming. he not intelligent 'He is not intelligent.' b. Ta bu xiang ta mama. he not resemble he mother 'He does not resemble his mother.' - (47) a. Tabu pang. he not fat 'He is not fat.' b. Ta bu gaoxing. he not happy 'He is not happy.' However, while some of them cannot be negated by mei(you), some can: ( 48) a. *Ta mei(you) congming. he not(have) intelligent 'He isn't intelligent.' b. Ta mei(you) pang. he not(have) fat *'He is not fat.' 'He didn't gain weight.' 45 Note that ( 48b) is not a simple negation of a state. It means that the change of a state does not occur. Compare the type of predicates that can be negated by mei(you) and the one that cannot. The former denotes transitory properties, while the latter type seems to refer to more permanent properties. This is reminiscent of the distinction between a Stage-Level Predicate (SLP) and an Individual-Level Predicate (ILP) (Milsark 1974, Carlson 1977). ILPs describe semi-permanent traits of individuals, while SLPs describe more or less temporary properties of individuals. They are exemplified as follows: 46 ( 49) Individual-Level Predicates a. Adjectives like 'tall,' 'intelligent' b. Stative verbs like 'know,' 'love' c. All the predicative NPs like 'be a lawyer,' 'be a mammal.' (50) Stage-Level Predicates a. Adjectives like 'available,' 'angry' b. Stative verbs like 'be in the garden' c. Non-stative verbs like 'sleep,' 'destroying my viola da gamba' The distinction between the two types of predicates has ramifications for the grammar of English. The distinction is also shown to be relevant for the use of the durative marker -zhe in Chinese by M. Yeh (1993). She argues that only SLPs can occur with the durative -zhe. Along this line, Chinese predicates can be divided into ILPs and SLPs as exemplified below: (51) ILPs in Chinese a. Adjectives like congming 'intelligent,' piaoliang 'pretty,' yonggan 'brave' b. Stative verbs like zhidao 'know,' W! 'fear' c. All the predicate NPs like shi yi-ge xuesheng 'be a student,' shi wusui 'be five years old' (52) SLPs in Chinese a. Adjectives like mmg, 'fat,' lao 'old' b. Stative verbs like zai huayuan li 'be in the garden' c. Non-stative verbs like W!Q1ru 'run,' kan na-ben shu 'read that book' 47 However, this distinction does not seem to account for the distribution of the two negative markers. First, we have seen in (46) and (47) above that an adjective, ILP or SLP, can be negated by bu. Second, while predicative NPs are negated by bu shi, stative verbs, either ILPs or SLPs, are negated by bu: (53) a. Ta bu shi yi-ge xuesheng. he not be one-CL student 'He is not a student.' b. Tabu shi wusui. she not be five:years:old 'She is not five years old.' (54) a. Wo bu zhidao na-jian shi. I not know that-CL matter 'I don't know that matter.' b. Tabu ai ta. he not love she 'He does not love her.' Third, as far as non-stative verbs are concerned, they can be negated by either bu or mei(you): (55) a. Ta meiCyou) paobu. he not(have) run 'He didn't run.' 48 b. Ta meifyou) kan na-ben shu. he not(have) read that-CL book 'He didn't read that book.' (56) a. Ta bupaobu. he not run 'He does not/does not want/will not run.' b. Ta bu kan na-ben shu. he not read that-CL book 'He does not read/does not want/will not read that book .' Thus the distinction between SLPs and ILPs is not relevant for the distinction between the two negative markers. On the other hand, note that there is a fundamental difference between the bu sentences in (47) and the mei(you) sentences in (48). They are repeated as follows: (57) a. Tabu pang. he not fat 'He is not fat.' b. Ta bu gaoxing. he not happy 'He is not happy.' (58) a. *Ta mei(you) congming. he not(have) intelligent 'He isn't intelligent.' b. Ta mei(you) pang. he not(have) fat 'He didn't gain weight.' 49 While (57a) refers to a state, (58b) denotes that a change of a state, a dynamic situation, does not happy. The latter can be used felicitously in the following context. Suppose everyone gains weight in the winter. We can use (58b) to report that Mr. Wang did not gain weight in the past winter. However, we cannot use the same sentence when comparing weight. Thus, the crucial distinction seems to lie between stative and dynamic situations (including accomplishment, achievement and activity in the sense of Vendler (1967)). However, if we take the notion of markedness into account, we should have the following possibilities (cf. Lyons 1977): (59) a. stative vs. non-stative b. dynamic vs. non-dynamic c. stative vs. dynamic Now closely examine the bu sentences in (56), they can be at least three-ways ambiguous. It can have a volitional, habitual or future interpretation. According to Li and Thompson (1981, p. 423), the volitional interpretation is 'the natural inference from the fact that if someone does not do something over which s/he has control, s/he is generally unwilling to.'l9 The volitional interpretation is possible only when l9 Note that an 'intentionality/volition/conscienceness' interpretation does not have to be associated with 'action/activity.' Consider the following definition of 'agency' by Dowty (1975, p. 580): ' ... a verb or adjective is agentive whenever it denotes or implies an action or state that obtains by virtue of the immediate conscious of volition of its subject.' 50 there is an animate subject, and the subject has the control of the action. This gives rise to the different interpretations of the bu sentences in (56) and their mei(you) counterparts in (55). The former but not the latter express subjective desire (zhuguan yiyuan) as claimed by J. Wu (1982, p. 157). From the volitional interpretation, the future interpretation can be easily derived. If one is not willing to do something, nothing will happen at a later time (including the future). Crucially in the future interpretation there must be a subject who has control of the action in the sentence. For example, none of the following sentences have the future interpretation because their subjects do not have control of the action. (60) a. Tabu zhidao na-jian shi. he not know that-CL matter 'He does not know that matter.' b. Tabu e. he not hungry 'He is not hungry.' Finally, if the situation happens more than once, it should be considered to be habitual. According to Comrie (1976, p. 49), the distinction between a state and a dynamic situation is characterized as follows: With a state, unless something happens to change that state, then the state will continue... With a dynamic situation, on the other hand, the situation will only continue if it is continually subject to a new input of energy. 51 If we define a non-dynamic situation as an unchanged situation, while a dynamic situation as a changed situation, the volitional/future/habitual interpretation should be considered 'unchanged.' A situation is unchanged in at least three different ways. First, it is unchanged if the subject is unwilling to carry out the action denoted by the verb. Second, it is not changed at a later time if the subject is unwilling to change the action. Third, it is not changed over time if it stays the same over time. This would lead us to (57b), the opposition between a dynamic situation and a non dynamic situation. The dynamic/non-dynamic opposition is exhibited in the -zhe sentences as follows. Compare (6la) with (61b): (61) a. Tabu zuo-zhe. (=(35b)) he not sit-ASP 'He does not want to sit.' b. *Qiang shang bu gua-zhe yi-fu hua. wall top not hang-ASP one-CL painting 'There is no painting hanging on the wall.' The imperfective marker -zhe in (6la) focuses a resultative state. If what is relevant is the opposition between dynamic/state, or state/non-state, bu should be able to negate any sentence with -zhe. However, this is not the case, as shown in (61b). In contrast, if we maintain the dynamic/non-dynamic opposition, we can claim that bu can be used only if the situation is non-dynamic. A resultative state is not classified as a non-dynamic situation because it implies an event that leads to the state. Thus, unless a sentence with -zhe has a volitional, habitual or future 52 interpretation, it cannot be negated by bu. This explains the contrast between (61a) and (6lb). Finally, let us point out that just as with a habitual situation, a generic situation also denotes a pattern that occurs repeatedly. Thus bu. instead of mei(you), should be used in this kind of sentences. This is indeed the case: (62) a. Gou bu chi laoshu. dog not eat mouse 'Dogs do not eat mice.' b. Gou mei(you) chi laoshu. dog not(have) eat mouse 'The dog didn't eat the mouse.' While the bu sentence in (62a) denotes a generic situation, (62b) cannot. In summary, in this section we argue that the use of bu and mei(you) is sensitive to situation types: while mei(you) denies dynamic situations, bu denies non-dynamic situations. 2.5 Tense Interpretations of Negative Sentences We have discussed above that the distinction between bu and mei(you) does not lie in the one between non-past and past. However, what we are going to see in this section is that the tense interpretations of bu sentences and mei(you) sentences are limited. We will show this is due to the fact that Chinese has a (relative) future tense marker, as we argue in Appendix B. Generally speaking, the bu sentence in ( 63a) is three-way ambiguous--volitional, habitual and future. There are two possible tense interpretations, i.e. present and 53 future. In contrast, a mei(you) sentence in ( 63b) is usually given the past tense interpretation. (63) a. Tabu qu. he not go 'He does not go/He does not want to go/He will not go.' b. Ta mei(you) qu. he not(have) go 'He didn't go.' However, bu is compatible with a past time adverb, and a mei(you) sentence can have a present tense interpretation: (64) a. Ta zuotian bu qu. he yesterday not go 'He didn't want to go yesterday.' b. Ni kan! Zhe xinfeng mei(you) xie-zhe jixin ren de dizhi. you look this envelope not(have) write-ASP send person DE address 'Look! There is no address of the sender on this envelope.' As we have discussed above, the future time reference of (63a) may derive from the volitional interpretation. When a volitional interpretation is not available, a future time reference is not possible. For example, the bu sentence in ( 65) is only two-way ambiguou: it is either present or past. The contrast between the two types of bu sentences can be seen in ( 66). ( 65) Zhe-ben shu bu gui. this-CL book not expensive 'This book is/was not expensive.' (66) a. Ta zuotian/xianzailmingtian bu qu. he yesterday/now/tomorrow not go 'He didn't/does not/does not want to/he will not go yesterday/now/ tomorrow.' b. Zhe-ben shu na shihou/xianzail*mingtian bu gui. this-CL book that time/now/tomorrow not expensive 54 'This books was/is/will be not expensive at that time/now/tomorrow.' Thus, a bu or a meiCyou) sentence is in general either past or present. Why is this the case? The answer, we think, lies in the fact that it is not marked by a (relative) tense marker. A future time interpretation of (65) has to be expressed by hui 'will': ( 67) Zhe-ben shu bu hui gui. this-CL book not will expensive 'This book won't be expensive.' 2.6 Conclusions In this chapter, we have shown that a difference between the two negative markers bu and meiCyou) is best characterized as one between different types of situation types, that is, dynamic vs. non-dynamic. In other words, mei(you) is used to deny a dynamic situation, while bu is used for denying a non-dynamic situation. While a dynamic situation necessarily involve change, a non-dynamic situation is 55 defined to be an unchanged situation as in Comrie (1976). An unchanged situation may result from the unwillingness of the subject to change the situation, or it may also be the result of a repetitive behavior pattern over a period of time. The former gives rise to the volitional/future interpretation, and the latter gives rise to the habitual/generic interpretation. In the next chapter, we will propose a syntactic analysis for the two negative markers, i.e. bu and mei(you), in Chinese. 56 CHAPTER3 A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF NEGATION 3.1 Introduction In Chapter 2, we argued that the distinction between bu and mei(you) is one between dynamic and non-dynamic. That is, mei(you) is used to deny a dynamic situation, while bu is used to deny a non-dynamic situation. In this chapter, we will first provide an overview of the literature discussing the syntactic categories, scope properties and syntactic positions of the two negative markers. We will then propose our syntactic analysis for these two negative markers. We argue that mei(you) heads a NegP, which occurs in a position between AspP (Aspect Phrase) and PredP (Predication Phrase). We assume an AspP is headed by the sentence-final k.. and PredP indicates predication. In contrast, bu is adjoined to Pred' or V'. The chapter is organized as follows. In Section 3.2 we discuss the previous analyses. Our syntactic proposal is given in Section 3.3. The conclusions of this chapter are in Section 3.4. 3.2 Previous Analyses Chinese linguists do not agree on the syntactic categories, scope properties, or syntactic positions of the two negative markers. First, consider the syntactic categories of the two negative markers. Traditionally, both mei(you) and bu are considered to be adverbs, although some researchers disagree with this characterization. For example, in S.-H. Teng (1973b) both you in mei(you) and bu are higher predicates that take sentential complements. In L. Cheng and Y. Li 57 (1991) you in mei(you) is treated as an auxiliary, and bu is an alternant of mei. In some works such as Ernst (1995) you is treated as a perfective marker. Mei is a prefix realizing [+NEG] on you. Similarly, M. Li (1999) proposes that mei is a prefix to you, which is base-generated under Aspo. The scope properties and syntactic positions of the two negative markers also vary according to different linguists. S. W. Chan (1973) argues that bu can express either VP-negation or S-negation. For S.-H. Teng (1973a, 1973b, 1974), both bu and mei(you) are S-negation markers, while bu shi 'not be' marks S-refutation. Bu can also be Constituent(C)-negation. L. Li (1991) argues that bu can be S-negation or node-negation. A node can be a VP, a NP or an adverb. For L.-H. Yeh (1992) bu and mei(you) are Predicate negation markers as opposed to bu shi 'not be,' which is the true S-negation marker. As for syntactic positions, in W. Wang (1965) bu and mei (the alternant of bu) are attached to VP. You or you-~uo (you plus the experiential marker) is generated under Asp, which is adjoined to a position lower than VP. In L. Cheng andY. Li (1991), the Neg headed by bu or mei can select either VP or AuxP. L.-H. Yeh (1992) propose that bu shi, which marks clausal negation, heads a NegP, while bu and mei(you), which mark predicate negation, are adverbials internal to a VP. B. Chiu (1993) projects the NegP (1m and mei) higher than the AspP, which is headed by the experiential marker -ilill· The AspP headed by you, which is above the AspP headed by ~uo, is optionally projected. In Ernst ( 1995), bu is generated either in the Spec of AuxP (Aspect and Modal are taken to be the two types of auxiliary verbs in Chinese) or Spec of VP. Mei is a prefix realizing [+NEG] on the perfective you. D. Xu (1997) proposes that bu heads a NegP, which takes an AspP. Finally, in a recent study given by M. Li (1999) it is argued that there is no NegP. The negative marker 58 mei(you) or the progressive zai is base-generated in Asp. Bu, on the other hand, is an adverblike element adjoined to the X' level of the head Predication in default cases, and to other heads in specific cases. M. Li assumes with Travis (1988), C.-C. Tang (1990), and Rizzi (1997) that preverbal adjuncts of different types are licensed by different heads, and that they occur at the level of X.' The three types of preverbal adjuncts are as follows. Type I adjuncts include those that occur in sentence initial positions; Type II adjuncts are those that occur immediately following the subject; and Type III adjuncts are those that occur immediately before the predicate. (1) a. Type I sentence initial: adjuncts of reason, point-time adjuncts, external locative adjuncts b. Type II postsubject: sentence manner adjuncts, adjuncts of reason, temporal adjuncts, external locative adjuncts c. Type III immediately preverbal: manner adjuncts, adjuncts of source, benefactive, instrument and reason, indefinite time adjuncts, inner locative adjuncts Syntactically, Type I adjuncts are claimed to be adjoined to Top,' Type II toT,' and Type III to Pr' (Predicate). The negative marker bu, according to M. Li, belongs to the class of Type ill adjuncts. It is generated under Pr' in the default case, and is adjoined to other X's in specified cases, e.g. to Asp' in the presence of overt aspectual markers, and to Mod' (modal) when modals are present in negative sentences. The hierarchy among the above-mentioned projections is as follows: TopP, TP, AspP, ModP, PrP, and VP. 59 In the next section we will propose our syntactic analysis, which differs substantially from the above analyses. 3.3 Our Syntactic Proposal We have argued that mei(you) is used to deny a dynamic situation, while bu is used to deny a non-dynamic situation. Syntactically, we propose that mei(you) heads a NegP, which occurs between an AspP and a PredP. We assume that an AspP is headed by the sentence-final particle le, and PredP encodes predication. A mei(you) sentence is partially represented in (2). (2) Partial Representation of a mei(you) sentence20 TP ~ Spec T' /'.... T AspP ~. Spec .nsp /' NegP Asp /".,N ' Spec eg ,/'-.... Neg PredP mei(you) ~ Spec Pred' /'.... Pred VP ~ 20 We do not take a position regarding the question whether T is head-initial or head-final. However, given the lack of evidence for a head-final proposal, we will assume that T is head-initial. On the other hand, bu is adjoined to Pred' or V'. (3) Two possible positions for bu TP /'-.. Spec T' ~ T AspP Sp~p' ,/'-.... PredP Asp ~ Spec X (!2!!) Pred' ~ Pred yp s~ <~ /v"- Thus, there are four important features associated with our syntactic proposal: 60 (4) a. Negation is lower than TP (Tense Phrase) and AspP. We assume that TP is projected in all languages, and AspP in Chinese is headed by the sentence-final particle le. b. Mei(you) heads a NegP, while bu does not. c. Mei(you) sits in a position higher than a PredP, and the highest position that bu can be adjoined to is Pred'. d. Bu can also be adjoined to a V' position. We will provide evidence for each of the above features in what follows. 61 3.3.1 Negation is Lower than TP and AspP In this section, we will show that negation in Chinese should occur in a position lower than TP and AspP. Suppose that TP is projected in all languages. That negation occurs lower than TP is supported by the fact of NPI (negative polarity items) licensing. It has been proposed in Progovac (1988, p. 257) that the possibility of having NPis in preverbal subject position is related to negation placement: languages that allow preverbal NPis place negation under INFL, i.e. TP in the current theory, while in languages where these elements are not allowed to occur in that position, negation is adjoined to VP. Serbo-Croatian belongs to the former type. As shown in (5), classmate negation licenses NPis in both subject and object position. (5) a. Milan ne voli niko-ga. Milan not loves no-one-ACC 'Milan does not love anyone.' b. Niko ne voli Milan-a. no-one not loves Milan-ACC 'No one loves Milan.' On the other hand, English belongs to the latter type. In English NPis are licensed only in the object position: (6) a. John does not love anyone. b. *Anyone does not love John. 62 Consider the NPI renhe 'any' phrase in Chinese. An NPI has to be licensed as shown in (7): (7) *Ta shuo renhe hua. he speak any word 'He wants to speak anything/He says anything/He will say anything.' Sentences (Sa) and (8b) show that post-subject negation can license an NPI in the object position. (8) a. Ta mei(you) shuo renhe hua. he not(have) speak any word 'He didn't say anything.' b. Ta bu shuo renhe hua. he not speak any word 'He does not want to say anything/He does not say anything/He will not say anything.' However, as shown in (9), negation that occurs in the post-subject position does not license an NPI in the subject position. (9) a. *Renhe ren mei(you) lai. any person not(have) come 'No one came.' b. *Renhe ren bY lai. any person not come 'No one came.' 63 Thus, if the correlation between the licensing of a subject NPI and negation place as established by Progovac is correct, it follows that negation in Chinese should not occur in a position higher than TP (Under the assumption that the 'surface position' of the subject NP is in the Spec of TP). This also conforms to Laka's (1990) Tense C-Command Condition. (10) TENSE C-COMMAND CONDITION Tense must c-command at S-structure all propositional operators of the clause. Now let us move on to AspP. We assume AspP is headed by the sentence-final particle le. The general impression that native speakers have toward the interaction between meiCyou), and -le or leis that meiCyou) does not occur with either of them. However, while it is true that meiCyou) does not occur with the verbal -le, it can occur with the sentence-final particle le. For example, both sentences in (11) contain meiCyou) and le. ( 11) a. Ta houlai jiu mei(you) zai qu tushuguan 1~. he later then not(have) again go library ASP 'He didn't go to library again later on.' b. Women haojiu mei(you) jian mian le. we long:time not(have) see face ASP 'We haven't seen each other for a long time already.' Consider (11a). There are two possible structures for (lla) as given in (12). In (12a) le has scope over mei(you) as represented in (2), whereas in (12b) mei(you) has scope over le. (12) a. Ta houlaijiu [[mei(you) zai qu tushuguan] 1~ he later then not(have) again go library ASP b. Ta houlai jiu [mei(you)[zai qu tushuguan k.]] he later then not(have) again go library ASP 64 However, the structure in (12b) is not a possible one because zai 'again' is not compatible with the sentence-finalle. As shown in (13), you 'again,' instead of zai 'again,' has to be used when leis present: (13) a. *Ta zai qu tushuguan le. he again go library ASP 'He went to the library again.' b. Ta you qu tushuguan le. he again go library ASP 'He went to the library again.' Thus (12a) is the correct structure of the two in (12), and this shows that the sentence-finalle has scope over mei(you). Similarly, bu should also occur within the scope of le, as indicated by the structure below: (14) a. Ta [[bu zai gei ta qian] k.]. he not again give she money ASP 'He no longer gives her money.' b. Ta [[bu zai gan shuo da hua] k].. he not again dare speak big word ASP 'He doesn't dare brag any more now.' 65 Assume that le heads its own projection, i.e. AspP.21 Then it follows that the AspP has to occur in a position higher than both bu and mei(you). Now let us consider verbal aspect. Do we need to have an AspP that represents verbal aspect? Our answer to this is no. The existence of such an AspP should not distinguish bu from mei(you): (15) a. Tabu zuo-zhe. he not sit-ASP 'He does not sit.' b. Ta mei(you) zuo-zhe. he not(have) sit-ASP 'He is not sitting' The fact that negation has wide scope with respect to grammatical aspect can be shown in the following sentences. (16) a. Ta ai-zhe ta. he love-ASP she 'He loves her.' b. Tabu ai-(*zhe) ta. he not love-ASP she 'He does not love her.' 21 D. Xu (1997) divides sentence-final particles into two groups. The first group, which includes rna 'Question Particle,' ne 'Response to Expectation,' hi! 'Solicit Agreement,' ou 'Friendly Warning,' and~ 'Reduced Forcefulness (Li and Thompson 1981), should be analyzed as complementizers. The remaining sentence-final particle k, namely le 'Current Relevant State,' is generated under an independent functional project, i.e. DeicticP. This projection has the function of linking propositions and the events which are described in the sentence to the real world. 66 The examples in (16) show that ai 'love' can be followed by -zhe, but this is not possible when bu is present. If -zhe has scope over bu ai, there is no reason why (16b) is ungrammatical when -zhe is present. Just as -zhe can attach to ai to indicate the state of loving, it should be able to have scope over bu ai to indicate the state of not loving. Thus, -zhe does not have wide scope with respect to bu. Similarly, the fact that ( 17b) is ungrammatical shows that meiCyou) cannot negate ai. Thus, meiCyou) has to take wide scope with respect to -guo in (17a). (17) a. Ta mei(you) ai-guo ta. he not(have) love-ASP she 'He has never loved her.' b. *Ta mei(you) ai ta. he not(have) love she 'He didn't love her.' Return to our examples in (15). Either bu or meiCyou) should take wide scope with respect to the verbal aspect. If verbal aspect does project, it has to be within the scope of negation, and whether this projection is present or not does not have an effect on which negative marker is used. If this is on the right track, whether one assumes AspP or not, verbal aspect is irrelevant in terms of negation. 3.3.2 NegP or not In this section, we will first discuss the claim that mei(you) marks clausal negation, while bu does not. We will show that you in meiCyou) cannot be analyzed as a verb. 67 3.3.2.1 Clausal Negation vs. Constituent Negation In recent years, a great deal of theoretical work has been devoted to negation in various languages (See Pollock 1989, Ouhalla 1990, 1991, Laka 1990, Zanuttini 1991, Mitchelll994, Potsdam 1997, Progovac 1988, among others). Since Pollock (1989), many studies have claimed that clausal negation heads a NegP, while constituent negation does not (Iatridou 1990). If we can prove that mei(you) marks clausal negation, and bu does not, this will support the analysis that mei(you) heads a NegP, while bu does not. This is exactly what we will undertake in this section. First, let us consider the distinction between clausal negation and constituent negation. Klima's (1964) definition of clausal negation relies on the convergence of a set of diagnostic tests specific to English. For example, sentences with clausal negation are those that permit positive rather than negative tag questions: 'He could not have heard the news, could he?' In contrast, constituent negation does not affect the polarity of the sentence: 'You can simply not leave, can't you?' Unfortunately, these tests are specific to English and cannot be used in Chinese. The unavailability of those tests in Chinese does not mean there is no way for us to determine the scope of the two negative markers. There does exist a valid test that we can use. In what follows, we shall use the 'Presupposition'-denials cases to defend our position. The so-called 'Presupposition'-denying cases are exemplified in (18): (18) a. The King of France is not bald--(because) there is no King of France. b. I haven't given up smoking; I've never smoked. c. I didn't regret telling her my secrets; I haven't told her anything. 68 The interpretation of negation in the above cases would not generally be the one that came to mind if the first negative sentence in each case were presented in isolation. For example, without the second clause (18a) would usually be taken to be predicating non-baldness of an existing King of France. The continuation in (18a) makes the listener reprocess the first clause and cancel the presupposition that there is a King of France. The two readings in (18a), according to Hom (1989, p. 484), are the so-called 'internal negation' reading, and 'external negation' reading. They are represented in the logical forms below: ( 19) The King of France is not bald. a. INTERNAL: 3x(Kx A 't/ y(Ky --> y = x) A -Bx [ = 'The King of France is not-bald'] b. EXTERNAL: -3 x(Kx A 't/ y(Ky --> y = x) A Bx) [ = 'not (The king of France is bald)'] Crucially, the two readings differ in presupposition. The internal reading, as represented in (19a), is presuppositional, while the external one, as indicated in (19b ), is not. The internal negation is either false or without truth value if France is a republic, whereas the external negation is true in the same circumstances. This function of negation, according to Hom, is metalinguistic (as opposed to truth functional negation), and is characterized as having fall-rise intonation contour and a rectification clause.ZZ For Hom (1989, p. 363), '[metalinguistic negation is] a device for objecting to a previous utterance on any grounds whatever, including the 22 According to Hom, the use of the internal negation is truth-functional in the sense that it changes a proposition 'p' into a proposition '-p.' 69 conventional or conversational implicata it potentially induces, its morphology, its style or register, or its phonetic realization.' For our purpose here, it is sufficient to point out that the negation form that cancels presuppositions in English is clausal negation (Carston 1998). Clausal negation in English is typically affixed to the first auxiliary verb and pronounced ['nt], as in ( 18b) and (18c) above, although it may also occur as the free morpheme pronounced [not], as in (18a). Constituent negation, in contrast, necessarily maintains presuppositions. Compare (20) with (18a).23 (20) #The King of France could have not heard the news--(because) there is no King of France. 'Not' in (20) is an instance of constituent negation because it does not follow the first auxiliary 'could.' The fact that (20) is odd shows that constituent negation cannot cancel the presupposition that the King of France exists. With this in mind, let us consider the following Chinese examples. (21) a. Xianren Fa~uo Guowan~ mei(you) juan na-bi qian--yinwei current France King not(have) donate that-CL money because xianzai Faguo genben jiu mei(you) guowang now France after: all then not(have) king 'The present King of France didn't donate that money--because there is no King in France now.' 23 We follow Hom (1989) in using'#' to signify pragmatic anomaly. 70 b. Wo meiCyou) jie na-zhong yan; wo conglai mei(you) xi-guo I not(have) quit:smoke that-CL cigarette I ever not(have) smoke-ASP yan. cigarette 'I haven't given up smoking that kind of cigarette; I've never smoked.' c. Wo mei(you) houhui gaosu-guo ta wo de mimi; wo shenme ye I not(have) regret tell-ASP she I DE secret I what also not(have) mei(you) gen ta shuo. not(have) with she say ' I didn't regret that I told her my secrets; I haven't told her anything.' d. Ta mama mei(you) zancheng zhe-jian shi--yinwei ta mama zao he mother not(have) approve this-CL matter because he mother early jiu guoshi le. then die ASP 'His mother didn't approve this--because his mother died long time ago.' Sentences in (21) show that mei(you) in Chinese can be used to deny the presuppositions that are associated with those sentences. Therefore, as in the English cases, mei(you) should mark clausal negation.24 24 Note that clausal negation does not have to license a negative polarity item (NPI) that is located in a subject position. As shown in (i), the negative polarity items cannot be licensed by 'not.' (i) a. *Anybody didn't come. b. *Renhe ren mei(you) lai. any person not(have) come 'Anyone didn't come.' See Uribe-Echevarria (1994) for arguments that NPI licensing takes place at LF, and that LF c command of the NPI by Neg is a necessary condition for licensing. 71 Now let us consider bu. There is a contrast between the sentences with mei(you) in (21), and the sentences with bu in (22). The forme are felicitous, whereas the latter are not. 25 (22) a. #Xianren Fa~uo Guowan~ bu qingchu zhe-jian shi--yinwei current France King not clear this-CL matter because xianzai Faguo genben jiu mei(you) guowang. now France at:all then not(have) king 'The present King of France is not clear about this matter because there is no King in France now.' Mei(you), however, is different from 'not' in English in terms of scope. Consider the examples in (ii). While the clausal negation can take scope over the subject, mei(you) cannot. (ii) a. All that glitters isn't gold. b. Mej-ge nanhai dou mei(you) xizao. every-CL boy all not(have) bathe 'Everyone didn't bathe.' However, this is not surprising because in Chinese, the scope requirement is stricter than in English. The following condition is proposed by C.-T. Huang (1982, p. 137) for Chinese: (iii) The Hierarchical Condition If a quantificational or logical expression A c-commands another quantificational or logical expression B at SS, then A also c-commands B at LF. Given (iii), rnei(you) in (iib) cannot have scope over the universal quantifier mei-~e nanhai 'every boy' at LF because it does not have scope over the quantifier at SS. 25 For some speakers, there is no contrast between bu and mei(you) as discussed in the text. Some accept both, while others reject both. For the second kind of speaker, we surmise that subjects for them are implicit topics, and thus the existence of the entity denoted by the subject is presupposed when the sentence is not a generic one. The first type of speaker does not perceive any contradiction. Y. Yuan (2000) is such a speaker. He argues against the analysis that presupposition can be negated. Thus, for him, the presupposition is not denied given the first clause. The contradiction is resolved because the presupposition is denied as a focus given the second clause. For this kind of speaker, the second clause is required. If the first clause is presented without the second clause, the presupposition associated with the first clause can never be canceled. Thus, it is possible that the first kind of speaker also considers the subject NP to be a topic just like the second kind of speaker. b. #Wo bujie na-zhong yan; wo conglai mei(you) xi-guo I not quit:smoke that-CL cigarette I ever not(have) smoke-ASP xianzai cigarette 'I don't want to quit smoking that kind of cigarette because I have never smoked.' c. #Wo bu houhui gaosu-guo ta wo de mimi; wo shenme ye mei(you) I not regret tell-ASP she I DE secret I what also not(have) gen ta shuo. with she say ' I didn't regret telling her my secrets; I haven't told her anything.' d. #Ta mama bu zancheng zhe-jian shi--yinwei ta mama zao jiu he mother not approve this-CL matter because he mother early guoshi le. then die ASP 'His mother did not approve this--because his mother die long time ago.' 72 Sentences (22) thus show that bu should not be considered to be a marker of clausal negation. This supports the analysis that mei(you) heads a NegP, while bu does not. 3.3.2.2 You in Mei(you) is not a Verb Note that the negative marker mei(you) or you in mei(you) cannot be analyzed as a verb. Compare the two sentences in (23). Sentence (23a) is a sentence negated by mei(you), while (23b) is one with the possessive verb you 'have' negated by mei. There is a contrast between them--the former but not the latter is felicitous. (23) a. Xianren Fa~uo Guowan~ mei(you) juan na-bi Faguo current France King not(have) donate that-CL qian--yinwei xianzai genben jiu mei(you) guowang money-because now France after: all then not(have) king 73 'The present King of France didn't donate that money--because there is no King in France now.' b. #Xianren Fa~uo Guowan~ mei (you) qian--yinwei xianzai Faguo current France king not have money because now France genben jiu mei(you) guowang after:all then not(have) king 'The present king of France doesn't have money--because there is no King in France now.' The contrast in (23) shows that you in the negation form mei(you) should not be taken to be the possessive verb you 'have.' Thus you in mei(you) cannot be analyzed as a verb as Hashimoto (1971) and S.-H. Teng (1973b) claim. Indeed, if you in mei(you) can be considered to be a verb, there is no reason why gmj 'deliberately' can modify mei(you) in (24a) but not mei (you) in (24b). (24) a. Ta guyi mei(you) qu kan ta. he deliberately not(have) go see she 'He didn't go to see her deliberately.' b. *Ta ~ mei (you) pengyou. he deliberately have friend 'He does not have friends deliberately.' 74 On the other hand, there is evidence suggesting that the possessive mei(you) is a verb just like the possessive you 'have' because the former can be followed by the perfective -le just like the latter. Consider the following examples taken from X. Liu (1988, p. 322). (25) a. You-le xifu, wang-le niang. have-ASP wife forget-ASP mother 'One forgets one's mother, when one has a wife.' b. Mei-le shei, diqiu ye zhaoyang zhuan. not.have-ASP who earth also the:same move 'The earth moves the same even when someone is missing.' In summary, the negative counterpart of the possessive ~'have' should be treated as a verb just like the possessive you 'have.' The contrast between the negative marker mei(you) and the possessive mei(you) in (23), however, indicates that negative marker mei(you) cannot not be a verb. On the other hand, the fact that mei(you) marks clausal negation and bu does not supports the different analyses of the two negative markers: mei(you) heads a NegP, while bu does not. 3.3.3 PredP vs. VP In this section we will show that NegP takes a PredP, and bu is adjoined to a position as high as Pred'. Bowers (1993) has shown that predication involves 75 syntactic PredPs. Many, following Bowers' work, have assumed the existence of a PredP. In particular, C.-C. Tang (1990) argues for the existence of PredP in Chinese. She proposes a theory of adjunct licensing, which says that the distribution of adjuncts is dependent on the possible domains of modification of adjuncts. Under this licensing theory, reason and conditional clauses are generated under the projection of C, sentential adverbs under I, temporal and locative expressions under I and Pred, manner adverbs under Pr, duration and frequency phrases under V, and different PP's under different heads. Consider the two examples in (26). The ~ category in both of the two sentences is supposed to be PredP, which captures the similarity between the two. The representation of (26a) is given in (27). (26) a. I consider[~ John a fool]. b. Johni seems [~ ti sick]. (27) IP ~I' p ~~ 1/~ PredP ~ NP Pred' I P~p I [+tense]consider John e a fool In analyzing negation, do we have evidence suggesting that PredP exists? In what follows, we will present VP ellipsis cases to support this line of analyses. Consider the VP ellipsis cases in (28)-(31). (28) a. Zhangsan mai-le na-ben shu, Lisi meiyou.26 Zhangsan buy-ASP that-CL book Lisi not.have 'Zhangsan bought that book, (but) Lisi didn't.' b. Zhangsan mei(you) kan na-ben shu, Lisi ye meiyou. Zhangsan not(have) read that-CL book Lisi also not.have 'Zhangsan didn't read that book, and Lisi didn't either.' (29) A: Ni zhen nianqing! you really young 'You look really young!' B: Bu (nianqing) le.27 Haizi dou ji-ge le. not young ASP child already how:many-CL ASP 'Not any more. See how many children I have already.' (30) A: Ni xianzai hai qu nar rna? you now still go there PRT 'Do you still go there now?' 26 In licensing VP ellipsis, ~cannot be replaced by its variant mri;. (i) a. Zhangsan mai-le na-ben shu, Lisi ~*mei. Zhangsan buy-ASP that-CL book Lisi not.have/not 'Zhangsan bought that book, (butt) Lisi didn't.' b. Ta mei(you) kan na-ben shu, wo ye meiyou/*Irua. he not(have) read that-CL book I also not.have/not 'He didn't read that book, and I didn't either.' 76 27 It has been noted in Chinese literature that 1m. cannot occur freely except when it is used as 'no': Bu. ta mei lai 'No, he didn't come.' See L.-S. Yang (1971) and C.-T. Huang (1988), among others. However, as shown in the text, we do find acceptable examples of VP ellipsis with .tm.. B: Bu (qu nar) le. not go there ASP 'Not any more.' 77 It is clear that VP ellipsis does not affect any phrase smaller than a VP.2s Thus the data in (29) and (30) suggests that this use ofbu has to be higher than VP. Now the question is how the empty VP in those grammatical cases is licensed. Note that there is a clear contrast between the bu sentences in (29) and (30) above, and those in (32) below. The first one is taken from C.-T. Huang (1988, p. 288). (32) a. Zhangsan xihuan zhe-ben shu, Lisi bu xihuan/*[yp e]. Zhangsan like this-CL book Lisi not like 'Zhangsan likes this book, (but) Lisi does not.' 2 8 Consider the examples of VP ellipsis (Lightfoot 2000): (i) a. Max left on Wednesday but Mary didn't [yp e]. b. *Max left for Rio but Mary didn't [VP e for Naples]. c. Max left for Rio, although Mary didn't [yp e]. d. Although Max couldn't [VP e], Mary was able to leave for Rio. e. Susan went to Rio. Yes, but Jane didn't [yp e]. f. The man who speaks French knows op[the woman who doesn't [yp e]. g. Don't [yp e]. VP ellipsis apply sentence-finally, as in (ia), and it cannot apply to anything smaller than a full VP (ib). It may occur in a subordinate clause (ic), the elided VP may precede its antecedent (id), it may occur across sentence-boundaries (ie), and within complex NPs (it). The elided VP may even have a non-overt antecedent (ig). Lobeck (1995) identifies the following properties ofVP ellipsis: (ii) a. VP ellipsis may be clause-final b. VP ellipsis may occur in a subordinate or coordinate clause c. VP ellipsis may precede its antecedent d. VP ellipsis is a phrase e. VP ellipsis may occur across a sentence-boundary f. VP ellipsis may violate the Complex NP constraint g. VP ellipsis is introduced by a filled INFL. b. Zhe-zhang zhuozi da, na-zhang bu da/*[vp e]. this-CL table big that-CL not big 'This table is big, (but) that one is not.' 78 The fact that the former sentence has the sentence-final particle le, which is located in Asp, while the latter does not have any INFL element might lead one to assume that the unfilled INFL in (32b) contributes somehow to the sentence's ungrammaticality. Perhaps, for example, the ungrammaticality is due to the violation of some version of ECP ( cf. Lobeck 1995). However, the fact that both VP ellipsis cases in (33) are quite acceptable indicates that filled INFL might not be relevant to the ungrammaticality of (32b ). (33) a. Dajia dou yiwei Zhangsan hen kuaile, keshi ta shuo tabu everybody all think Zhangsan very happy but he say he not kuaile/? [VP e]. happy 'Everybody thought Zhangsan was happy, but he said he was not.' b. Zhangsan keyi qu, keshi ta pian bu qu/[vp e]. Zhangsan can go but he just not go 'Zhangsan can go, but he just don't want to.' Closely comparing the three sets of data, we find the crucial factor is the focus. For the grammatical sentences in (29), (30) and (33), the negative marker bu is the focus element, while in the ungrammatical sentences in (32), the subject of the bu clause is the focus element. This factor does not seem to matter in the meiyou cases, as shown in (28). 79 The relevance of focus in bu cases points us to Winkler's (2000) analysis of VP ellipsis.29 Winkler proposes that in the unmarked case VP ellipsis is characterized by pitch accent assigned to the negative/affirmative term, hence called polarity focus, which licenses VP ellipsis at PF. In other words, the function of VP ellipsis is not to signal contrastivity on the subject as suggested by Rooth (1992) (also Tomioka 1995 and Fox 1998), but to mark an event of a similar type as D(iscourse ) linked. Winkler proposes a single PF economy principle, Silent Copy, as stated in (34). Silent copy favors leaving a syntactic copy unpronounced if focus is assigned to the head of the sentence internal polarity phrase (PolP1). The execution of Silent VP Copy is given in (35). (34) Silent Copy: Do not pronounce copies. (35) Execution of Silent VP Copy: Silent Copy applies iff (i) The copy is coherently [-F]; (ii) There is an antecedent VP of the same type; (iii) Po11o is [+F]; (In all other cases, the copy must be pronounced but may be partially deaccented.) 29 There are two different accounts of VP ellipses. One is the proforrn account (Hardt 1993, Lobeck 1995), and the other is the PF-deletion account (Chomsky and Lasnik 1993, Tancredi 1992, among others). 80 As shown in (35iii), Winkler assumes a PolPI, which incorporates the negative/affirmative feature. It can license a VP ellipsis if the PolPl is marked with the [ +F] feature, which is typically realized by a pitch accent in English. 30 Thus, it follows from (35iii) that (36b), (37b), and (37c), as opposed to (36a) and (37a), are ruled out because PolO is not focused and is not realized with a pitch accent on the auxiliary. (36) a. Ben said that he has read The MP, but he HASN'T. b. *Ben said that he has read The MP, but he hasn't. (37) a. Ben said that he hasn't read The MP, but he HAS. b. *Ben said that he hasn't read The MP, but he has. c. *Ben said that he hasn't read The MP, but he's. The sentence in (38) is also correctly ruled in by (35iii): (38) Jan said that he has read Dostoyevsky's Idiot, but he's NOT. In (38), the auxiliary is contracted, but the licensing element for the VP ellipsis is the negation, which is assigned [+F], here realized by a pitch on 'not.' 30 It is proposed that negation and (emphatic) affirmation are the two values of one and the same phrase: a Polarity Phrase (Laka 1990). Such a view, however, is challenged by Cinque (1999, p. 127). He points out that both negation and (emphatic) affirmation appear to be marked values. They can (marginally) co-occur in a fixed relative order (in Italian), with emphatic affirmation (sl) preceding negation (~: (i) a. (?) Gianni non ci ha sl mica detto tutto (rna ce lo ha lasciato capire). 'G. not us has yes not told everything (but he has let us understand it)' b. *Gianni non ci ha mica si detto tutto (rna ce lo ha lasciato capire). Cinque (1999, p. 127) suggests the existence of two separate projections for negation and (emphatic) affirmation. 81 Winkler claims that (35iii) is active even in Rooth's symmetric focus and deaccentuation cases as given in (39): (39) A: Whose coach thinks he has a chance? B: [JOHN's]p coach thinks he has a chance, and [BILL's]p coach does too. Before we can discuss (39), consider the following example first. It is 'John' and not the auxiliary 'do' that is stressed or emphatic in (40) (William 1977, p. 107): ( 40) A: Who left? B: JOHN did. Winkler claims that utterances like B in ( 40), in which the auxiliary is deaccented, are typically confined to wh-question-answer sequences, which require a completive focus on the subject. Following Drubig (1998, p. 29), she considers wh-questions to be a 'special focusing device that sets up the local (temporary) focus-background structure by specifying the constituent that must be focused in the answer.' Given this, answers to wh-questions like A in ( 40) show a focus-background structure that overrides the intonational realization of focus on the polarity item. Despite this, Winkler claims that the [ +F] feature on polarity is still responsible for the non contractability of the auxiliary in sequences, as given in the B of (41). (41) A: Who's left? B: *JOHN'S. B': JOHN probably HAS. 82 When the subject and the auxiliary are separated as in the B' of ( 41), it is clear to see that both are prosodically marked by a pitch accent. The subject in the answer is a completive focus, while the accent on the auxiliary licenses VP ellipsis. Similarly, according to Winkler, polarity focus is also active in cases like B of (39) since it is an answer to a wh-question. Now consider the Chinese cases. As we have noted above, meiyou does not have to be focused in order to license VP ellipsis. We assume that either the NegP can serve the same function as PolP1, or our NegP may be PolP1 in a more general sense. Now consider the bu cases. The sentence with VP ellipsis in (33a) is perfect with the presence of a minimizer yi-dian 'a little' plus ye/dou 'also/all.' (42) Dajia dou yiwei ta hen kuaile, keshi ta shuo ta yi-dian ye/dou bu everybody all think he very happy but he say he one-bit also/all not kuaile/[yp e]. happy 'Everybody thought he was happy, but he said he was not at all.' As shown in (43), the minimizer is a negative polarity item because it must be licensed by negation. (43) Ta yi-dian ye/dou *(bu) kuaile. he one-bit also/all not happy 'He is not happy at all.' 83 One might argue that bu also heads a PolP1. However, if this were the case, we will not be able to distinguish the dissimilar behaviors of bu and meiyou in VP ellipsis cases. Thus in the most economical analysis, whether or not VP ellipsis can be licensed by bu depends on the focus status of bu. In other words, bu can license VP ellipsis only if it is focused. If our analysis is correct, what is crucial in licensing a VP ellipsis in bu cases is focus. We will follow Lee and Pan (1999) in assuming that bu is a focus-sensitive operator (cf. Rooth 1985). When there is a focus in the sentence, a focus-sensitive operator will induce a tripartite structure including the operator, the background and the focus. Whether a null VP can be licensed by bu depends on whether bu can carry the [ +F] feature. In the grammatical cases, bu itself is marked with [ +F]. This will make the null VP become part of the background, and will license VP ellipsis. Considering the bu and meiyou cases, we can revise (35) as follows: (44) Execution of Silent VP Copy: Silent Copy applies iff (i) The copy is coherently [ -F]; (ii) There is an antecedent VP of the same type; (iii) The negative/affirmative term is projected as PolPI or is [+F]. (In all other cases, the copy must be pronounced but may be partially deaccented.) Alternatively, one may say that meiyou in Chinese is always [+F]. However, this is not a viable analysis because it is not clear why this has to be the case. 84 In this section, we have presented VP ellipsis cases to show that both 1m. and mei(you) must be higher than VP. Furthermore, we have shown that while mei(you) heads a NegP, which licenses a null VP when it is focused, bu cannot head a NegP as mei(you) can. In bu cases, VP ellipsis is licensed only when bu is focused. This evidence supports our analysis, in which bu does not head a NegP, and is adjoined to a category that is higher than VP, i.e. Pred'. 3.3.4 Adjunction to V' In the above section, we argued that bu can adjoin to a position as high as Pred'. In this section, we will use the data involving negative derived nominals to show that bu can occur in a position as low as V'. Consider the sentences in ( 45), and note the manner in which they are negated in (46) and (47). ( 45) a. Ta dui wo hen xinren. he to I very trust 'He trusts me very much.' b. Ta dui zhe-jian shi hen zaihu. he to this-CL matter very care 'He cares about this matter very much.' ( 46) a. Ta dui wo bu xinren. he to I not trust 'He does not trust me.' b. *Ta bu dui wo xinren. he not to I trust 'He does not trust me.' ( 4 7) a. Ta dui zhe-zhong shi bu zaihu. he to this-CL matter not care 'He does not care for this kind of thing.' b. *Ta bu dui zhe-zhong shi zaihu. he not to this-CL matter care 'He does not care this kind of thing.' 85 According to J. Fu (1994), the projection of a dui phrase, i.e. a PP, must be generated within a VP. In particular, it is adjoined to a V'. J. Fu studies derived process nominals as the underlined word in (48). ( 48) ta dui zhe-jian shi de diaocha he to this-CL matter DE investigation 'his investigation of this matter' J. Fu shows that Chinese process nominals, but not ordinary nouns, have a mixture of nominal and verbal properties. First, they exhibit both nominal and verbal selectional properties. Second, they exhibit both nominal and verbal structure. For example, they have both nominal and verbal modification and word order. J. Fu proposes an underlying VP for the verbal properties. A process nominal such as diaocha in ( 48) is derived from an underlying VP, and the V ends up in the N position as a result of V -to-N raising. The relevant structure is given in ( 49). (49) A A~ NP A"'- d> pp A v~p 86 The structure in ( 49) captures the fact that a dui phrase can occur in a derived nominal as shown in (48), and in a VP as in (50a), but not in an underived nominal as in (50b): (50) a. Ta dui zhe-jian shi diaocha-guo. he to this-CL matter investigate-ASP 'He has investigated that matter.' b. Ta guanyu/*dui Lisi de zhuanji hen youyisi. he about to Lisi DE biography very interesting 'His biography about Lisi is very interesting.' The structure in (49) also captures the fact that IP adjuncts, as opposed to VP adjuncts, do not occur in a derived nominal. Fu assumes that VP adjuncts occur adjoined to VP or V', while IP adjuncts occur adjoined to IP or 1'. As shown in (51), IP adjuncts occur before the subject and an auxiliary verb, and VP adjuncts occur between an auxiliary verb and the verb. VP adjuncts include manner adverbs, temporal adverbs, and various PPs. IP adjuncts include sentence adverbials and temporal phrases, instrumental PPs and locative PPs. The last three also occur as VP adjuncts. (51) IP ~ A I' /) IP-adjuncts Au0P ~ /\. ~ V' VP-adjuncts 0 87 Let us consider again our examples in (46) and (47). Both verbs can form derived nominals: (52) a. ta dui wo de xinren he to I DE trust 'his trust of me' b. ta dui zhe-jian shi de zaihu he to this-CL matter DE care 'his concern about this matter' Furthermore, both verbs can form negative derived nominals: (53) a. ta dui wo de bu-xinren he to I DE not-trust 'his being trustless of me' b. ta dui zhe-jian shi de bu-zaihu he to this-CL matter DE not-care 'his being careless toward this matter' 88 If J. Fu's V-to-N analysis of derived nominals is correct, then negative derived nominals must be considered as having raising from a lower position to N. Given the fact that bu in those cases of derived nominals occurs below a dui phrase, it has to be adjoined to V' or to a position lower than a V'. Note that it cannot be adjoined to V because degree adverbs such as hen 'very' occur between bu and the verb: (54) a. Ta dui wo bu hen xinren. he to I not very trust 'He does not trust me very much.' b. Ta dui zhe-jian shi bu hen zaihu. he to this-CL matter not very care 'He does not care about this matter very much.' Thus, bu must adjoin to V' rather than to V. The question is why the combination moves as a unit: (55) a. *ta dui wo bu de xinren he to I not DE trust 'his being trustless toward me' b. *ta dui zhe-jian shi bu de zaihu he to this-CL matter not DE care 'his being careless toward this matter' 89 We propose that a reanalysis has incorporated 1m. into the verb. This reanalysis is forced when raising takes place. Assuming bu is adjoined to V', we predict that VP ellipsis is not possible in this case because it does not delete anything smaller than a VP. The prediction is borne out as shown in (33a) and (42), repeated here. (56) a. Dajia dou shuo ta dui dianying hen liaojie, keshi ta shuo tabu everybody all say he toward movie very understand but he say he not liaojie/?[vp e]. understand 'Everybody said he was familiar with movies, but he said he was not.' b. Dajia dou shuo ta dui dianying hen liaojie, keshi ta shuo ta yi-dian everybody all say he toward movie very understand but he say one-bit ye/dou bu liaojie/[yp e]. also/all not understand 'Everybody said he was familiar with movies, but he said he was not at all.' When the dui 'for' phrase is present, the sentences with VP ellipsis become ungrammatical: (57) a. Dajia dou shuo ta dui dianying hen liaojie, keshi ta shuo ta everybody all say he toward movie very understand but he say he dui dianying bu liaojie/* [ VP e]. toward movie not understand 'Everybody said he is familiar with movies, but he said he is not.' b. Dajia dou shuo ta dui dianying hen liaojie, keshi ta shuo ta everybody all say he toward movie very understand but he say he dui dianyin~ yi-dian ye/dou bu liaojie/*[vp e]. toward movie one-bit also/all not understand 'Everybody said he is familiar with movies, but he said he is not at all.' 90 The presence of the dui phrase forces bu to take a lower position in the tree structure and makes VP ellipsis impossible. We have argued above that bu can adjoin to V'. This use of bu should be separated from the cases in which bu is part of a lexical word. For example, (58) a. Ta dui wo bucuo. he to I not:bad 'He is good to me.' b. Ta dui wo bunaifan. he to I impatient 'He is impatient to me.' The adjectives bucuo and bunaifan in the above examples should be treated as words because, unlike verbs such as xinren 'trust' and zaihu 'care,' the non-negation morphemes, i.e. cuo and naifan. are not words: (59) a. *Ta dui wo hen cuo. he to I very bad 'He is bad to me.' b. *Ta dui wo hen naifan. he to I very patient 'He is very patient to me.' Thus bu in this case should be considered a subpart of a lexical word. 91 We have shown that bu can adjoin to Pred' in the section above, and bu can be adjoined to V' in this section. This analysis predicts that one should be able to iterate bu. This prediction is borne out: (60) Ta cong bu zheme wan hai bu hui jia. he ever not this late still not return home 'It is never the case that he still does not come home when it is so late.' 3.3.5 Summaries In summary, in this section we have provided evidence for our syntactic analysis of the negative markers. First, we show that negation has narrow scope with respect to TP and AspP. Second, the contrast between clausal negation and non-clausal negation leads support to the NegP analysis for mei(you) as opposed to bu. Third, we have used the data of VP ellipsis to show that an analysis assuming PredP is better than a bare VP analysis. Mei(you) is supposed to take PredP, whereas bu can be adjoined to a position as high as Pred'. Finally, using the data related to derived process nominals, we were able to show that bu can occur in a position as low as V'. 3.4 Conclusions In this chapter, we propose that mei(you) is generated in Neg under NegP, which occurs between AspP and PredP. The former is headed by the sentence-finalle, and 92 the latter indicates predication. On the other hand, bu is argued to be adjoined to PredP' or V'. In the next chapter, we will discuss negative particle questions and A not-A questions, for which our analysis of negation plays an important role. 93 CHAPTER4 NEGATIVE PARTICLE QUESTIONS AND A-NOT -A QUESTIONS 4.1 Introduction This chapter concerns two types of questions. The first one is the well-known A not-A question, as in (1)-(3) below. (1) a. Ni xi(huan)-bu-xihuan ta? you like-not-like he 'Do you like him?' b. Ni xihuan tabu xihuan ta? you like he not like he 'Do you like him?' (2) Ta chani:-bu-chani: lai? he often-not-often come 'Does he come often?' (3) Ta shi-bu-shi lai le? he be-not-be come ASP 'Is he here?' An A-not-A question is constituted by two parts: a positive part and a negative part. The negation can be either bu or mei. The repeated part can be part of a verb, a verb, a verb-like adverb, or the whole VP (C.-T. Huang 1982). Sentence (la) illustrates the type of A-not-A question that either repeats the verb or part of the 94 verb, while sentence (lb) has the whole VP repeated. The A-not-A question in (2) repeats the adverb. However, not all adverbs can form an A-not-A question: (4) *Ta ~uyi-bu-~uyi qu? he deliberately-not-deliberately go 'Did he not go deliberately?' Moreover, an A-not-A question be formed by a copula as shown in (3). The second type of question contains a negative particle that occurs at the end of a sentence. This is the so-called negative particle question. For example, (5) a. Ta mai-le na-ben shu meiyou? he buy-ASP that-CL book not.have 'Did he buy that book?' b. Ta mei(you) mai na-ben shu. he not(have) buy that -CL book 'He didn't buy that book.' The negative question particle in (5a) occurs at the end of sentence, in contrast with the typical preverbal position of a negation marker, as given in (5b). We will use NEG-PRTs to refer to the negative question particles, and NEG-PRT -Q (negative particle question) to refer to this type of question. An NEG-PRT -Q is generally believed to be a particular type of yes-no construction. In fact, the typical yes-no question marker rna in Mandarin is claimed to be etymologically related to a negated modal verb (W. Li 1958, p. 45): (6) Ni mai-le na-ben shu rna? you buy-ASP that-CL book PRT 'Did you buy that book?' 95 A question that immediately arises is whether the NEG-PRT occurs in the same position with other sentence-final particles. A recent study of NEG-PRT-Qs in generative grammar done by Cheng, Huang and Tang (1997) (CH&T), considers NEG-PRT-Qs to be a type of yes/no question, and argues that NEG-PRT-Qs in Mandarin Chinese are formed by the movement of a negation marker from its preverbal position to the sentence-final position. Following CH&T, N. Zhang (1997) keeps the essence of the raising analysis, and argues that raising is for the checking of the strong [Q] feature of C in line with feature checking theory in the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995). As far as A-not-A questions are concerned, it is first established by C.-T. Huang (1982) that A-not-A questions pattern like wh-questions. In this chapter, we will show that NEG-PRT-Qs also pattern like wh-questions. We propose a unified analysis for both NEG-PRT -Qs and A-not-A questions. Adopting Aoun and Li (1993), the unified analysis assumes the existence of a QP (question phrase), and an operator in the Spec of QP. Specifically, we argue against CH&T's raising analysis for NEG-PRT -Qs in Mandarin Chinese. This chapter is organized as follows. Section 4.2 discusses the problems with CH&T's analysis of NEG-PRT -Qs. The same criticism is carried overtoN. Zhang's ( 1997) analysis. Section 4.3 discusses two possible analyses. It is followed by a unified analysis of A-not-A questions and NEG-PRT -Qs in Section 4.4. Section 4.5 96 discusses bu as a Neg-PRT in Standard Mandarin and in other varieties of Mandarin. Section 4.6 concludes the chapter. 4.2 Problems with Previous Analyses It is reported in Cheng, Huang and Tang (CH&T)) (1997) that both negation markers meiyou and bu in Mandarin Chinese can function as NEG-PRTs, as shown in (7): (7) a. Ta kan-le na-ben shu meiyou? (=(5a)) he read-ASP that-CL book not.have 'Did he read the book?' b. *Ta chang qu bu? he often not 'Does he go often?' Sentence (7b), however, is not Standard Mandarin. We will discuss this in Section 4.5. CH&T (1997) propose that NEG-PRT-Qs are formed by the movement of a negation marker from its preverbal position to the sentence-final position. They claim that their analysis captures the observation that the use of the two NEG-PRTs respects the typical agreement requirement between negation and aspect/verb. Consider the examples in (8) and (9). (8) Ta qu-gy_Q meiyou/*bu? he go-ASP not.have/not 'Has he been (there)?' (9) Ta mei(youV*bu qu-gyQ. he not(have)/not go-ASP 'He has not been (there).' 97 This requirement, as we have characterized in Chapter 2, is that mei(you) denies the existence of a dynamic situation, while bu denies a non-dynamic situation. CH&T (1997) propose that both NEG-PRTs, bu and mei(you), raise from their preverbal position to the sentence-final position. This analysis, however, is problematic in many ways. First, when the sentence final le is present, the agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect is not directly observable. Consider the examples in ( 1 0). While a modal such as hui 'can' cannot be negated by mei(you), it can form a NEG-PRT-Q with mei(you). (10) a. Ta hui youyong le meiyou? he can swim ASP not.have 'Can he swim?' b. Ta bu/*mei(you) hui youyong. he not/not(have) can swim 'He cannot swim.' Meiyou in (lOa) cannot move from its negation position because it cannot be base-generated there as shown in (lOb). This poses a problem for CH&T's raising analysis. In addition, the raising analysis faces another problem. Consider the contrast in (11). (11) a. Ta kan-le na-ben shu meiyou? (=(Sa)) he read-ASP that-CL book not.have 'Did he read that book?' b. *Ta mei(you) kan-le na-ben shu. he not(have) read-ASP that-CL book 'He didn't read that book.' 98 Sentences ( 11) show that while meiyou cannot negate a sentence with the perfective -le, it can occur as a NEG-PRT when -le is present. If meiyou raises from its negation position as claimed by CH&T, then an explanation is needed as to why meiyou can occur with -le in NEG-PRT-Qs, but not in regular negative sentences. Thus, the raising analysis appears problematic. More serious problems with CH&T's analysis concern the position of NEG PRTs. CH&T claim that NEG-PRTs are in a co position on par with sentence-final question particles such as ne and rna, which are claimed to occur in a co position by C.-C. Tang (1990). If what CH&T claim were true, NEG-PRTs should not occur with sentential particles. Indeed, this is what CH&T claim in their paper. CH&T claim that both sentences in (13) are ungrammatica1. 31 3I CH&T (1997) argue against deriving a NEG-PRT-Q from other A-not-A questions based on two pieces of evidence. First, they claim that NEG-PRTs cannot occur with ~ while other A-not-A questions can have ru;.. (i) a. Ta qu-bu-qu ru;.? he go-not-go PRT 'Does he go?' b. Ta xihuan ni bu xihuan ni ru<? he like you not like you PRT 'Does he like you?' However, as we have shown in the text, m< can occur in a NEG-PRT-Q. Therefore, this argument cannot be maintained. Second, they claim that non-temporaUlocative preverbal adjuncts can appear in NEG-PRT-Qs (ii) but not in A-not-A questions (iii). (12) a. *Ta qu bu ne? hegonotPRT 'Is he going?' b. Ta you qian meiyou ne? he have money not.have PRT 'Does he have money?' 99 However, while sentence (12a) is indeed unacceptable, this is not the case with (12b). Meiyou in (12b) is the negation of the possessive verb you 'have.' The negative marker meiCyou) can also occur with ne: (13) Ni gei-le ta qian meiyou ne? you give-ASP he money not.have PRT 'Did you give him money?' (ii) Ta yiiin~ kan-wan shu meiyou? he already read-finish book not.have 'Did he already finish reading the book?' (iii) a. *Ta yiiing you-meiyou kan-wan na-ben shu? he already have-not.have read-finish that-CL book 'Did he already finish reading that book?' b. *Ta~kan-wan na-ben shu mei(youl kan-wan? he already read-finish that-CL book not(have) read-finish 'Did he already finish reading the book?' This, however, does not necessarily constitute a valid argument against proposing the same derivation for NEG-PRT-Qs and A-not-A questions. First, (iiia) might be unacceptable because of something else. It might be the case that yijin~ 'already' cannot modify an A-not-A form. As shown in (iv), yiiin~ also cannot modify an A-not-A form that contains .trn. (iv) *Ta ~ qy-bu-qu? he already go-not-go 'Has he already go?' Second, as we have noted in Chapter 1, according to J. Shao (1996, p. 111), (iii) is a pattern that is rarely used unless the verb is very simple. Thus, the two pieces of evidence against a common derivation for NEG-PRT-Qs and A-not-A questions are not convincing. 100 N. Zhang (1997, p. 134) also points out that ne can occur in a NEG-PRT-Q. The examples she gives include the following: (14) a. Ta chi-le fan meiyou ne? he eat-ASP meal not.have PRT 'Has he eaten?' b. Ta kan-le nei-ben shu meiyou ne? he read-ASP that-CL book not.have PRT 'Has he read the book?' Moreover, unlike sentence-final particles, the NEG-PRT can occur in an embedded clause: (15) a. Ta xiang zhidao [ta lai le meiyou]. he want know he come ASP not.have 'He wants to know whether he came.' b. Ta xiang zhidao [shei lai-le (*ne)J. he want know who come-ASP PRT 'He wants to know who came.' The sentences in (16) provide further examples of NEG-PRT occurring inside an embedded clause. (16) a. Tabu zhidao ta ziji pang le meiyou. he not know he self fat ASP not.have 'He does not know whether he gained weight.' b. Ta lian ta ziji pane le meiyou dou bu zhidao. he even he self fat ASP not. have all not know 'He does not even know whether he gained weight.' 101 The entire CP that follows the focus marker lian should be considered a constituent because it can be replaced by an NP such as zhe-ce 'this.' (17) Ta li.an zhe-ce dou bu zhidao. he even this-CL all not know 'He did not even know this.' Last but not least, there is a piece of evidence that indicates the NEG-PRT does not occur as high as co. Consider (18). (18) Ni daodi gei-le ta qian meiyou? you indeed give-ASP he money not.have 'Did you indeed give him the money?' It is well known that the question word of a sentence has to be c-commanded by daodi 'indeed' (cf. S. Li.i 1983, p. 128) when daodi is present. For example, (19) a. Ta daodi shuo-le shenme? he indeed say-ASP what 'What did he indeed say?' b. Ta daodi kan-mei-kan na-ben shu? he indeed read-not-read that-CL book 'Did he indeed read that book?' (20) a. *Shei daodi kan-le na-ben shu? who indeed read-ASP that-CL book 'Who indeed read that book?' b. *You-mei-you ren daodi kan-le na-ben shu? have-not-have person indeed read-ASP that-CL book 'Did anyone indeed read that book?' 102 The sentences in ( 19) are grammatical, whereas the sentences in (20) are not because daodi is higher than the interrogative word in the former but not in the latter. The fact that (18) is grammatical shows the NEG-PRT cannot occur as high as the co position. One may argue that the NEG-PRT does occupy the co position and daodi occurs in a position higher than the co. However, this would force the NP preceding daodi to take a position as high as the Spec of CP, which is not a welcome consequence because such a position is usually considered to contain topic phrases or focused elements. In short, our discussion of CH&T's analysis shows that the raising analysis of the NEG-PRT does not seem to be on the right track, and NEG-PRTs cannot occur as high as the co position. The same criticism also applies to N. Zhang's (1997) analysis, which adopts the raising analysis of CH&T. She argues that the overt raising is to check the uninterpretable feature [Q] of the yes-no interrogative C. In the next section, we. will discuss two possible analyses, which replace the raising analysis of NEG-PRT -Qs. 103 4.3 Two Possible Analyses Given what we have discussed above, we see only two possible analyses for NEG-PRT -Qs. In one analysis, we assume that an NEG-PRT is base-generated under a functional head, which is lower than co. In the other analysis, we assume that an NEG-PRT -Q has a coordinate structure, in which VP ellipsis has applied. Let us consider the first possible analysis, as exhibited in (21). The NEG-PRT is base-generated under the F head. This analysis captures the fact that the NEG-PRT does not occur as high as the co position. (21) CP ,.......-......c· Spec~ FP C ~ ~ NEG-PRT In this analysis meiyou must take scope over the perfective marker -le or the sentence-finalle: (22) a. Ta kan-le na-ben shu meiyou? (=(Sa)) he read-ASP that-CL book not.have 'Did he read that book?' b. Ni gei ta shu le meiyou? you give he book ASP not.have 'Have you given him the book?' 104 As we discussed in Chapter 3, this contradicts the fact that mei(you) cannot have the perfective -le within its scope and the sentence-final le has to take scope over mei(you).3 2 A solution is to follow N. Zhang's (1997, p. 154) suggestion that NEG PRT is not a real negative marker. However, this approach cannot explain why the agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect obtains in (8) and (9), repeated here in (23). Thus, this analysis does not seem to be viable. (23) a. Ta qu-2uo meiyoul*bu? he go-ASP not.have/not 'Has he been (there)?' b. Ta mei(you)l*bu qu-2uo. he not(have )/not go-ASP 'He has not been (there).' Now let us consider the second possible analysis as exhibited in (24). The XPs in (24) must be some projections higher than VP, and the second coordinate XP must contain the negative marker. Furthermore, in this proposed structure the NEG-PRT is located in a regular negative position, and the relevant structure is a coordinate structure selected by a functional head. Semantically, the coordinate structure should denote disjunction because only one conjunct is true. 32 See Section 3.3.1 in Chapter 3. 105 (24) This structure captures the fact that the NEG-PRT does not occur as high as the co position. It also has an advantage over the first analysis in that it predicts agreement between negation and verb/aspect. This analysis assumes that the application of VP ellipsis leaves the negative marker behind in the second conjunct. Given this analysis, the question is why bu cannot license VP ellipsis as opposed to meiyou: (25) a. Ta kan-le na-ben shu meiyou [yp e]? (=(Sa)) he read-ASP that-CL book not.have 'Did he read that book?' b. *Ta chang qu bu [yp e]? (=(7b)) he often go not 'Does he go often?' We will come to this in Section 4.5 below. To summarize, the analysis of NEG-PRT -Q utilizing a coordinate structure with VP ellipsis seems to be on the right track. However, the coordinate structure does not explain why when le is present, the alleged requirement fails as shown in (10). This problem does not seem to be without remedy, however. In Section 4.4.3, we 106 will propose a more detailed coordinate structure to resolve the problem posed by the simple coordinate structure here. 4.4 Our Unified Analysis We have assumed there is a functional category for a NEG-PRT-Q. A question remains as to the identity of this functional category. Could this functional head be INFL or a different functional head instead? Or, more fundamentally, can we justify the existence of this functional category? In this section, by comparing NEG-PRT Qs with A-not-A questions, we suggest that this head is a Q (question), which is marked with the [+WH] feature, and A-not-A questions also involve such a QP (question phrase). 4.4.1 The Projection of Question and Operator Movement As we mentioned in Chapter 1, C.-T. Huang (1991) argues for a modular approach for the A-not-A questions: (26) a. Ta xihuan zhe-ben shu (haishi) tabu xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like this-CL book or he not like this-CL book 'Does he like this book or doesn't he like this book?' b. Ta xihuan zhe-ben shu bu xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like this-CL book not like this-CL book 'Does he like this book or doesn't [he] like this book?' c. Ta xihuan bu xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like not like this-CL book 'Does he like or doesn't [he] like this book?' d. Ta xihuan zhe-ben shu bu xihuan? he like this-CL book not like 'Does he like this book or doesn't [he] like [it]?' e. Ta xi-bu-xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like-not-like this-CL book 'Does he like or not like this book?' 107 This modular approach breaks up the paradigm in (26) into three separate sub paradigms. Sentence (26a) is a true disjunctive question that may undergo coordinate deletion, resulting in reduced haishi 'or' questions. Sentences (26c) and (26e) are [A not AB] questions that derive via reduplication from a simplex D structure. Sentence (26d) is an [AB not A] question that has a base-generated coordinate VP, which undergoes a process of anaphoric ellipsis. And sentence (26b) may be analyzed as an example of either [A not AB] or [AB not A] (where B is null). This, however, is a redundancy. As will be shown later, this redundancy can be avoided in our analysis. Let us start with (26d). C.-T. Huang claims that (26d) has the form [[AB] [not AB]], which undergoes a process of anaphoric ellipsis deleting the second occurrence of B. Anaphoric ellipsis, according to C.-T. Huang (1991), applies in a way consistent with general principles of anaphora (involving precedence and/or C-command). It is distinguished from coordinate deletion, which is subject to a severe Directionality Constraint (DC) (Ross 1967). In essence, the DC requires that deletion must go forward if the identical elements in a coordinate structure occur on a left branch of a tree, but backward if they each occur on a right branch. Thus, when it is applied to the (a) sentences of (27) and (28), DC correctly rules in the (b) sentences, and rules out the (c) sentences below: 108 (27) a. John waited and John left. b. John waited and left. c. *waited and John left. (28) a. John left and Mary left. b. John and Mary left. c. *John left and Mary. It is clear that the [AB not A] type of A-not-A Question in (26d) does not obey the DC. The object zhe-ben shu 'this book' occurs in a right branch, but the deletion is forward. Thus, it does not undergo coordinate deletion. Anaphoric ellipsis, on the other hand, can occur also in non-coordinate constructions: (29) Ruguo ni bu xihuan zhe-ben shu, jiu bie mai. if you not like this-CL book then don't buy 'If you don't like this book, then don't buy it.' Or, it can occur across a fragment of discourse: (30) A: Zhangsan piping-le Lisi le rna? Zhangsan criticize-ASP Lisi ASP PRT 'Did Zhangsan criticize Lisi?' B: Meiyou, ta meiyou piping. not.have he not.have criticize No, he did not criticize [him].' 109 Now let us move on to the [A not AB] questions. C.-T. Huang (1982) proposes that both sentences in (26c) and (26e) are derived from a simplex D-structure with a [+Q] feature in INFL as represented in (31). (31) IP N~ r l VP ~NP r /"-.,. ni [ +Q] xihuan zhe-ben shu you like this-CL book According to C.-T. Huang (1982, p. 282), the interrogative INFL is realized by a reduplication rule as given in (32). This rule copies a sequence that immediately follows INFL, and inserts the morpheme bu between the original and its copy. (32) A-not-A Reduplication [+A-not-A] [yp XY] --> [vp [[X] [bu X]] Y] not Thus, depending on whether xi 'like' or xihuan 'like' is taken to be the X in (32), (26c) or (26e) can be generated. Sentence (26b) can be generated via (32) if X in (32) is considered to be xihuan zhe-ben shu 'like this book.' The rule in (32) is criticized by McCawley (1994, p. 180). Among the reasons he gives is the following. Since the negative form does not appear in the deep structure, bu or mei that appears in an A-not-A form is not a true negative form. The syntax and semantics of an A-not-A form would not be materially different if the element that (32) inserts were not bu or mei but ~ 'also' or jiangyou 'soy sauce.' As a matter of fact, the negative form in an A-not-A form has to preserve the agreement 110 requirement between negation and verb/aspect. For example, with the presence of - ~. mei but not bu can be used: (33) a. Ni qu-mei-qu-guo Zhongguo? you go-not.have-go-ASP China 'Have you been to China?' b. Ni qu-meil*bu-qu-guo Zhongguo? you go-not.have/not-go-ASP China 'Have you been to China?' Thus, the negative form in an A-not-A form must be a true negative form. Another difficulty with C.-T. Huang's analysis, as pointed out by J.-M. Guo (1992, pp. 17-20), is that the rule in (32) will overgenerate ungrammatical sentences such as those in (34). This is because what the reduplication rule is subject to is only the condition that the sequence that reduplicates must be a phonological unit (Guo 1992, p. 331). (34) a. *Ta keneng xi bu keneng xihuan Lisi? he might like not might like Lisi 'He might like or might not like Lisi ?' b. *Ta keneng xihuan Li bu keneng xihuan Lisi? he might like Lisi not might like Lisi 'He might like or might not like Lisi ?' 111 J.-M. Guo (1992) proposes (35) to replace (32): (35) [nego [nego +WH][vO X,Y]] -->[[X] [bu X] Y] In Guo's analysis, there is a [+WH] feature and a [+V] feature under NEG and V respectively. In the syntax, [+V] elements raise to the [+WH] element, which triggers the reduplication rule (35) at PF, and satisfies the morphological requirement of [+WH]. The raising itself must satisfy the Empty Category Principle (Chomsky 1981), which requires an empty category to be either lexically governed or antecedent governed. In this analysis, sentences (34) will not be generated because only [ + V] heads can raise to Neg. J.-M. Guo's analysis is appealing. However, it does not explain why predicates vary in their ability to form the [A not AB] type of questions. Consider the following examples given in McCawley (1994, p. 182): (36) a. *Zhe-ge wenti weilweiding-bu-weiding? this-CL question undecided not undecided 'Is this question undecided?' b. ??Zheyang zuo wu-bu-wuli? thus do un-not-reasonable 'Is it unreasonable to do this?' c. ?Zheyang zuo fei-bu-feifa? thus do in-not-illegal 'Is it illegal to do this?' 112 Here we would like to propose a feature checking analysis for A-not-A questions. As we discussed in Chapter 1, feature checking theory in the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995) postulates that words are assigned to structures in their full, surface morphological form. They are then "checked" to ensure that they have the appropriate form for the structure that they are embedded in. Adopting the feature checking theory, we propose that xi-bu-xuhuan 'like-not-like' in (26c) and xihuan-bu xihuan 'like-not-like' in (26e), as opposed to elements such as kenen~ xi bu kenen~ xihuan in (34a) or weilweidin~-bu-weidin~ in (36a), are morphologically complex words generated and marked with the [+WH] feature in the lexicon. We assume this feature is uninterpretable, and has to move to a higher head for checking. That an A-not-A form is a word is supported by the fact that an A-not-A form as a whole can be followed by the perfective marker -~uo as shown in (33) above. Furthermore, the different degrees of acceptability in (36) can be explained by this analysis. In theoretical terms, our analysis conforms to the spirit of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995), which proposes that words are fully inflected before they enter syntactic computation. We also assume that the checking takes place at LF in accordance with the Procrastinate Principle (Chomsky 1995), which states that LF movement is 'cheaper' than overt movement. However, we deviate from Chomsky in assuming that what drives movement is the features of the moved element, rather than features on the target of movement. In other words, it is the [ + WH] feature on the A-not-A form that motivates the raising, rather than the [+WH] feature on the F head. This assumption is crucial for us as will become clear later. Now the question is what is the higher functional head that contains the [+WH] feature. In Guo's analysis, this head is Neg. However, it is problematic to assume that the [+WH] feature occurs under the Neg for the following theoretical reasons. 113 First, consider negative polarity items (NPI). In Guo's analysis, an NPI such as conglai 'ever' has to be licensed under the NegP projection: (37) a. *Ta conglai qu na-zhong difang. he ever go that -CL place 'He ever goes to that kind of place.' b. Ta conglai bu qu na-zhong difang. he ever not go that-CL place 'He never goes to that kind of place.' By assuming that the [+WH] feature occurs in a Neg, the sentence in (38) is wrongly predicted to be grammatical because conglai 'ever' should be licensed in the NegP. (38) *Ta conglai qu-bu-qu na-zhong difang? he ever go-not-go that-CL place 'Does he ever go to that kind of place?' If the functional category in question is not a NegP, what is it? It has been suggested in Aoun and Li (1993) that a certain QP, or more generally, an XP, distinguishes different types of sentences such as questions, indicatives, and suggestions. This XP occurs lower than IP. The X can have four combinations of the features [+/-Qu] and [+/-WH]. If the features are [+Qu, +WH], a [+WH] question will be generated, and a Qu-operator can occur in the Spec of this projection. This operator subsequently moves to the Spec of Comp inside or outside 114 the clause. [ +Qu, -WH] will generate yes/no questions. [ -Qu, -WH] will produce statements. [ -Qu, + WH] may be related to exclamatory sentences. Adopting the QP analysis, though not the feature systems of Aoun and Li (1993), we assume that the higher head in the [A not AB] type of A-not-A question is Q, which is marked with the [+WH] feature.J3 As for NEG-PRT-Qs, we propose that they also contain a QP with a Q head marked with the [+WH] feature. However, unlike in the [A not AB] type, in this type of question feature checking of the [+WH] feature does not take place. This is the reason why we must assume it is the [+WH] feature of the A-not-A that motivates the raising. When there is no [+WH] feature in the A-not-A form, no raising takes place. Furthermore, we adopt the QP analysis for the [AB not AB] and [AB not A] type of A-not-A questions and for disjunctive questions without haishi 'or.' In this way, we can reduce the redundancy for the derivation of the [AB not AB] type that exists in C.-T. Huang's analysis. That both A-not-A questions and NEG-PRT-Qs contain the [+WH] feature can be justified as follows. As shown in (39), a yes/no question, which anticipates affirmation or rejection, can be answered by shi de 'yes' for affirmation. Yes-No question (39) A: Shu huan-le rna? book return-ASP PRT 'Did you return the book?' 33 See our discussion in Chapter 6 for the reason why we do not adopt Aoun and Li's feature system. B: Huan le/Meiyou/Shi de. return ASP not.have/yes DE 'I did/1 didn't/Yes.' 115 By contrast, for a NEG-PRT-Q and an A-not-A question, just as for a .wh question, shi de 'yes' is not a possible answer: NEG-PRT-Q (40) A: Ta kan-le na-ben shu meiyou [vp e]? (=(5a)) he read-ASP that-CL book not.have 'Did he read that book?' B: Kan le/Meiyou/#Shi de. read ASP not.have/yes DE 'I did/1 didn't/Yes.' A-not-A Questions (41) A: Ni xihuan-bu-xihuan/xi-bu-xihuan zhe-ben shu? (=(26c&e)) you like-not-like this-CL book 'Do you like this book?' B: Xihuan/Bu xihuan/#Shi de. like/not like/yes DE 'I doll don't/Yes.' (42) A: Ni xihuan zhe-ben shu bu xihuan zhe-ben shu? (=(26b) you like this-CL book not like this-CL book 'Do you like this book?' B: Xihuan/Bu xihuan/#Shi de. like/not like/yes DE 'I doll don't/Yes.' (43) A: Ta shi-bu-shi lai le? he be-not-be come ASP 'Is he here?' B: Lai le/Meiyou/Shi de. come ASP/not.have/yes DE 'He did/He didn't/Yes.' ( 44) A: Ni chi fan chi mian? you eat rice eat noodle 'Do you eat rice, (or) do you eat noodle?' B: Wo chi fan/W o chi mian/#Shi de. Wh-question I eat rice/1 eat noodle/yes DE 'I eat rice/1 eat noodles/Yes.' (45) A: Ni mai-le shenme? you buy-ASP what 'What did you buy?' B: Shu/#Shi de. book/yes DE '(I bought) books/Yes.' 116 117 As can be seen above, the only exception is the shi-bu-shi question in ( 43). However, the fact that this question can be answered by shi de is not surprising since shi-bu-shi uses shi as part of the question form. Assuming that both A-not-A questions and NEG-PRT-Qs contain a [+WH] feature under a Q head, we have a natural explanation of the pattern in which NEG-PRT -Qs behave like A-not-A questions and wh-questions. The QP analysis for both NEG-PRT -Qs and A-not-A questions are further supported by the fact that they behave alike with respect to islands. Consider wh questions first. Among wh-words, it has been observed that there is a contrast with respect to islands between shei 'who,' shenme 'what,' shenme shihou 'what time,' shenme difang 'what place,' weile shenme 'for what,' on the one hand, and A-not-A question forms and weishenme 'why,' on the other. This is exemplified as follows (C.-T. Huang 1982, W.-T. Tsai 1994a, J.-M. Guo 1992, among others): Sentential subject condition (46) a. [Shei qu Meiguo] bijiao hao? who go America more good 'Who (x) such that x goes to America is better?' 'Who should go to America?' b. [Wo mai shenmel bijiao hao? I buy what more good 'What (x) such that I buy is better?' 'What is it that I should buy?' c. [Wo shenme shihou qu Meiguo] bijiao hao? I what time go America more good 'When (x) such that I go to America is better?' 'When is it better that I go to America?' d. [Xuesheng weile shenme gongzuo] bijiao hao? student for what work more good 'What (x) such that students work for x is better?' 'What should students work for?' e. *[Zhangsan qu-bu-qu Meiguo] bijiao hao? Zhangsan go-not-go America more good 'Zhangsan goes to America or does not go to America is better?' f. *[Wo weishenme qu Meiguo] bijiao hao? I why go America more good 'Why (x) such I go to America xis better?' 'Why is it better that I go to America?' Complex NP condition A. object position (47) a. Ni bijiao xihuan [shei xie de shu]? you more like who write DE book 'Who (x) such that you like the book x writes better?' 'Whose book do you like best?' 118 b. Ni bijiao xihuan [zuo shenme de ren]? you more like do what DE person 'What (x) such that you like the people who do x better?' 'You like people who do what best?' c. Ni bijiao xihuan [Zhangsan shenme shihou xie de shu]? you more like Zhangsan what time write DE book 119 'What time (x) such that you like the book that Zhangsan wrote at x better?' 'What period of Zhangsan's books do you like best?' d. Ni bijiao xihuan [Zhangsan zai shenme difang xie de shu]? you more like Zhangsan at what place write DE book 'What place (x) such that you like the book that Zhangsan wrote at x better?' 'Those books by Zhangsan written at what place do you like best?' e. Ni bijiao xihuan [Zhangsan weile shenme xie de shu]? you more like Zhangsan for what write DE book 'What (x) such that you like the book that Zhangsan wrote for x better?' 'Those books what Zhangsan wrote for what purpose do you like best?' f. *Ni bijiao xihuan [zun-bu-zunjing ni de ren]? you more like respect-not-respect you DE person 'Who do you like better, the people who respect you or the people who do not?' g. *Ni bijiao xihuan [ta weishenme zhao de xiangpian]? you more like he why take DE picture 'Why (x) such that you like the picture that he took for x better?' 'You like best the picture he took for what reason?' B. subject position (48) a. [Shei xie de shu] bijiao youqu? who write DE book more interesting 'Who (x) such that the book that x writes is more interesting?' 'Whose books is more interesting?' b. [Zuo shenme de ren] bijiao youmo? do what DE man more humorous 'What (x) such that the people who do x are more humorous?' 'People doing what are more interesting?' c. [Zhangsan shenme shihou xie de shu] bijiao youqu? Zhangsan what time write DE book more interesting 'What time (x) such that Zhangsan wrote the book at xis more interesting?' 'Zhangsan's book written at what time are more interesting?' d. [Zhangsan zai shenme difan~ xie de shu] bijiao youqu? Zhangsan at what place write DE book more interesting 'What place (x) such that Zhangsan wrote the book at x is more interesting?' 'Zhangsan's books written at what place are more interesting?' 120 e. [Zhangsan weile shenme xie de shu] bijiao youqu? Zhangsan for what write DE book more interesting 'What (x) such that Zhangsan wrote the book for xis more interesting?' 'Zhangsan's books written for what purpose are more interesting?' f. *[Zun-bu-zunjin~ ni de ren] bijiao youmo? respect-not-respect you DE man more humorous 121 'Who is more interesting, the person who respects you or the person who does not?' g. *[Ta weishenme zhao de xiangpian] bijiao youqu? he why take DE picture more interesting 'Why (x) such that the picture that he took xis more interesting?' 'The pictures taken for what reason are more interesting?' Adjunct island: (49) a. Zhangsan [yinwei shei lai], suoyi hen shengqi? Zhangsan because who come therefore very angry 'Who (x) such that Zhangsan got angry because x came?' 'Whose coming made Zhangsan angry?' b. Zhangsan [yinwei ni mai-le shenmel, suoyi hen shengqi? Zhangsan because you buy-ASP what therefore very angry 'What (x) such that Zhangsan got angry because you bought x?' 'What did you buy that made Zhangsan angry?' 122 c. Zhangsan [yinwei ni shenme shihou dezui ta], suoyi hen shengqi? Zhangsan because you what time offend he therefore very angry 'What time(x) such that Zhangsan got angry because you offend him at x?' 'When did you offend Zhangsan to make him so angry?' d. Zhangsan [yinwei ni zai shenme difan~ chi fan], suoyi hen shengqi? Zhangsan because you at what place eat rice therefore very angry 'What place (x) such that Zhangsan got angry because you ate at x?' 'Where did you eat to make Zhangsan so angry?' e. Zhangsan [yinwei weile shenme gen ta chaojia], suoyi hen shengqi? Zhangsan because for what with he argue therefore very angry 'Zhangsan got very angry because you argued with him about x?' 'Zhangsan got very angry because you argued with him about what?' f. *Zhangsan [yinwei ni qu-bu-qu Meiguo], suoyi hen shengqi? Zhangsan because you go-not-go America therefore very angry 'Zhangsan got very angry because you wanted to go to America or you didn't want to go to America?' Assuming the LF movement of the question constituents, C.-T. Huang (1982) claims that the island effects exhibited by A-not-A questions and weishenme 'why' questions are readily derivable from a general principle, namely the Empty Category Principle (ECP) (Chomsky 1981). According to the original formulation by Chomsky, a trace needs to be governed either by a lexical category (e.g. a verb), or by its antecedent (the moved category). A trace can be governed by a verb only if it occurs within the maximal projection of the verb (i.e. in VP). Since adjuncts like 123 weishenme 'why' and the A-not-A forms (INFL constituents, in C.-T. Huang's analysis) do not occur within VP, they are not lexically governed. Thus they cannot move across islands. Aoun and Li (1993), however, argue that there is no LF movement of the wh- questions in Chinese, a wh-in-situ language. Neither do wh-elements in-situ in English move. What wh-questions have is operator movement from the Spec of the QP to the appropriate Spec of Comp by S-Structure.34 The [+Qu] operator that is generated in the Spec of QP binds the wh-in-situ: (50) CP ~ Spec C' ~ C IP ~ ... QuP ..... ~ OP Qu' ~ Qu VP A ... wh ... In English, Qu, which is a part of a wh-in-situ, raises to the Spec of Qu and then to the Spec of Comp as represented in (51): 34 Kim (1989, 1991) and Benmamoun (1991a, b) also propose QuP projections. (51) CP ~ Spec C' Jh· E'iP 1 ../"..... ... QuP ..... ~Q' SP.ec u I~ ti Qu VP ~ 124 As a consequence of the existence of this operator, the wh-element in Chinese functions as a polarity item, while its counterpart in English functions as an operator. With respect to the contrast between arguments, and weishenme 'why' and A-not- A forms, Aoun and Li characterize the difference as follows: (52) a. A wh-in-situ such as 'why' in adjunct position must have an antecedent (i.e. must be antecedent-governed) in the minimal clause in which it occurs. b. A wh-in-situ such as 'who' or 'what' in argument position need not have a local antecedent in the minimal clause in which it occurs. Furthermore, Aoun and Li argue that a Qu-operator that serves as an antecedent for a wh-in-situ element will never be generated within an island. If it is generated, its extraction will violate constraints such as the ECP (Chomsky 1981). Thus, a wh- in-situ element such as 'why' cannot escape an island. 125 Now consider NEG-PRT -Qs and other types of A-not-A questions. Sentences (53) show that NEG-PRT -Qs also cannot take scope outside of islands: (53) a. *[You qian meiyoul bijiao hao? have money not.have more good 'Whether to have money is better?' b. *Ni bijiao xihuan [you qian meiyou de ren]? you more like have money not.have DE person 'Who do you like better, the people who have money or the people who do not?' c. *[You qian meiyou de ren] bijiao youmo? have money not.have DE person more humorous 'Who are more humorous, the people who have money or the people who do not?' d. *Zhangsan [yinwei ni chi-le fan meiyou], suoyi hen shengqi? Zhangsan because you eat-ASP rice not.have therefore very angry 'Zhangsan got angry because whether you ate or not?' Similarly, questions of the [AB not AB] type and [AB not A] type, and the disjunctive questions without haishi 'or' also exhibit island effects: (54) a. *Ni xihuan [he kafei bu he Ckafei) de ren]? you like drink coffee not drink coffee DE person 'Do you like people who drink coffee or people who do not?' b. *Ni xihuan [chi fan chi mian de ren]? you like eat rice eat noodle DE person 'Do you like people who eat rice or people who eat noodles?' 126 Following Aoun and Li's proposal, we assume that NEG-PRT-Qs and A-not-A questions have a [+Q] operator at the Spec of QP, which is raised to the appropriate Spec of Comp by S-Structure. Under the assumption that movement is motivated by feature checking in the Minimalist framework, we assume the purpose of the raising is to check the strong [+Q] feature of co. As for weishenme 'why,' we assume that it occurs in a position higher than QP, and is bound by the base-generated operator in the Spec of CP.35 Finally, let us note that in contrast to A-not-A questions and NEG-PRT-Qs, disjunctive questions with haishi 'or' do not exhibit island effects, as is first pointed out by C.-T. Huang (1991). For example, as shown in (55), embedded questions can take scope outside of islands: (55) a. Ni xihuan [he kafei haishi bu he kafei de ren]? you like drink coffee or not drink coffee DE person 'Do you like people who drink coffee or people who do not?' b. Ni xihuan [chi fan haishi chi mian de ren]? you like eat rice or eat noodle DE person 'Do you like people who eat rice or people who eat noodles?' 35 See Chapter 6 for further discussion of this. 127 Another difference between A-not-A questions and haishi disjunctive questions lies in the order of conjuncts. As McCawley (1994) points out, haishi disjunctive questions allow the negative conjunct to precede the positive conjunct, but in A-not A questions this is impossible: (56) a. Ni bu xihuan zhe-ben shu haishi xihuan zhe-ben shu? you not like this-CL book or like this-CL book 'Do you like this book?' b. *Ni bu xihuan zhe-ben shu xihuan zhe-ben shu? you not like this-CL book like this-CL book 'Do you like this book?' If no conjunction marker is present, the positive part must precede the negative part. Also, as is pointed out by N. Zhang (1997), the same verb must appear in each VP conjunct, unlike the case in haishi alternative questions. Consider the following examples take from N. Zhang (1997, p. 162). (57) a. Ni chi fan haishi he zhou? you eat rice or drink porridge 'Do you eat rice or drink porridge?' b. *Ni chi fan he zhou? you eat rice drink porridge 'Do you eat rice or drink porridge?' Finally, a disjunctive question with haishi 'or' can have the sentence-final particle ne at the end of each conjunct, while the other questions discussed above cannot: (58) Ta qu (ne) haishi bu qu (rui)? he go PRT or not go PRT 'Does he want to go/Does he go/Will he go?' (59) a. *Ta qu ne bu qu (rui)? he go PRT not go PRT 'Does he go?' b. *Ta qu le ne meiyou? he go ASP PRT not.have 'Did he go?' c. *Ta chi fan (ne) chi mian (rui)? he eat rice PRT eat noodle PRT 'Does he want to eat rice or eat noodles?' 128 Thus, we assume that disjunctive questions with haishi do not have a QP, as opposed to A-not-A questions, NEG-PRT -Qs, and disjunctive question without haishi. 3 6 However, we assume they have a base-generated operator in the Spec of the appropriate CP in order to fulfill the selectional requirement of verbs that take indirect questions as their complements. Independently this operator is needed for the binding ofwh-elements such as weishenme 'why.' 36 In C.-T. Huang's (1991) analysis disjunctive questions with 1ll!imi are derived from true disjunctive questions by conjunction reduction. 129 4.4.3 A More Elaborate Structure for Negative Particle Questions We have proposed above that a NEG-PRT-Q has a coordinate VP structure. Moreover, a QP must be a constituent in the structure. Combining the two, the representation for an NEG-PRT -Q is thus as follows: (60) CP Sp~ 0~~ XP Q /'-..... XP XP ~/":..... However, this simple coordinate structure faces a problem in situation where the agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect appears to fail. In this section, we will show that this problem is only apparent, but we propose a more elaborate structure based on the above simple coordinate structure. We will show that this more elaborate structure has advantages over the simple coordinate structure. First, let us consider the analyses proposed in Progovac ( 1999) for the following examples in (61). (61) a. I read the paper, and quickly. b. *I read the paper, and fortunately.37 37 Cinque (1999) has argued that sentential adverbials across languages, such as 'fortunately,' 'obviously,' 'of course' may not be adjoined to a clausal projection in an arbitrary position. They occur in the specifier position of a uniquely specified functional projection of a clause, such as Mood Phrase, Tense Phrase, etc. 130 As shown in (61), there is a contrast between VP adverbials and sentential adverbials with respect to coordination. The former but not the latter is possible in coordinate structure. Following Davidson ( 1967) and other studies such as Parsons (1980, 1990) and Dowty ( 1989), Progovac (1999) assumes that VP adverbials are analyzed as predicates of events, conjoined with the main predicate. Thus (61a) receives the semantic representation in (62a), which informally reads as in (62b). (62) a. 3e (R(i, p, e) & (Q, e)) b. There is an event e of reading R ofthe paper (p) by me (i) in the event e, and the event was quick Q. According to Progovac, (61a) necessarily involves the interpretation of multiple events/states--more precisely, one event (my reading the paper) and one state (that event being quick). Also adopting the Bowers' (1993) idea of PredP, Progovac (1999) proposes the following structure for (61a). (63) IP ------ Ii I' ~p ~ &P &' ~r~ t~* and e Pred' 1 ~ Pr~ read the paper 1 quickly 131 In (63), the subject raises out from the Spec of PredP in the first conjunct,38 while the Spec of PredP in the second conjunct is occupied by an event variable e. 39 Furthermore, in (63) it is assumed that conjunctions, such as 'and' and 'or,' head Conjunction Phrases (&P) (Thiersch 1985, Munn 1987, Collin 1988, etc.) Postulating an &P attempts to capture two important facts about coordination ( cf. Progovac 1998). First, the first conjunct (in VO languages) is a separate constituent from the conjunction and the rest of the conjuncts, and it does not c-command the rest of &P. Second, the conjunction and the non-initial conjuncts (in VO languages) form a constituent. Crucially, (61a) cannot be viewed as a result of clausal coordination with subsequent ellipsis. That is, (61a) cannot be generated from (64) with the deletion of the underlined part. If this were the case, (65a) should be derivable from (65b). But the former is ungrammatical, as opposed to the latter. (64) I read his paper, and I read it quickly. (65) a. *(Both) I (both) read (both) his paper and quickly. b. ?I both read his paper, and (I) read it quickly. 38 'Left-peripheral deletion' as in (i) is widely analyzed in terms of small conjuncts and across-the board (ATB)-derivations as shown in (ii), as opposed to the deletion analysis in (iii). (i) Mary came in and sat down. (ii) [IP Mary 1° [VP t came in] and [VP t sat down]] (iii) [IP Mary 1° [VP t came in] and [IP Mttry 1° [VP t sat down]] See Wilder (1997) for an analysis ofleft peripheral deletion. 3 9 The term 'event' here is used in a broad sense, including both states, and events in the narrow sense. 132 The analysis in ( 63) was proposed for adverbials introduced by conjunctions. But it may also be carried over to VP adverbials that are not introduced by conjunctions, e.g. (66). As represented in (67), the conjunction in this case is empty. ( 66) I read the paper quickly. (67) IP ------ I· 1 I' ~p ~ &P &' ~ .("""-~ ~'-.. e Pd' t· VP re 1 ~ Pr~P read the paper 1 "kl qmc y The sentence in (66), unlike (61a), is ambiguous. In addition to the reading that it shares with (61a), it also has the following reading: (68) I engaged in a quick reading of his paper (as opposed to a thorough reading). According to Progovac, the contrast between the two sentences naturally follows from the following generalization on coordination: (69) n-coordination: Where n-coor is unspecified for the number of events/states, (n+ 1 )-coor necessarily implies multiple-events/states. 133 While sentence (66) is unspecified for the number of events/states, sentence (61a) necessarily implies multiple-events/states. With the above analysis in mind, let us return to our NEG-PRT-Qs. We propose the coordinate structure in (71) for the NEG-PRT-Q in (70). (70) Ta kan-le na-ben shu meiyou? (=(Sa)) he read-ASP that-CL book not.have (71) 'Did he read that book?' TP ------ Ta· T' 1~ T~ OP Q' &~ ~ [+WH] &P &' I~ AspP & AspP ~ e ~A' S Asp' Spec sp pee ~ ~sp ~Asp /"... N I ti VP Spec A /~ Neg PredP kan-le na-ben shu meiyou ~ Spec Pred' Prtci'vP e /'.... e 134 With this structure, it is apparent that the requirement between negation and verb/aspect fails only when the sentence-finalle is present. The relevant examples given in (10) are repeated here: (72) a. Ta hui youyong le meiyou? he will swim ASP not.have 'Can he swim?' b. Ta bu/*mei(you) hui youyong. he not/not(have) can swim 'He cannot swim.' When le is present, a change of situation is involved. That is, despite the fact that hui youyon~ 'can swim' indicates a non-dynamic situation, hui youyon~ le clearly denotes a beginning of a new situation, and should be considered a dynamic situation. The event variable in Spec of PredP in the second conjunct thus denotes a dynamic situation as it anaphorically refers to the type of event denoted by the first conjunct. We assume the null VP is licensed by meiyou. The structure for the sentence in (72b) is given as follows:4o 40 Note that we have AspPs in both conjuncts. A question that one may ask is how to guarantee that the second conjunct contains a NegP. A possible solution to this is to say that the & head selects a head that is negative and this requirement is satisfied by the raising of mei(you) to Asp. We assume selection is a head to head relation: A head selects the head of its sister. 135 (73) TP ~· 1 ~ T~ OP Q' &~ ~ [+WH] &P &' I~ AspP & AspP ~A ,e S~A' Spec A pee A PredP Asp N~P Asp ~ le /..........._ " "' Spec Neg' ti VP ~ /~ Neg PredP hui youyong meiyou ~ Spec Pred' ep~p ~ e This analysis is consistent with Hankamer and Sag (1976) and William (1977), who argue that null VPs must be interpreted by operations other than those of sentence grammar. One piece of evidence is from the grammaticality of (74), in which the null VP is interpreted pragmatically based on the context of utterance. (74) Don't [vpe]. 41 4 1 For Hankamer and Sag (1976), this sentence is not among the core cases of VP ellipsis with surface anaphors. 136 Similarly, there is no single constituent that acts as an antecedent for the null VP in (75). The null VP is interpreted to mean 'visit Rio or see Rome.' (75) Susan wants to visit Rio and Jane wants to see Rome, but neither of them can [ ype]. Similarly, the null VP in our (73) can be interpreted as a dynamic situation, and thus meiyou is used. 4.4.4 Summary To sum up, in C-.T. Huang's analysis only the [A-not-AB] type of A-not-A questions is on par with wh-questions. In our analysis, both NEG-PRT-Qs and all A not-A questions (except disjunctive questions with haishi 'or') are on par with wh questions. They both contain the [+WH] feature in the Q head of a QP. The [A not AB] type of A-not-A questions are different from NEG-PRT-Qs, [AB not A(B)] types, and the disjunctive questions without haishi 'or' in that the former have morphologically complex verbs with the [+WH] feature. This feature raises to the Q head for feature checking. For the latter three types, the [ +WH] feature is base generated under Q, which selects an & head. Both NEG-PRT-Qs and A-not-A questions (except the disjunctive questions with haishi 'or') contain operators that are generated under the Spec of QP, and that raise to the appropriate Comp for marking the scope. 137 4.5 Bu as a Negative Question Particle in Other Varieties of Mandarin In this section, we will discuss bu as a NEG-PRT in other varieties of Mandarin. Recall that meiyou, but not bu. functions as a NEG-PRT in Standard Mandarin. We argue that a NEG-PRT-Q in Mandarin Chinese contains a QP with a coordinate structure, which undergoes VP ellipsis. The question is why (7b ), repeated here as in (76), is not allowed. (76) *Ta chang qu bu [yp e]? he often go not 'Does he go often?' We have seen in Chapter 3 that a null VP can be licensed by bu only if bu is the focus element. The crucial sentences are repeated here. Bu in (77a) is focused, as opposed to bu in (77b). (77) a. Dajia dou yiwei ta hen kuaile, keshi ta shuo tabu everybody all think he very happy but he say he not happy kuaile/? [ VP e]. happy 'Everybody thought he was happy, but he said he was not.' b. Zhangsan xihuan zhe-ben shu, Lisi bu xihuan/*[vp e]. Zhangsan like this-CL book Lisi not like 'Zhangsan likes this book, (but) Lisi does not.' We assume that focus on negation can make the null VP part of the background, and makes VP ellipsis possible; ifbu is not focused, however, VP ellipsis is not licensed. 138 Now note that as shown in (78) and (79), lrn in an A-not-A question cannot be stressed. 42 (78) a. Ni qu-bu-qu? you go-not-go 'Do you go?' b. *Ni qu-BU-qu? you go-not-go (79) a. Ta xihuan zhe-ben shu bu xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like this-CL book not like this-CL book 'Does he like or doesn't [he] like this book?' b. *Ta xihuan zhe-ben shu BU xihuan zhe-ben shu? he like this-CL book not like this-CL book 'Does he like or doesn't [he] like this book?' This means that bu cannot receive focus in an A-not-A question. This, nevertheless, might be part of a more general phenomenon. As shown in (80) and (81 ), there is a sharp contrast between mei(you) and bu in a disjunctive question with haishi 'or,' just as we have seen in NEG-PRT -Qs. 42 According to X.-Z. Z. Wu (p.c.), a focus element in Chinese cannot be destressed. For example, the wh-word in (ia) is the focus element and thus it must be stressed. This contrasts with the indefinite interpretation of a wh-word in (ib ). (i) a. Ta mai-le SHENME? he buy-ASP what 'What did he buy?' b. Ta yiding mai-le shenme. he definitely buy-ASP what 'He must have bought something.' (80) a. Ni ba dongxi gei tale, haishi meiyou ba dongxi gei ta? you BA thing give he ASP or not.have BA thing give he 'Did you give the thing to him, or didn't you?' b. Ni ba dongxi gei tale, haishi meiyou [VP e]? you BA thing give he ASP or not.have 'Did you give the thing to him, or didn't you?' (81) a. Ni zhidao haishi bu zhidao? you know or not know 'Do you know or not?' b. *Ni zhidao haishi bu [VP e]? you know or not 'Do you know or not?' 139 On the other hand, in some varieties of Mandarin Chinese, in addition to meiyou, bu can also occur as a NEG-PRT. Consider some examples from J. Shao (1996, pp. 111-112), all from the same source. (82) a. Kuai guonian le, shuashua qiang bu? (Non-standard) soon Chinese:New: Year ASP paint wall not 'The Chinese New Year is coming, do you want to paint the wall?' b. Wo qu qiuqiu sun shaoye shu bei-wan bu. 43 (Non-standard) I go see grandson young:master book rec.ite-finish not 'I will go see whether young master has finished reciting his book.' 43 In J. Shao (1996}, this sentence has a question mark at the end, which indicates a direct question. But we think this sentence is an indirect question. c. Ni ziji you ge jueding bu? (Non-standard) you self have CL decision not 'Do you have a decision?' (83) a. Ni kan-qingchu meiyou? you see-clear not.have 'Did you see clearly?' b. Ni he le meiyou? you drink ASP not.have 'Did you drink?' 140 According to my informants, bu is never stressed in this use. 44 We have seen in (77) that in VP ellipsis cases bu cannot license VP ellipsis if it cannot be focused. It follows that bu in (82) cannot license VP ellipsis. Thus the analysis that suggests VP ellipsis is not possible. Now compare sentences (82b) and (82c) with (84). The latter exhibits the standard type of agreement in Mandarin. Thus the NEG-PRT bu in this variety of Mandarin does not observe agreement with aspect/verb. 44 An informant told us this use of bu is common in the variety of Mandarin spoken in Shandong (a province in the northeast region of China). This is not implausible because the counterparts of (i) in Yexian dialect, a Shandong dialect, are acceptable (D. Zhu 1991, p. 323). (i) a. Da-bu-da qiu? play-not-play ball Do you play ball?' b. ~.lm..@U? play ball not play 'Do you play ball?' From the example in (ib ), we can see that this dialect allows its .1m. counterpart to occur alone at the end of a sentence. This suggests that this dialectal feature may be carried over to the Mandarin Chinese spoken in that area. 141 (84) a. Ta shu mei(youV*bu bei-wan. he book not(have)/not recite-finish 'He didn't finish reciting his book.' b. Wo dao xianzai hai meil*bu you ge jueding. I till now still not/not have CL decision 'I don't have a decision yet.' J. Shao also includes a similar example with daodi 'indeed,' although this is from a different source. (85) Ni daodi teng wo bu? (Non-standard) you indeed cherish I not 'Do you cherish me?' Based on the above observations, we speculate that this use of bu is an overt realization of Q of the QP. This use of bu can be considered a true question marker since it does not have any agreement relationship with verb/aspect. However, more data is required to justify this statement. In addition to the above data, J. Shao quotes two examples ofbu from yet another source. 45 Interestingly, this use ofbu co-occurs with negation: (86) a. Ni bu huijiao bu? (Non-standard) you not can water not 'You don't know how to water, do you?!'46 45 According to J. Shao, these examples are found only in children's language. J. Shao claims them from Y. Li and Z. Tang (1991). 46 We use'?!' to mark a rhetorical question. See Chapter 6 on the na(r) rhetorical question. b. Ni zhuo-bu-zhu wo bu? (Non-standard) you catch-not -up I not 'You won't catch me, will you?!' 142 Both of them are intended as rhetorical questions. J. Shao, in fact, suggests that this use of bu is equivalent to the sentence-final particle ba. The speaker of this type of question does not anticipate an answer that is different from what he/she has in mind. Thus bu in this use may be in the C 0 position just like other sentence-final paticles. 4.6 Conclusions Cheng, Huang and Tang (1997) claim that negative particle questions (NEG PRT-Qs) are yes/no questions, which have the movement of a negative marker from its preverbal position to sentence-final position. On the other hand, C.-T. Huang (1991) proposes a modular approach to the various types of A-not-A questions. In contrast to the above analyses, we propose a unified analysis for NEG-PRT -Qs and A-not-A questions (excluding the disjunctive questions with haishi 'or') based on the fact that all of them exhibit island effects and may be answered like wh-questions. In our proposal, these question forms have two characteristics in common. First, they all have the [+WH] feature that is generated under the functional head Q. Second, the [ +Q] operator from the Spec of QP moves to an appropriate Spec of CP to take scope. The [A not AB] type of the A-not-A questions is different from the others in being a morphologically complex word that is marked with the [ + WH] feature. The [ + WH] feature raises to Q for checking with Q. A negative particle question, in contrast, contains a QP taking a coordinate construction with VP ellipsis. 143 CHAPTERS NEGATIVE QUESTION PARTICLES AND PREDICATE-INITIAL QUESTION MARKERS IN SOUTHERN MIN AND OTHER DIALECTS 5.1 Introduction In this chapter we will study data from three dialects of Chinese: Southern Min, Suzhou and Singapore Teochew. Our discussion will emphasize the data from Southern Min, a dialect spoken in Taiwan and southern Fujian province. We have seen in Chapter 4 that Standard Mandarin only allows one negative question particle (NEG-PRT). Southern Min has quite a few NEG-PRTs. It also has the [A not AB] type of A-not-A questions, though this form is only available for a limited number of verbs and adjectives. More interestingly, in addition to these two forms, it has a predicate-initial question marker kam. 47 According to D. Zhu's (1991) study, this dialect is an instance of 'mixed' cases. 4 8 The study of D. Zhu shows that the ke VP' type and the 'VP bu VP' type of questions are counterparts of each other across a 47 In using the term 'predicate,' we refer to verbs, adjectives or modal verbs. 48 Note that Southern Min is not the only counterexample. Malmqvist (1986) gives the following counterexamples from Xiyouji (XYJ), a colloquial novel of the sixteenth century. (i) a. Ye hai bu zhi shi tabu shi tali. (XYJ, 24.334) also still not know be he not be he PRT '(I) don't know where it is he.' b. You ge shenme Qitian Dasheng cai lai zheli fw.!? (XYJ, 6.79) have CL what Qitian Dasheng just come here not 'Was someone called Qitian Dashengjust here or not?' c. Ni ba Shifu tuo-~ogu bu shi? (XYJ, 22.229) you BA Master pull-over not be 'Did you pull the Master over or not?' d. Kan ~gin~ Laosun bu gin~? (XYJ, 5.60) see KE invite Laosun not invite 'See if we could invite Laosun ?' 144 wide range of Chinese dialects. The kam question is a variant of the 'ke VP' type,49 which has a question marker preceding VP, while the negative particle questions (NEG-PRT-Qs) and A-not-A questions belong to D. Zhu's 'VP bu VP' type. In this chapter, we will use the 'Q VP' type to refer to the former type and the 'VP not VP' type to refer to the latter. The data from Suzhou and Singapore Teochew is presented primarily for purposes of comparison. Suzhou is a dialect that has only the 'Q VP' type. On the other hand, Singapore Teochew, which is a variety of Teochew (Chaozhou) and is another form of Southern Min, is also a mixed case because it has both the [Q VP] type and the [VP not VP] type. A question that arises immediately as to the nature of the syntactic structures for these question types. Cheng, Huang and Tang ( 1997) (CH&T) claim that all NEG PRTs in Southern Min (/Cantonese) are base-generated negation markers in sentence-final position, i.e. the C 0 position. On the other hand, C.-T. Huang (1991) claims that kam questions and the [A not AB] type of questions are different realizations of the same element, i.e. the INFL with [+Q]. He claims that his analysis is partially supported by the fact that kam can occur with the [AB not A(B)] type but not [A not AB] type. Under this analysis, the kam question is just a variation of the [A not AB] type, which is a wh-question. In contrast, C.-T. Tang (1999) claims that the kam question marks a yes/no question. In Chapter 3 we have proposed that the [A not AB] type of an A-not-A question in Mandarin projects QP that is marked with the [+WH] feature. Is it possible that kam occupies the head position of QP? This is the analysis that Cole and Lee (1997) 49 In early modem colloquial Chinese, G is used. See (id) above. 145 (C&L) have proposed for km;n's counterpart in Singapore Teochew. If this is the case, what is the nature of the NEG-PRTs and the A-not-A form in Southern Min? In this chapter, we attempt to answer the above questions. We argue against CH&T's claim that all NEG-PRTs in Southern Min are base-generated in the co position. We will show that some NEG-PRTs in Southern Min mark wh-questions, while some mark tag-questions. For the former, they can occur in a regular negation position or under the head of QP. Furthermore, the [A not AB] type, just like its Mandarin counterpart, projects a QP that is marked with the [+WH] feature, and the A-not-A form is marked with [+WH]. As for the predicate-initial question markers, we argue for a QP analysis for A in Suzhou, whereas we argue against a QP analysis for kam in Southern Min. We will show that kam marks a yes/no question (cf. T.-C. Tang 1999) and is generated under T. This chapter proceeds as follows. In Section 5.2 we introduce NEG-PRTs in Southern Min and discuss some previous analyses. In Section 5.3 we give our analysis of the various NEG-PRTs in Southern Min. Section 5.4 includes the discussion of the [A not AB] type in Southern Min. The discussion of predicate initial makers in Suzhou and Southern Min is given in Section 5.5. In Section 5.6, we include the comparison between Cole and Lee's analysis of Singapore Teochew and our analysis of Southern Min. Finally, Section 5.7 concludes the chapter. 5.2 Previous Analyses of Negative Question Particles in Southern Min P. Li (1971) distinguishes four negative markers in Southern Min: bo 'not have,' be 'unable,' volitional m-1 'not want, will not' and non-volitional m-2 'not.' According to him, except m-2, which is a pure negation marker, all the other negative markers are verbs derived from their corresponding affirmatives: (1) a. Neg+ y_ 'have' ------> bo 'not-have' b. Neg+~ 'able' ----->be 'not-able' c. Neg + behso -----> m 'not-want' d. Neg + q, -----> m 'not' I si 'is,' kaN 'dare' (m-1) (m-2) 146 Only a limited number of verbs may be negated by m-2. In addition to the two verbs in (ld), other verbs include chai('iaN) 'know,' tioh 'right,' 'bat 'know,' bat 'ever,' ho 'good' and thang 'can.' The words that can be negated by m-2 do not seem to form a natural class. Thus they must be marked in the lexicon. Examples for the four negative markers are given respectively as follows: (2) a. I chang y lai. (Southern Min) he yesterday have come 'He did come yesterday.' b. I chang bQ lai. (Southern Min) he yesterday not.have come 'He didn't come yesterday.' (3) a. I~ lai. (Southern Min) he will come 'He will come.' 50 Contra P. Li's discussion, not all uses of~ are volitional: (i) a. Iu-kiok beh an-chuaN kiaN? post:office want how go 'How can I go to the post office?' b. Sa-bun~ chhong sim-mih? soap want do what 'What does soap do?' 147 b. I be lai. (Southern Min) he not. will come 'He will not come.' (4) a. I beh chiah hi. (Southern Min) he want eat fish 'He wants to eat fish.' b. I m chiah hi. (Southern Min) he not. want eat fish 'He doesn't want to eat fish.' (5) a. I kaN khi. (Southern Min) he dare go 'He dares to go.' b. I m kaN khi. (Southern Min) he not dare go 'He does not dare to go.' Let us now consider the possible choices of NEG-PRTs with respect to the modal verb in the affirmative part of the sentence as given by R. L. Cheng (1977, p. 162): 148 (6) Affirmative Negative Final Possible modal verb modal verb particle position A e possible, be be·, bo· s probable beh want m m·, bo· s u exist, have bo bo· s B e-(hiau) able be(-hiau) be·, bo· s e-sai permissible be-sai be·, bo· s e-tit-tang, can be-tit -thang, be·, bo· s /e-tit/e-tang /be-tit/be-tang c ai(-beh) want m-ai m·, bo· s thang may m-thang m·,bo· s kaN dare m-kaN m·, bo· s ho good m-ho m·,bo· s si be m-si m·, bo· I.F.S. tioh( -ai) must m-bian m·,bo· s D eng -kaiobliged bo-eng-kai bo· S.F. kho-leng possible bo-kho-leng bo· S.F. eng-tong obliged bo-eng-tong bo· S.F. E tioh correct m-tioh m·,bo· F F i-keng already iau-boe .... le boe·, ?bo· s N.B: S =Split A-not-A question form5I AMV +VERB + NMV I= Predicate-initial A-not-A question form AMV + NMV +VERB F =Sentence-final A-not-A question VERB + AMV + NMV 51 For R. L. Cheng, an A-not-A question is formed by pairing a positive modal verb or aspect marker with its negative counterpart. All questions that use NEG-PRTs are also A-not-A questions. 149 The four NEG-PRTs, i.e. ~·, ~·, m·, and bo·, receive a neutralized tone, which is short and weak. 5 2 According to R. L. Cheng, they alternate with the dimorphemic but monosyllabic full-toned negated verbs without greatly changing the meaning of the sentence. For us, while we agree with R. L. Cheng that varying the tones of be, boe and bo does not have much of an effect on the meaning of these particles, we will show the tone of m does have an effect on meaning. From the above table, we can see that bo· is able to occur with any modal verb, while be·, boe· and m· do not. This observation is different from CH&T's (1997). They claim all of the following sentences are grammatical: 53 52 R. L. Cheng ( 1977) marks this neutralized tone by a period. 5 3 Our judgement is that if m here is pronounced with the prolonged mid-level tone (indicated by mm) as in the following sentence, the sentence in (7) is grammatical. (i) I e lai, mm? he will come not 'Will he come?' For speakers like CH&T, this use ofm can have a neutralized tone. S.-F. Lin (1974) gave the following data based on the variety of Southern Min used in the Daqiu Village, about nine miles north of Pindong City in southern Taiwan. (i) a. Li u khi Tai-pak m? you have go Taipei not 'You went to Taipei, didn't you?' b. Lie khi Tai-pakm? you will go Taipei not 'You will go to Taipei, won't you?' c. Li si khi Tai-pakm? you are go Taipei not 'You went to Taipei, don't you?' S-.F. Lin reported that there is no agreement requirement between negation and aspect/verb. He also points out that this type of sentence conveys a considerable degree of certainty. The question is asked in anticipation of affirmation or denial. Also, this m can occur at the end of a negative sentence. This use is the same as our mm as will be discussed in Section 5.3.3. We argue there that 150 (7) a. I e lai *m·/bo·/*boe·lbe·? (Southern Min) he will come not/not.have/not.yet/not.will 'Will he come?' b. I kaN chhut khi m·/bo·/*boe·/*be·? (Southern Min) he dare out go not/not.have/not.yet/not.will 'Does he dare to go out?' (8) a. I u khi hak-hau *m·/bo·? (Southern Min) he have go school not/not.have 'Did he go to school?' b. I lai boe·? (Southern Min) he come not.yet 'Has he come yet?' Based on this judgement, they claim that there is no agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect for NEG-PRTs and propose that all negative question particles are base-generated in the C 0 position. However, as we understand, some of the above sentences are unacceptable. Thus we need to re-evaluate CH&T's proposal. 5.3 Our Analysis of Negative Question Particles in Southern Min In this section, we will show that be·, boe·, and m· in Southern Min do respect the agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect, and even bo· exhibits mm marks a tag question. We assume our analysis of mm can be applied to this use of m by those speakers. 151 some degree of agreement with its complement. In contrast, m 'not' with the mid level prolonged tone (indicated by mm), as well as si-m· 'be-not' and si-bo· 'be not.have,' does not. We will show that they occur in various syntactic positions. 5.3.1 Negative Question Particles Generated in the Regular Negation Position In this section we will first consider be· and boe·. We will show that they behave like meiyou in Mandarin, and thus they have the same structure that we have proposed for meiyou in the previous chapter, i.e. a QP taking the coordinate structure with VP ellipsis. From the above table in (6) and the examples in (7), we can see the use of be· depends on the affirmative modal verb that is used. Be· can only be used when~ is present in the sentence. Table (6) and the examples in (7) and (8) also show that boe· is selective. Moreover, as shown in (9) below, boe as a negative marker has to be preceded either by the perfective marker f! or iau 'still.' (9) A: Lise seng-khu a boe·? (Southern Min) you watch body ASP not.yet 'Have you taken a bath?' B: Goa i-keng sea. (Southern Min) I already watch ASP 'I have taken a both.' B': Goa *(.g/iau) boe se le. (Southern Min) I ASP/still not.yet watch body PRT 'I haven't taken a bath yet.' 152 Note that the example in (7b) becomes grammatical if the aspectual marker .a is present, despite the fact that a/iau boe does not occur with kaN 'dare': (10) a. I kaN chhut khi a boe·? (Southern Min) he dare out go ASP not.yet 'Does he dare to go?' b. *I a/iau boe kaN khi. (Southern Min) he ASP/still not.have dare go 'He has not yet dared to go.' This, however, is similar to what we have found in Mandarin. In Mandarin, while mei(you) 'not(have)' cannot negate hui 'will,' it can occur as a NEG-PRT when the sentence-final particle le is present: (11) a. Ta hui youyong le meiyou? (Mandarin) he will swim ASP not.have 'Can he swim?' b. Ta bu/*mei(you) hui youyong. (Mandarin) he not/not(have) can swim 'He cannot swim.' We have argued in Chapter 4 that what meiyou denies here is a change of state, i.e. a dynamic situation. Similarly, we can say what boe· denies in (1 Oa) is a change of the state. Thus, boe· does respect the agreement requirement between negation and 153 verb/aspect in those cases. Overall, the NEG-PRTs be· and boe· observe the agreement requirement. 54 In addition to agreement, boe· and be· also behave like meiyou in other aspects. First, as shown in ( 12), the two NEG-PRTs can co-occur with tau-te 'indeed': (12) a. Li tau-te e-hiau phah kiu be·? (Southern Min) you indeed can play ball unable 'Do you indeed know how to play ball?' b. Li tau-te chiah-pa a boe·? (Southern Min) you indeed eat-full ASP not.yet 'Have you eaten indeed?' Tau-te, just like daodi 'indeed' in Mandarin, must c-command a question word: (13) a. I tau-te u sim-mih? (Southern Min) he indeed have what 'What indeed does he have?' b. *Sim-mih lang tau-te chai? (Southern Min) what person indeed know 'Who indeed knows it?' 54 The exact characterization of the agreement between negation and verb/aspect may be different in Mandarin and Southern Min. What is crucial here is that the agreement is respected. Second, the way questions with hoe· are answered is like a wh-question: (14) A: Li e-hiau phah kiu be·? (Southern Min) you can play ball unable 'Do you know how to play ball?' B: E/Be-hiau/#HeN. (Southern Min) can/cannot/yes 'I can/1 cannot/Yes.' (15) A: Li chiah-pa a hoe·? (Southern Min) you eat-full ASP not.yet 'Have you eaten?' B: Chiah-pa a/A boe/#HeN. (Southern Min) eat-full ASP/ASP not.yet/yes 'I am full/1 haven't/Yes.' 154 Finally, both questions must have an operator movement because island constraints are observed. (16) a. *I ai [e-hiau phah kiu be·] e lang? (Southern Min) she love can play ball unable E person 'Does she love who can play ball or who cannot play ball?' b. *[Chiah-pa hoe·] khah ho? (Southern Min) you indeed eat-full more good 'Which is. better, having eaten or not?' 155 Thus just like meiyou in Mandarin, we assume both be· and boe· project a QP, which has a coordinate structure and undergoes VP ellipsis. The Q head is marked with the [+WH] feature, and this structure has operator movement. 5.3.2 Q Position In this section, we will show that bo· is located under Q, while m· moves from the regular negative position to Q. Consider bo· first. From the table in ( 6) above and the examples in (17) and ( 18) below, we can clearly see that bo· can be used with any verb/aspect. (17) a. Li kaN khi bo·? (Southern Min) you dare go not.have 'Do you dare to go?' b. Goa rnl*bo kaN khi. (Southern Min) I not/not.have dare go 'I don't dare to go.' (18) a. Li bat khi hia bo·? (Southern Min) you ever go there not.have 'Have you ever been there?' b. Goa rnl*bo bat khi hia. (Southern Min) I not/not.have ever go there 'I have not been there.' This indicates that bo· does not have to agree with verb/aspect. According to R. L. Cheng, bo· has become a modal-neutral question marker. Now consider the following tests. First, bo· can co-occur with tau-te 'indeed.' (19) Li tau-te beh khi bo·? (Southern Min) you indeed want go not.have 'Do you indeed want to go?' Second, it can be answered as a wh-question. (20) A: Li beh khi bo·? (Southern Min) you want go not.have 'Do you want to go?' B: Beh/Bo ai/#HeN. (Southern Min) want not want yes 'I doll don't/Yes.' B': *U/*Bo/#HeN. (Southern Min) have/not.have/yes 'I doll don't/Yes.' 156 Note that the fact that questions with bo· cannot be answered by either !! or bo shows that beh is still the main verb (T.-C. Tang 1999, p. 6). Finally, this question form observes island constraints. (21) *Li ai [hit-pun chheh kuaN-wan bo·] e lang? (Southern Min) you love that-CL book read-finish not.have E person 'Do you like the people who finished reading the book or the people who do not?' 157 Judging from the above facts, we propose that bo· occurs in the Q head. In other words, it is an overt realization of the Q head of QP as represented in (22). (22) CP ~C' Spec /"'-..... TP C Spe~~· ~QP T ~Q' OP ~ PredP Q /'=...... bo· Despite the fact that this use of bo· does not respect agreement between negation and verb/aspect, bo· seems to require the presence of its positive counterpart !! in some cases. Consider the following examples. (23) a. I chang koh khi khoaN i. (Southern Min) she yesterday again go see he 'She went to see him again yesterday.' b. I chang*(!!) koh khi khoaN i bo·? (Southern Min) she yesterday have again go see he not.have 'Did she go to see him again yesterday?' (24) a. ChhiuN si fl. (Southern Min) elephant die ASP 'The elephant died.' b. ChhiuN *(u) si bo·? (Southern Min) elephant have die not.have 'Did the elephant die?' 158 In (23a) and (24a),!! is not required. But when bo· is present as a NEG-PRT, the presence of!! is required, as shown in (23b) and (24b). This, however, does not have to be the case in the examples (17)-(20). Compare those examples with those in (23) and (24). It seems that bo· requires an element that can be negated. This is reminiscent of P. Li's analysis of negative markers in Southern Min. Recall that according toP. Li (1971), with the exception of m-2, a pure negation marker, all the negative markers are verbs derived from their corresponding affirmatives as in (1), repeated here: (25) a. Neg+!!... 'have' ------> bo 'not-have' b. Neg+~ 'able' ----->be 'not-able' c. Neg+ beh -----> m 'not-want' d. Neg + <1> -----> m 'not' I si 'is,' kaN 'dare' (m-1) (m-2) The presence of bo· requires the presence of one of the following elements that can be negated by Neg: !!, ~. beh or m. This can be captured by an analysis in which bo· selects a head that can be negated directly. Now consider m·. The m that concerns us here carries the neutralized tone. According to the table in (6), m- respects the agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect. More examples are given in (26) and (27). (26) a. Li ai(-beh) (khi) m-? (Southern Min) you want go not 'Do you want to go?' b. Goa tang (khi) m·? (Southern Min) I may go not 'May I go?' (27) a. Li beh khi m·? (Southern Min) you want go not 'Do you want to go? b. Li tioh(ai) ka mih-kiaN theh ho· i m·? (Southern Min) you must KA thing take to he not 'Do you have to take the thing to him?' 159 Note the negative counterpart of tioh(ai) in (27b) is m-bian, which still contains m. Now consider the following tests. The tau-te 'indeed' test shows the NEG-PRT cannot occur as high as co. (28) a. Li tau-te beh khi m·? (Southern Min) you indeed want go not 'Do you indeed want to go? b. Li tau-te tioh(ai) ka mih-kiaN theh ho· i m·? (Southern Min) you indeed must KA thing take to he not 'Do you indeed have to take the thing to him?' Furthermore, this question type observes island constraints and is answered as a wh-question. (29) a. *[Goa beh khi Bi-kok m-] khah ho? (Southern Min) I want go U.S. not comparatively good 'Which is better for me, going to the U.S. or not?' b. *Li ai [kaN khi m·] e lang? (Southern Min) you love dare go not E person 160 'Do you like people who dare to go or people who do not dare to go?' (30) A: Li beh khi Bi-kok m-? (Southern Min) you want go U.S. not 'Do you want to go to the U.S.? B: Beh/M/#HeN. (Southern Min) want/not. want/yes 'I doll do not/Yes.' Does this mean that the m· question contains a QP with a coordinate structure that undergoes VP ellipsis? If this is the case, an interesting question arises as to why m· can be left alone after VP ellipsis takes place, while its counterpart in Standard Mandarin, i.e. bu, cannot. We suggest that m· sits in Q, but it does not project a QP with a coordinate structure. The reasons for this are as follows. First, the negative marker m does not license VP ellipsis even when m is focused. 55 (31) a. *I kong i kaN khi, goa kong i m. (Southern Min) he say he dare go I say he not 'He said he dared to go, but I said he did not.' 55 See the discussion of focus and VP ellipsis in Section 3.3.3 of Chapter 3. b. *I kong che ho, goa kong che m. (Southern Min) he say this good I say this not 'He said this was good, but I said this was not.' 161 Second, unlike bu in Mandarin, m does not occur alone in an answer to a question: (32) A: Li kaN khi m·? (Southern Min) you dare go not 'Do you dare to go?' B: *M, goa m kaN. (Southern Min) not I not dare 'No, I do not dare.' Furthermore, in a disjunctive question with an overt disjunction marker, m· is just as unacceptable as its counterpart bu in Mandarin. The following example is taken from S.-F. Lin (1974, p. 52). (33) Li i-cheng bat chiah chiu a-si m*( -bat)? (Southern Min) you before ever eat wine or not 'Has you ever drunk wine before?' We thus assume that m· as a NEG-PRT projects a QP with no coordinate structure. However, given the fact that m- in this use still respects the agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect, we suggest it moves from its preverbal position to Q. 162 Finally, we assume m· in this use is marked with the [+WH] feature, just like bo·: (34) A: Li beh khi m·? (Southern Min) you want go not 'Do you want to go? B: Beh/MI#HeN. (Southern Min) want/not. want/yes 'I want toll don't want to/Yes.' (35) A: Li tioh(ai) ka mih-kiaN theh ho· i m-? (Southern Min) you must KA thing take to he not 'Do you have to take the thing to him?' B: Ai/M-biani#HeN. (Southern Min) must/no need/yes 'I must/I need not to/Yes.' In summary, we argue that both bo· and m· are under Q, which is marked with the [+WH] feature. But unlike bo·, m· is raised from its preverbal position to Q. 5.3.3 Tag Questions In this section, we argue that mm, as well as si-m· and si-bo·, marks tag questions. Consider the following example. (36) Li chiah-pa a, mm? (Southern Min) you eat-full ASP not 'You have eaten, haven't you?' 163 Mm has a mid-level prolonged tone.s6 According to R. L. Cheng (1977), it is derived from m-si 'not-be.' Mm is different from the NEG-PRTs that we have seen in the above sections in the following ways. First, it occurs in a higher position than tau-te 'indeed,' as the following example shows: (37) *Li tau-te chiah-pa a, mm? (Southern Min) you eat-full ASP not 'Have you indeed eaten, haven't you?' Second, as shown in (39), mm, in contrast to be·, boe·, bo· and m· as given in (38), cannot occur in an embedded clause: (38) a. Goa m-chai [i e-hiau phah kiu be·]. (Southern Min) I not know he can play ball unable 'I don't know whether he can play ball.' b. Goa m-chai [i ka mih-kiaN theh ho· i a boe· ]. (Southern Min) I not-know he KA thing take to he ASP not.yet 'I don't know whether he has given the thing to him.' c. Goa m-chai [i chiah-pa bo·]. (Southern Min) I not know he eat-full not.have 'I don't know whether he is full.' d. I siuN beh chai-iaN [li beh khi m·]. (Southern Min) he think want know you want go not 'He wants to know whether you want to go.' 56 R. L. Cheng (1977) marks this prolonged tone by'-->.' (39) *Goa m-chai [i chiah-pa a mm]. (Southern Min) I not-know he eat-full ASP not 'I don't know whether he has eaten.' 164 Third, unlike all the NEG-PRTs discussed above, a sentence with mm can be answered by heN 'yes.' Furthermore, the question in ( 40) does not appear to be a neutral question because a negative answer is not expected. (40) A: Li chiah-pa, mm? (Southern Min) you eat-full not 'Are you full, aren't you? B: Chiah-pa a/#Iau boe/HeN. (Southern Min) eat-full ASP/yet not.yet/yes 'I am full/1 am not full yet/Yes.' On the other hand, when mm occurs in a negative clause, a possible answer is not expected: (41) A: Li bo chiah, mm? (Southern Min) you not.have eat not 'You didn't eat, did you?' B: #Chiah a/Bo/HeN. (Southern Min) eat ASP/not.have/yes 'I am full/1 am not/Yes.' It is well-known that while a yes/no question can be used for genuine requests for information, a tag question is used for the confirmation of the truth of the proposition 165 denoted by the clause preceding the tag question. Compare the following yes/no question and tag question in English (Cole and Lee 1997). ( 42) a. Neutral Question Q: Did you read the paper? Expected Answer 1: Yes, I did. Expected Answer 2: No, I didn't. b. Tag Question Q: You read the paper, didn't you? Expected Answer: Yes, I did. Unexpected Answer: No, I didn't. Based on this, mm should mark a tag question. Mm, however, is not the only NEG-PRT that can mark a tag question in Southern Min. Si-bo· and si-m· are possible candidates. Consider the tau-te and answer tests: (43) a *Li tau-te si hak-seng, si-bo·? (Southern Min) you indeed be student be-not.have Are you indeed a student?' b. *I tau-te si hak-seng, si-m·? (Southern Min) he indeed be student be-not 'Is he indeed a student?' (44) A: Li si hak-seng, si-bo·/si-m·? (Southern Min) you be student be-not.have/be-not 'Are you a student?' B: Si/#M-si/HeN. (Southern Min) be/not -be/yes 'Yes.' Furthermore, both si-bo· and si-m· can co-occur with negation: (45) a I m-si hak-seng, si-bo·? (Southern Min) you be student be-not.have 'He isn't a student, is he?' b. I m-si hak-seng, si-m·? (Southern Min) he indeed be student be-not 'He isn't a student, is he?' 166 I thus propose that si-m· and si-bo· can also mark a tag question. R. L. Cheng (1977) claims that si-bo· etymologically derives from si-m-si. But note that ( 46) is ungrammatical. Thus it is unlikely that si-bo· is derived from si-m-si. (46) *Li beh khi si-m-si? (Southern Min) you want go be-not-be 'Is it true that you want to go?' Note that although (47) is grammatical, si m-si in (47) has a different structure. (47) Li beh khi si m-si? (Southern Min) you want go be not-be 'Is it true that you want to go?' 167 The evidence for this comes from tone sandhi facts. The first si in (47), unlike that in the A-not-A form in (46), bears the citation tone, which suggests that si m-si in (47) should be analyzed differently. We suggest that the string si m-si in (47) should be analyzed as a coordinate structure, which undergoes VP ellipsis: (48) Li beh khi [QP [&p [Pred si [yp e]] &[ [[Pred m-si [yp e]]]]]? (Southern Min) In summary, we claim that mm, si-bo·, and si-m· mark tag questions. 5.4 (A not AB] Type of A-not-A Question in Southern Min In this section, we will consider the [A not AB] type of question in Southern Min. We will show that it behaves like the [A not AB] type in Mandarin and thus should also project a QP and contains a morphologically complex word. In Southern Min, only those verbs and adjectives that can be negated by m-2 (non-volitional ill) can take the A-not-A form. Consider the following examples. (49) a. *Lie-be phah kiu? (Southern Min) you can-not.can play ball 'Do you know how to play ball?' b. *Li u-bo chiah-pa? (Southern Min) you not-not.have eat-full 'Are you full?' (50) a. Li bat-m-bat khi Bi-kok? (Southern Min) (C.-T. Huang 1991) you have-not-have go America 'Have you been to America?' b. Li si-m-si Tan Sian-siN? (Southern Min) you be-not-be Tan Mr. 'Are you Mr. Tan?' Tau-te 'indeed' can occur with this type of question: (51) a. Li tau-te bat-m-bat khi Bi-kok? (Southern Min) you indeed have-not-have go America 'Have you been to America indeed?' b. Li tau-te si-m-si Tan Sian-siN? (Southern Min) you indeed be-not-be Tan Mr. 'Are you Mr. Tan indeed?' 168 This type of question can be answered like a wh-question, and it also observes island constraints: (52) A: Li bat-m-bat khi Bi-kok? (Southern Min) you have-not-have go America 'Have you been to America?' B: Bat/M-bat/#HeN. (Southern Min) I have/1 have not/yes 'I have/I haven't/Yes.' (53) a. *[Bat-m-bat khi Bi-kok] khah ho? (Southern Min) have-not-have go America more good 'Which is better, having been to America or not?' b. *I ai [bat-m-bat khi Bi-kok] e lang? (Southern Min) she love have-not-have go America E person 169 'Does she love the person who can play ball or who cannot play ball?' It thus appears that this question form behaves like its counterpart in Mandarin. It should be analyzed the same. That is, the A-not-A form is a morphologically complex word, and the question contains a QP with operator movement. This analysis is also supported by the fact that not all verbs that can be negated by the non-volitional m can form the [A not AB] type of question. As shown in (54a), chai m-chai is not possible. Chai m-chai is possible because there is a tone sandhi between chai and m-chai, which indicates a different structure. Similarly, as shown in ( 54b ), the volitional m cannot form the [A not AB] type. (54) a. Li *chai-m-chai/chai m-chai? (Southern Min) you know-not-know not-know 'Do you know?' b. Li *khi-m-khilbeh khi m-khi? (Southern Min) you go-not-go/want go not.want-go 'Do you go?' The fact that bo, be and the volitional m in Southern Min cannot have the [A not AB] type is different from Singapore Teochew, which will be discussed in Section 5.6. 170 5.5 Predicate-Initial Question Markers in Suzhou and Southern Min In this section, we will show that the predicate-initial question markers in Suzhou mark wh-questions and are generated in Q, while kam in Southern Min marks a yes/no question and is located in T. According to D. Zhu (1985), Suzhou (as well as Kunming and Hefei) has the 'Q VP' type of question, but not 'VP not VP' type. There are two predicate-initial question markers in Suzhou. We will represent both as A: the use of one or the other is determined by aspect (perfective vs. imperfective):57 (55) a. N ai A xiaode? you A know 'Do you know?' b. A yao chi dian cha? A want eat some tea 'Do you want some tea?' c. Nai A chile? you ever A eat ASP 'Have you eaten?' The 'Q VP' type behaves like a wh-question. First, it cannot be answered by the positive response marker shi ge 'yes' (the counterpart of shi de in Mandarin) except in a question that contains the verb 'to be. ' 57 Instead of typing the Chinese characters used in Suzhou, we will use Mandarin pronunciation for indicating them. (56) Nai A xiaode?--Xiaode ge. you A know know PRT 'Do you know?' 'Yes.' (57) Nai A chi fan le?--Chi guo zai. you A eat meal ASP eat ASP ASP 'Have you eaten?' 'I had.' (58) Li A shi nai ge xiongdi?--Shi ge. you A be you PRT brother be PRT 'Is he your brother?' 'Yes.' 171 Second, it can occur with the final particle sha that occurs in disjunctive questions with 'or' (the counterpart of ne in Mandarin). (59) a. Nai shi chi fan haishi chi zhou sha? you be eat rice or eat porridge PRT 'Do you eat rice or porridge?' b. Nai A chi-de-luo sha? you A eat-PRT-down PRT 'Can you finish eating it?' Third, it does not allow negation to occur in its complements: (60) a. Li A qu? he Ago 'Does he go?' 172 b. *Li A wu qu? he A not go 'Does he not go?' Now compare the use of A with kam in Southern Min. According to R. L. Cheng (1977, p. 167), kam is derived from kaN-mng 'dare to ask,' which occurs sentence- initially. Kam is modality-neutral. It can be used with any predicate and can occur with a negative predicate: (61) a. I kam si lin ma-ma? (Southern Min) she KAM be you mother 'Is she your mother?' b. I kam m si lin ma-ma? (Southern Min) you KAM not be you mother 'Isn't she your mother?' It cannot be modified by tau-te. Sentence (62b) is quite marginal. (62) a. *I kam tau-tee lai? (Southern Min) he KAM indeed will come 'Will he come indeed?' b. ?*I tau-te kame lai?SS (Southern Min) he indeed KAM will come 'Will he indeed come?' 58 T.-C. Tang (1999, p. 7) marks this sentence by '?*,'and makes the following remarks: 'Most people reject the collocation of tau-te with kam, but a few people reluctantly accept the wide-scope use of tau-te over kam (i.e. 'tau-te kam ... ?') while no speakers accept the wide-scope use of kam over tau-te.' 173 Furthermore, unlike questions with NEG-PRTs such as be·, boe·, bo· and m·, a kam-question can be answered by heN 'yes' (Wang and Lien 1995, p. 52).59 (63) A: Li kam beh khi? (Southern Min) you KAM want go 'Do you want to go?' B: Beh/Bo ai/HeN. (Southern Min) want/not like/yes 'I doll don't/Yes.' (64) a. *[Goa kam khi] khah ho? (Southern Min) I KAM go more good 'Which is better, I go or not?' b. *Li ai [kam kaN khi e lang]? (Southern Min) you like KAM dare go E person 'Do you like people who dare to go or who dare not to go?' Thus, in contrast to A in Suzhou, a kam question marks a yes/no question (cf. T. C. Huang 1999). We propose that A in Suzhou is generated in Q and is marked with the [+WH] feature, while kam in Southern Min is located in T and is marked with the [+Q] feature. The structures are given in (65) and (66) respectively. 59 In literary Southern Min, kam can occur with the yes/no question marker mah. The following sentence is taken from Matthew Chapter 6, verse 25 of the Bible (The Holy Bible: Taiwanese Han Character Edition. 1996. Translated by The Rev. Thomas Barclay from Amoy Romanized Bible 1993.) (i) Line seng-khu kam bo khah toa ti i-chiuN mah? (Southern Min) you 's body KAM not.have comparatively big than clothes PRT 'Isn't the body worth more than clothes?' (65) (66) CP ............... C' Spec~ TP C /'-.......T Spec~ T QP /'-.....Q' Spec~ Q PredP A~ [+WH] CP ~C' Spec~ TP C /-............._T [+Q] Spec~ T PredP kam~ [+Q] 174 We assume that the [+Q] feature raises from T to C 0 to check its feature with the strong [+Q] feature of C 0 . We assume the [+Q] feature of co can also be checked by merging a yes/no question marker such as rna in Mandarin or by moving an operator from a lower position. One piece of evidence that supports our analysis of A and kam is that kam cannot be preceded by s;. 'can,' while A can be preceded by huide 'can.' (67) ?Li huide A chi yan jie? (Suzhou) he can A smoke cigarette PRT 'Can he be a smoker?' (68) a. I kame chiah hun? (Southern Min) he KAM can eat cigarette 'Can he smoke?' b. *I e kam chiah hun? (Southern Min) he can KAM eat cigarette 'Can he smoke?' 175 Assume that modals do not take any complement with a covert element indicating tense, or an overt element in T. We can rule out ( 68b) by saying that kam sits in T. 60 Note that T.-C. Tang (1999, p. 7) claims that a kam question can only be used as a direct question. If this is the case, the fact that kam cannot occur in the complement of~ may be due to the fact that it cannot be embedded. However, we found speakers' judgements vary with respect to the following sentence. (69) %Goa m-chai-iaN [i kam si Tai-oan lang]. (Southern Min) I not-know he KAM be Taiwan person 'I don't know whether he is a Taiwanese.' In contrast, we found the following sentence to be perfectly grammatical. (70) [I siuN beh chai-iaN (*#) [goa kam beh khi]]. (Southern Min) he think want know I KAM want go 'He wants to know whether I want to go.' 60 A fair question that one may ask is why a question word can occur in a non-question position. A possible solution to this is to say that kam occurs in a functional projection that is projected between CP and TP. 176 Importantly, there is a tone sandhi between chai-iaN and goa, which indicates that "siuN beh chai-iaN' and the following phrase starting with 'goa' form a constituent. Thus 'I siuN beh chai-iaN' cannot be analyzed as a parenthetical expression. That is, kam is in an embedded clause. The contrast between (69) and (70) may be somehow related to the nature of the main predicate.6I (71) I siuN beh chai-iaN goa si-m-si beh khi. (Southern Min) he think want know I be-not-be want go 'He wants to know whether I want to go.' Despite the fact that speakers' judgements vary on (69) and (70), no speakers can accept the sentence in (68b). Thus our claim based on (68b) is still valid. An analysis in which kam is located inTis incompatible with C.-T. Huang's (1991) claim that kam occurs in INFL. For C.-T. Huang (1991), both the [A not AB] type of A-not-A question and kam-questions are different realizations of the INFL in different dialects. C.-T. Huang argues that his analysis is partially supported because while it is possible for kam to occur with the [AB not A] type for some speakers, it does not occur with the [A not AB] type. (72) a. %Li kame lai be·?62 (Southern Min) you KAM will come not.have 'Will you come or won't?' 61 At the present time we do not have a better explanation than this. 62 One of our informants told us it is more polite to use both kam and an A-not-A form in one sentence. b. %Li kam bat chit-e lang (a) m-bat? (Southern Min) you KAM know this-CL person not-know 'Do you know this person or don't know [him]?' (73) %Li kam si-m-si ai khi hak-hau? (Southern Min) he KAM be-not-be must go school 'Don't you have to go to school?' 177 However, we found that the very same speakers who accept (72) also accept (73). If this is correct, this challenges C.-T. Huang's claim that the [A not AB] type of A not-A questions and kam-questions are different realizations of INFL in different dialects. Furthermore, (72) and (73), unlike questions marked by kam only, cannot be answered by 'HeN.' This shows that the sentences (72) should not be categorized as questions marked by kam only. We propose that this use of kam functions as an adverb that emphasizes a wh-question. If we are correct in our above analysis of negative question particles and predicate-initial question markers, an QP is restricted to wh-questions. It does not denote a yes/no question. A yes/no question must be marked in a higher position, either T or C. Finally, before we leave this section, let us point out that although Suzhou (Kunming, and Hefei as well) does not have the 'VP not VP' type of question, the 'VP not VP' form can nevertheless be used. For example, (74) a. Mai-le wu mai suibian nai. (Suzhou) buy ASP not buy whatever you 'Buy or not buy, it is up to you.' b. Hao-bu-hao bu yaojin. (Hefei) good-not-good not matter 'Either it is good or not, it does not matter.' 178 In this case, we assume this form does not project a QP. The example in (74b) clearly shows that the A-not-A form in this dialect cannot be marked with the [+WH] feature. 5.6 Comparison between Singapore Teochew and Southern Min In this section we will compare Singapore Teochew with Southern Min. Our discussion of Singapore Teochew will be based on Cole and Lee (1997). Like Southern Min, Singapore Teochew is also a counterexample to D. Zhu's (1985) claim because it has the [VP not VP] type of question and the [Q VP] type as exemplified in (75)-(76) respectively. (75) a. A Meng oi b-oi sukaji bun zi? (ST: Singapore Teochew) Ah Meng will not-will like this CL book 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' b. Ah Meng sum sukaji bun zi? (ST) Ah Meng like not like this CL book 'Does Ah Meng like this book?' c. Ah Meng (oi) sukaji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng will like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' (76) Ah Meng ka sukaji bun zi? (ST) Ah Meng KA like this CL book 'Does Ah Meng like this book?' 179 The examples in (75b) and (75c) are NEG-PRT-Qs. Cole and Lee (1997) call this type of question Postposed Negative Auxiliary Question. The verbs that can occur in such a question include oi/b-oi 'can'/'not-can,' ai/m-ai 'want'/'not-want,' u/b-o 'have'/'not-have,' si/m-si. m-i 'be'/'not-be' and 'tio?/miang 'have to'/'not have to. The NEG-PRTs must attach to the sentences with the same modal verb, overt or not: (77) a. Ah Meng ai lai m-ai? (ST) Ah Meng want come not-want 'Does Ah Meng want to come?' b. * Ah Meng oi lai m-ai? (ST) Ah Meng will come not-want 'Does Ah Meng want to come?' c. Ah Meng oi lai b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng will come not-will 'Will Ah Meng come?' Furthermore, as shown in (78) and (79) below, the predicate-initial question marker ka can occur in an A-not-A question and a NEG-PRT-Q respectively, whereas the latter two cannot co-occur. Based on this, Cole and Lee propose that the 180 latter two question types are derived from the same source, as opposed to the ka question. (78) a. Ah Meng ka oi b-oi sukaji bun zi? (ST) Ah Meng KA will not-will like this CL book Will Ah Meng like this book?' b. Ah Meng ka su m suka ji bun zi? (ST) Ah Meng KA like not like this CL book 'Does Ah Meng like this book?' c. Ah Meng ka (oi) sukaji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng KA will like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' (79) a. * Ah Meng su m suka ji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng like not like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' b. Ah Meng oi sukaji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng will like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' c. *Ah Meng oi sum sukaji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng will like not like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' d. * Ah Meng oi b-oi suka ji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng will not-will like this CL book not-will 181 A structure like (80) is a common source for A-not-A and NEG-PRT -Qs: (80) [Ah Meng [TP oi [yp e]] [TP b-oi [vp sukaji bun zi]]] (=(75a)) Ah Meng will not-will like this CL book It will derive (75a). When a modal verb occurs, it can optionally raise to the sentence-final position. Thus, (80) can also derive the NEG-PRT-Q in (75c): (81) [Ah Meng [TP oi [vp e]] [Tp ti [yp sukaji bun zi] b-oij]]] Ah Meng will like this CL book not-will The modal verb can also be optionally deleted: (82) [Ah Meng [ TP e [vp e]] [TP ti [yp suka ji bun zi] b-oij]]] AhMeng like this CL book not-will On the other hand, ka is argued to head a QP. Sentence (83a) is represented in (83b). (83) a. Ah Meng ka oi b-oi sukaji bun zi? (=(78a)) (ST) Ah Men KA will not-will like this CL book 'Will Ah Ming like this book?' b. [Ah Meng [QP ka [TP oi [yp e]] [TP b-oi [yp sukaji bun zi]]]] Ah Meng KA will not-will like this CL book The structure in (83b) can also derive (78c) when the modal is postposed to the sentence-final position. 182 Let us start with the derivation of the NEG-PRT-Q in (75c) first. The structure in (81) captures the fact that the modal verb in an NEG-PRT-Q must be the same with the NEG-PRT. However, this analysis faces several problems. First, optional movement should not be possible in the theoretical framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995). This is because movement is driven by feature checking: a feature either needs to be checked or does not need to be checked. Thus such an analysis does not seem to be desirable. Second, it is not clear what position that b-oi in (81) is postposed to is. More seriously, A-not-A questions and NEG-PRT-Qs do not behave the same with respect to islands. While an island effect is detected for NEG-PRT-Qs and ka questions as well, A-not-A forms that contain a verb, but not a modal verb, do not exhibit island effects. The examples for NEG-PRT -Qs and ka questions are given in (84) and (85), while those for the two types of A-not-A questions are given in (86) and (87). Cole and Lee assume there is operator movement occurs in ka questions, whereas operator movement does not occur in all A-not-A questions and NEG-PRT Qs. However, if all A-not-A questions and NEG-PRT-Qs project the same structure, the above contrast remains a mystery. (84) a. *[Ah Meng oi sukaji bun zi b-oil you hor? (ST) Ah Meng will like this CL book not-will better 'Is it better for Ah Meng to like this book or not?' b. *Ah Meng suka [oi tiaobu b-oi gai nang]? (ST) Ah Meng like know dance not-will PRT person 'Does Ah Meng like someone who can or cannot dance?' (85) a. *[Wa ka kih Pakiah] you hor? (ST) I KA go Beijing better 'Is it better for me to go to Beijing?' b. *Le suka [ka kih Pakiah] gai nang? (ST) you like KA go Beijing PRT person 'Do you prefer people who go to Beijing?' (86) a. [Wa kih m kih Pakiah] you hor? (ST) I go not go Beijing better 'Is it better for me to go to Beijing or not?' b. Le suka [tiao m tiaobu gai nang]? (ST) you like dance not dance PRT person 'Do you prefer those who dance or those who don't?' (87) a. *[Ah Meng oi b-oi sukaji bun zi] you hor? (ST) Ah Meng will not-will like this CL book better 'Is it better for Ah Meng to like this book or not?' b. *Ah Meng suka [oi b-oi tiaobu gai nang]? (ST) Ah Meng like will not-will dance PRT person 'Does Ah Meng like someone who can or cannot dance?' 183 We propose that the A-not-A forms of the modal verbs are morphologically complex words, and are marked with the [ + WH] feature. The [ + WH] feature raises to check its feature with the Q head, which is also marked with the [+WH] feature. The island effects can be explained by assuming operator movement. (88) a. Ah Meng oi b-oi sukaji bun zi? (=(75a)) (ST) Ah Meng will not-will like this book 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' b. Ah Meng [QP e [+WH] [PredP oi-b-oi [+WH] [yp sukaji bun zi]]] Ah Meng will-not-will like this book 184 In contrast, the A-not-A forms of verbs or adjectives are not morphologically complex words. There is no operator movement. They are closer to disjunctive questions because disjunctive questions do not violate island constraints. We maintain Cole and Lee's analysis in (89b) for (89a). (89) a. Ah Meng su rn sukaji bun zi? (=(75b)) (ST) Ah Meng like not like this CL book 'Does Ah Meng like this book?' b. [Ah Meng [TP e [yp sue]] [TP e [yprn sukaji bun zi]]] AhMeng like not like this CL book As for NEG-PRT-Qs, we propose that they contain a QP just like be· and boe· questions in Southern Min. The proposed structure of (90a) is given in (90b ). This analysis captures the fact that the same modal verb must be used in the NEG-PRT and it does not run into the problems that we noted with Cole & Lee's raising analysis. (90) a. Ah Meng (oi) sukaji bun zi b-oi? (=(75c)) (ST) Ah Meng will like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' b. Ah Meng [QP OP [Q' e [+WH] [&P [predP (oi) sukaji bun zi] & Ah Meng will like this CL book [NegP b-oiHyp ellJl not-will 185 In our analysis, the A-not-A form of an adjective or a verb does not occur with a NEG-PRT as in (79a) and (79c), repeated here in (91a) and (91b). This is because the two are assigned different structures. The latter but not the former takes a QP. (91) a. *Ah Meng sum sukaji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng like not like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' b. * Ah Meng oi su m suka ji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng will like not like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' Also, the A-not-A form of a modal verb will not occur with an NEG-PRT as shown in (79d), repeated here, despite the fact that both types of question contain a QP. This is because we assume a QP either has a coordinate structure that undergoes VP ellipsis or it has a morphologically complex word. (92) * Ah Meng oi b-oi suka ji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng will not-will like this CL book not-will Finally, let us consider ka questions. Cole and Lee have proposed a QP analysis for them. As we have seen in (78), repeated here, ka can occur with an A-not-A form or a NEG-PRT. (93) a. Ah Meng ka oi b-oi sukaji bun zi? (ST) Ah Meng KA will not-will like this CL book Will Ah Meng like this book?' b. Ah Meng ka sum sukaji bun zi? (ST) Ah Meng KA like not like this CL book 'Does Ah Meng like this book?' c. Ah Meng ka (oi) sukaji bun zi b-oi? (ST) Ah Meng KA will like this CL book not-will 'Will Ah Meng like this book?' 186 It can also occur alone as shown in (76), repeated here in (94a). There are two possible structures for aka question as represented in (94b) and (94b'). (94) a. Ah Meng ka suka ji bun zi? (ST) Ah Meng KA like this CL book 'Does Ah Meng like this book?' b. Ah Meng [ TP ka [PreP suka ji bun zi]] Ah Meng KA like this CL book b'. Ah Meng [QP OP [Q' ka [+WH] [PredP sukaji bun zi]]] Ah Meng KA like this CL book One possibility is that ka in this case is like kam in Southern Min. It marks a yes/no question, and it functions as an emphasizer when other question forms occur. If this is the case, ka should occur in T. The other possibility is that ka, unlike kam in Southern Min, is an overt realization of Q, marking a wh-question, just like the predicate-initial question marker A in Suzhou. The choice between (94b) and (94b') 187 will depend on how such a question is answered and how it behaves with respect to islands. More data is needed to determine the viable analysis. In summary, while we cannot decide the structure for aka question in Singapore Teochew, we propose that NEG-PRT-Qs and A-not-A questions formed by modal verbs contain a QP and thus respect island effects. We argue against Cole and Lee's raising analysis for the NEG-PRT -Qs. On the other hand, we maintain Cole and Lee's proposal for the A-not-A questions formed by verbs or adjectives. That is, they involve two conjoined TPs and thus show no island effects. Our analysis resolves a problem that Cole and Lee face. That is, the two types of A-not-A questions behave differently with respect to islands. 5.7 Conclusions Southern Min is a counterexample to D. Zhu's (1985) claim that there is no dialect in which the 'VP bu VP' type and the 'Q VP' type both exist. We show that both of them exist in Southern Min because they mark different types of question- the former marks wh-questions, while the latter marks yes-no questions. Our study details the various syntactic positions in which NEG-PRTs in Southern Min occur. Suzhou (Kunming and Hefei as well), on the other hand, has only the 'Q VP' type of question. This type of question marks a wh-question. We have also proposed that the predicate-initial question marker kam has the [ +Q] feature. The [ +Q] feature raises from T to check the strong [ +Q] feature of co, while the predicate-initial question marker A in Suzhou is generated in Q, which is marked with the [+WH] feature. The data from Singapore Teochew is interesting in that the A-not-A form of a modal verb behaves differently from that of an adjective/a verb. The former but not the latter exhibits island effects. We propose that the former has a QP with a 188 morphologically complex word, while the latter involves a coordinate TP. If our analysis is correct, it suggests that QPs are restricted to wh-questions. It does not occur in yes/no questions. A yes/no question must be marked in a higher position, a Tor C. 189 CHAPTER6 NEGATION EXPRESSED BY A FORM OF QUESTION 6.1 Introduction In Chapters 4 and 5, we studied the question forms that are expressed by a form of negation. This chapter is devoted to another issue that is related to the affinity between negation and questions. Here we are concerned with the opposite of what we dealt with in Chapter 4 and 5--it is the case in which negation is expressed by a question form. In particular, we study a special type of question that employs the question form na(r) 'where.' This question is used to deny what is said or implied, and it implies a negative proposition obligatorily, unlike other rhetorical questions. Throughout the discussion we use 'question' for utterances with a particular illocutionary force, and 'interrogative' for sentences with a particular grammatical structure.63 The interrogative form na(r) does not exhibit agreement with verb/aspect. We will show that its position is different from the wh-word na(r) 'where' or zenme 'how,' and that it is not located in a position where a negative marker is. We will 63 This is adopted from Lyons (1977), who uses 'statement,' 'question' and 'command' for utterances with a particular illocutionary force, and 'declarative,' 'interrogative' and 'imperative' for sentences with a particular grammatical structure. Illocutionary force is one of the three speech-acts, first distinguished by Austin ( 1962): (i) A locutionary act is an act of saying: the production of a meaning utterance. (ii) An illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something: making a statement or promise, issuing a command or request, asking a question, christening a ship, etc. (iii) A perlocutionary act is an act performed by means of saying something: getting someone to do something, moving someone to anger, consoling someone in their distress, etc. 190 argue that na(r) is generated in the Spec of QP. It is an overt realization of an operator that has the [+NEG] feature ( cf. Progovac 1988). This provides further testimony to the existence of a QP. This chapter is organized as follows. In Section 6.2 we discuss the distribution of na(r) questions. In Section 6.3 we proceed to discussing two possible analyses. Our syntactic proposal is detailed in Section 6.4. Finally, Section 6.5 concludes this chapter. 6.2 Distribution of the Na(r) Rhetorical Question As a question word, nar 'where' can occur in an object position, a subject position or as a complement of zai 'in': (1) a. Ni qu nar? you go where 'Where do you go?' b. Nar you shu? where have book 'Where are there books?' c. Ta zai nar kan shu? he in where read book 'Where is he reading?' The use of na(r) that concerns us here is shown in (2a), (3a), and ( 4a), each of which implies a negative proposition as in (2b ), (3a), and ( 4a) respectively. (2) a. Wo na(r) zhidao ta lai-bu-lai?!64 I where know he come-not-come 'How do I know whether he is coming or not?!' b. Wo bu zhidao ta lai-bu-lai. I not know he come-not-come 'I don't know whether he is coming or not.' (3) a. Ta na(r) qu-guo Zhongguo?! he where go-ASP China 'How is it possible that he has been to China?!' b. Ta mei(you) qu-guo Zhongguo. he not(have) go-ASP China 'He hasn't been to China.' (4) a. Ta na(r) xian-zhe?! he where free-ASP 'How is possible that he is free?!' b. Ta mei(you) xian-zhe. he not(have) free-ASP 'He is not free.' 191 Unlike the nar 'where' in (1), this use of na(r) only occurs in a post-subject and preverbal position, and cannot be modified by zai 'in.' 64 We will mark an obligatory rhetorical question with'?!.' 192 (5) *Wo zai na(r) zhidao ta lai-bu-lai?! I in where know he come-not-come 'How do I know whether he comes or not?!' Furthermore, the na(r) question must be construed as a rhetorical question obligatorily. Generally speaking, a question is termed rhetorical when the speaker knows the answer, and does not intend to elicit an answer that is different from what he/she has in mind. A yes/no question can be a rhetorical question. In this case, a positive rhetorical question implies a negative proposition, whereas a negative one implies a positive one. Consider the examples in ( 6). (6) a. Ta nandao zhidao zhe-jian shi rna? he could:it:be know this-CL matter PRT 'How could it be that he knows about this matter?' b. Ni nandao bu zhidao zhe-jian shi rna? you could:it:be not this-CL matter PRT 'How could it be that you do not know?' A person who utters (6a) and (6b) has a certain degree of certainty that the opposite of what is stated is true. As for constituent questions, they can also be used as rhetorical questions as shown in (7) and (8). (7) a. Shei xihuan ta? who like he 'Who likes him?' b. Ta zuo-le shenme? he do-ASP what 'What did he do?' (8) a. Zhe you shenme hao? this have what good 'What good is this?' b. Ni kan shenme kan? you look what look 'What are you looking at?' 193 Note that such rhetorical questions do not necessarily imply negative propositions. For example, the person who utters (7a) can have a certain person in mind that answers his question. However, the questions in (8) have a stronger negative implication than those in (7). This may be because the wh-words in (8) cannot be replaced by the answers, unlike those in (7): (9) a. Zhangsan xihuan ta. Zhangsan like he 'Zhangsan likes him.' b. Ta zuo-le henduo shi. he do-ASP many thing 'He has done a lot.' (10) a. *Zhe you qian hao. this have money good 'This is good for money.' 194 b. *Wo zai kan ni kan. I in look you look 'I am looking at you.' Crucially, there is a contrast between na(r) questions and other rhetorical questions that use wh-words. The latter but not the former can occur with daodi 'indeed,' the function of which is to elicit an answer from the addressee no matter whether the speaker has an answer or not. The fact that a na(r) question cannot occur with daodi shows that the speaker of a na(r) question does not intend to elicit an answer from the adressee. (11) *Ta daodi na(r) zhidao? he indeed where know 'How did he know?' (12) a. Zhe daodi you shenme hao? this indeed have what good 'What good is this indeed?' b. Ni daodi zai kan shenme kan? you indeed in look what look 'What are you looking at indeed?' (13) a Ta daodi zuo-le shenme? he indeed do-ASP what 'What did he do indeed?' b. Daodi you shei xihuan ta? indeed have who like he 'Who likes him indeed?' 195 While (11) is ungrammatical, both (12) and (13) are grammatical and can still be used as rhetorical questions. Furthermore, while a na(r) question can be embedded, it cannot be an indirect question. (14) a. Zhangsan yiwei wo na(r) qu-guo Zhongguo. Zhangsan think I where go-ASP China 'Zhangsan thought I hadn't been to China.' b. *Ta xiang zhidao wo na(r) qu-guo Zhongguo. he want know I where go-ASP China 'He wants to know how I can have been to China.' The ungrammaticality of (14b) shows that a na(r) question cannot occur as the complement of a verb that requires its complement to be interrogative. In other words, it is not a true interrogative sentence. 65 In summary, a na(r)-rhetorical question has the following characteristics: (15) a. Unlike a wh-question, a na(r)-rhetorical question has to be rhetorical obligatorily and it always implies a negative proposition. 65 We follow Cole and Lee (1997, p. 208) in assuming that this selection must be related to interpretation rather than to the occurrence of a particular element in Spec of CP. 196 b. A na(r)-rhetorical question cannot occur with daodi 'indeed.' c. A na(r)-rhetorical question cannot serve as the complement of a verb that requires the complement to be interrogative. The three characteristics are interrelated. Given the fact that the na(r)-rhetorical question always implies a negative proposition, it follows that it cannot occur with daodi, which requires a sentence to be interrogative, and that it cannot serve as a complement of a verb that requires an interrogative complement. Then the crucial question is how to capture the relation between negation and question as exhibited in this type of question. An equally important question is in which position na(r) occurs. Thus the two main questions that we address in this chapter are as follows: (16) a. Where is na(r) located in a tree structure? b. How do we capture the relation between negation and question as exhibited in a na(r)-rhetorical question? In the next section, we will consider possible syntactic positions of na(r). 6.3 Two Possible Analyses There are two possibilities regarding the position of na(r). First, na(r) is in the position of zenme 'how.' Second, it is assumed to be in the position of either bu or mei(you). Consider the first possibility. J. Shao (1996, p. 176) claims that na(r) in a question can be replaced by the question word zenme 'how' without changing the meaning of the sentence: 197 (17) a. Name duo dongxi, women na(r) chi-de-wan?! that much thing we where eat-DE-finish 'How can we finish eating so many things?!' b. Name duo dongxi, women zenme chi-de-wan? that much thing we where eat-DE-finish 'How can we finish eating so many things?' Indeed ( 17b) can mean 'we cannot finish eating so many things.' One might claim that na(r) occupies the same position as zenme. However, this kind of analysis faces several problems. First, as we have shown above, the na(r) rhetorical question is different from other rhetorical questions that employ a wh-word. The latter do not have to be interpreted as rhetorical questions and they do not have to imply only negative propositions when they are used rhetorically. This is a problem if na(r) is analyzed in the same fashion as zenme. Second, the syntactic distributions and interpretations of zenme are different from na(r). Consider the positions and interpretations of zenme. It has two interpretations: cause and manner. 6 6 W.-T. Tsai (1999) argues that different interpretations are associated with different syntactic positions. For example, when zenme precedes a modal, only the cause reading is possible, and when it follows a modal, only the manner reading is possible: 66 We are only concerned with the cause and manner interpretations because the result interpretation is obtained only when zenme is post-verbal: (i) Ta zuo-de zenme-yang? he do-DE how 'How did he do?' (18) a. Ta zenme neng zou? he how can leave 'How can he leave?' b. Ta neng zenme zou? he can how go 'How can he leave?' 198 W.-T. Tsai attributes the two interpretations, i.e. cause and manner, to the types of syntactic projection zenme modifies, roughly corresponding to I' and V'. In terms of positions, na(r), unlike zenme, can only precede a modal as shown in (19). (19) a. Ta na(r) neng zou?! he where can leave 'How can he leave?!' b. *Ta neng na(r) zou?! he can where leave 'How can he leave?' Moreover, the interpretations of zenme and na(r) are quite different. While (18a) has the cause reading of zenme, (19a) has the manner reading of na(r). Now consider the manner use of zenme as given in (20). (20) Wo zenme shuijiao? I how sleep "How do I sleep?' 199 When zenme in (20) is replaced by na(r) as shown in (21a), this sentence obligatorily implies (21b). (21) a. Ta na(r) shuijiao?! he where sleep 'How can it be that he sleeps?!' b. Tabu shuijiao. he not sleep 'He does not sleep.' The interpretation of (21a) is different from the manner interpretation of (20). In other words, na(r) is different from zenme in terms of positions and interpretations. Thus it is difficult to argue that they are located in the same position in a syntactic tree. Given the fact that the use of na(r) is so closely related to negation, one might be tempted to assume that na(r) occurs in a position where either bu or mei(you) occurs. This is the second possibility that we will discuss now. First, consider the resultative compounds that indicate potentiality as given in (22). The compounds are underlined: (22) a. Ta ting-de-dong laoshi shuo de hua. he listen-DE-understand teacher say DE word 'He could understand what the teacher said.' b. Ta ting-bu-dong laoshi shuo de hua. he listen-not-understand teacher say DE word 'He couldn't understand what the teacher said.' 200 As shown in (23), na(r) only occurs in a preverbal position and it cannot occur in the position of bu. (23) a. Ta na(r) ting-de-dong laoshi shuo de hua?! he where listen-DE-understand teacher say DE word 'How could he understand what the teacher said?!' b. *Ta ting-na(r)-dong laoshi shuo de hua?! he listen-where-understand teacher say DE word 'How could he understand what the teacher said?!' On the other hand, neither bu nor mei(you) occurs in the position where na(r) occurs: (24) *Ta bu/mei(you) ting-de-dong laoshi shuo de hua. he not/not(have) listen-DE-understand teacher say DE word 'He couldn't understand what the teacher said.' Thus, it is unlikely that na(r) occurs in the same position as bu or mei(you). If indeed negation is expressed, it is an abstract negative feature. This abstract negative feature should not be sensitive to verb/aspect as a negative marker: (25) a. Ta mei(you) chi-(*le) san-wan fan. he not(have) eat-ASP three-CL rice 'He didn't eat three bowls of rice.' b. Ta na(r) chi-le san-wan fan?! he where eat-ASP three-CL rice 'How is it possible that he ate three bowls of rice?!' 201 As shown in (25), mei(you) cannot occur with the perfective -le, whereas na(r) imposes no constraint on its complement. Further evidence shows that na(r) does not sit in the same position as mei(you). Consider the contrast in (26) and (27). (26) a. Tamen dou mei(you) qu-guo Zhongguo. they all not(have) go-ASP China 'None of them has been to China.' b. Tamen mei(you) dou qu-guo Zhongguo. they not(have) all go-ASP China 'Not all of them have been to China.' (27) a. *Tamen dou na(r) qu-guo Zhongguo?! they all where go-ASP China 'How is it possible that all of them have been to China?!' b. Tamen na(r) dou qu-guo Zhongguo?! they where all go-ASP China 'How is it possible that all of them have been to China?!' The above examples show the position of na(r) is restricted: while dou can occur either before or after mei(you), na(r) can only precede it. In summary, evidence shows that na(r) can occur neither in a position where zenme is located nor is located in the same position as either negative marker. In the next section, we will move on to the discussion of our proposal. 202 6.4 Our Syntactic Analysis In this section, we will propose a syntactic analysis which allows us to avoid the problems faced by the two analyses above, and which captures the affinity between negation and question. 6.4.1 Overt Realization of the Operator We propose that na(r) is an overt realization of the operator in the Spec of QP. This idea stems from Progovac's (1988) proposal that negative polarity items (NPis) are licensed by a negative operator in the Spec of CP. By establishing that the polarity operator is negative, Progovac is able to unify the set of NPI triggers: NPis can only be licensed by negation, be it overt or covert (in the form of a null negative operator). 67 The negative operator is responsible for NPI licensing when there is no overt negation. Progovac assumes that an operator has a [+/-] switch. We propose that a na(r)- rhetorical question is expressed by a QP. The operator in the Spec of QP is marked with [+NEG] and is realized as na(r).68 We assume a QP takes a PredP as its complement as illustrated in (28). 67 Progovac ( 1988) claims that contexts that license NPis involve a negative operator: yes-no questions, alternative questions, and wh-questions. For the arguments that such an operator is negative, see Progovac (1988, pp.172-187). 68 Presumably, a negative marker is also marked with the [+NEG] feature. (28) spA· ~ T QP o~· [+NEG] ,..................._ na( r) PredP Q ~ 203 The proposal captures the three characteristics of a na(r)-rhetorical question as we discussed above. Since the operator can only be negative and thus unlike a wh- question, the na(r) question cannot be an interrogative and it always implies a negative proposition. 6.4.2 The Interpretation of a Wh-word in a Na(r)-Rhetorical Question and the Licensing of a Minimizer In this section we will present data that supports our claim that na(r) is an overt realization of the negative operator in the Spec of QP. This operator is marked with a [+NEG] feature. Let us discuss the interpretation of wh-words in Chinese first. It is well-known that in Chinese and many other languages, wh-words can have a non-interrogative indefinite (or indeterminate) interpretation, as well as an interrogative one. L. Cheng (1991) claims that wh-words in Mandarin Chinese are indefinite NPs (or polarity items), which do not have inherent quantificational force (cf. Kuroda 1965). In (29a) the wh-word has an existential reading induced by the yes/no question particle rna. In (29b) it has a universal reading induced by the universal quantifier 204 dou 'all.' And in (29c) it has a negative polarity reading induced by the negative marker. (29) a. Ni zai xiang shei rna? you in think who PRT 'Are you thinking of someone?' b. Ta shenme dou chi. he what all eat 'He eats everything.' c. Ta bu xiang chi shenme. he not want eat what 'He does not want to eat anything.' Similarly, Y.-H. Li (1992) claims that the occurrence of an indefinite wh is licensed by a licenser, which is defined in terms of its effect on the truth value of a proposition. The relation between an indefinite wh and its licenser is characterized as a binder-variable relation, much like the one that exists between an interrogative wh and a question operator. With this in mind, now consider the following examples. Note that in a na(r) sentence a wh-word cannot be construed as an interrogative wh-element. (30) a. *Shei na(r) chi-guo na zhong dongxi? who where eat-ASP that kind thing 'Who can possibly have eaten that kind of thing?' b. *Ta na(r) chi-guo shenme dongxi? he where eat-ASP what thing 'What can he have possibly eaten?' 205 A wh-word can have a non-interrogative interpretation if it is under the scope of na(r): (31) a. *Shei na(r) chi-guo na zhong dongxi?! who where eat-ASP that kind thing 'How can it be possible that anybody has eaten that kind of things?' b. Ta na(r) chi-guo shenme dongxi?! he where eat-ASP what thing 'How can it be the case that he has eaten anything?!' The reason why a wh-word in a na(r) question cannot be construed as an interrogative could possibly be due to the nature of na(r) questions. The function of a na(r) question is to deny something that has been previously thought or implied. Thus it is not possible for naCr) to occur with an interrogative wh-word. Assume the interrogative interpretation of a wh-word is licensed by a positive question marker, then the wh-word in a na(r) question can never be licensed as an interrogative because the positive operator is missing. Our analysis in which na(r) is an overt realization of a negative operator thus captures this fact nicely. What is also interesting to us here is the subject-object contrast shown in (31). That is, the object but not the subject can be interpreted as non-interrogative. Given our analysis that na(r) is an overt realization of the operator with the [+NEG] feature, the asymmetry between an object and a subject can be explained. 206 Now let us consider a similar subject-object asymmetry in an A-not-A question. (32) a. *Shei xiang-bu-xiang ta? who think-not-think he 'Does anyone think of him or not?' b. Ni xiang-bu-xiang chi shenme? you want-not-want eat what 'Do you want to eat anything?' *'What do you want to eat and what do you do not want to eat?' Note that the pair reading for multiple constituent questions is not available for (32). Wachowicz (1974, 1975) observes that multiple constituent questions are requests for information on how to pair elements from the sets over which the wh words range, rather than requests for the identity of wh-words. Therefore, a proper answer to a multiple question has to be a list of at least two pairs. For example, (33) Q: Who brought what? Al: Monica brought her teddy-bear and Herbert brought his dolls. A2: #Monica brought her teddy-bear. The semantics of an A-not-A question requires that one and only one of the presented alternatives is true. Thus it is not possible for it to be paired with an interrogative wh-word. In this way, a wh-word can only be construed as a non interrogative. The contrast in (32) shows that the object but not the subject is within the scope of the licenser. Now let us move on to the licensing of a special type of NPI, i.e. minimizers such ban-dian dongxi 'half-bit of thing.' This type of NPI behaves differently from NPis 207 such as renhe 'any' NPs. Examples in (34) and (35) show that ban-dian dongxi 'half bit of thing' and renhe dongxi 'anything' are NPis because they can be licensed by negation and they cannot occur without negation. (34) a. *Ta chi-le ban-dian dongxi. he eat-ASP half-bit thing 'He has eaten half-bit of thing.' b. Ta mei(you) chi ban-dian dongxi. he not(have) eat half-bit thing 'He didn't eat anything.' (35) a. *Ta chi-le renhe dongxi. he eat-ASP any thing 'He ate anything.' b. Ta mei(you) chi renhe dongxi. he not(have) eat any thing 'He didn't eat anything.' The renhe phrase in (35a) only has the free choice 'any' reading. The two types of NPis can also be licensed in yes/no questions, in A-not-A questions and in conditional clauses: (36) a. Ni xiang renhe ren rna? you think any person PRT 'Do you miss anyone?' b. Ni xiang-bu-xiang renhe ren? you think-not-think any person 'Do you miss anyone?' c. Y aoshi ni you renhe wenti, qing lai zhao wo. if you have any question please come look: for I 'If you have any question, please come and see me.' (37) a. Ta gei-guo ni ban-mao qian rna?! he give-ASP you half-cent money 'Did he give you any money?!' b. Ta gei-mei-gei-guo ni ban-mao qian?! he give-not-give-ASP half-cent money 'Did he give you any money?!' c. Y aoshi ni gan gei ta ban-mao qian dehua, wo jiu gen ni duanjue if you dare give he half-cent money that:case I then with you cut guanxi. relationship 208 'If you dare to give him any money at all, I will cut off relation with you.' Despite this, we judge (37) but not (36) to bear a strong negative implication. Sentences (37a) and (37b) imply that 'he didn't give you any money at all.' Thus they are rhetorical questions. Sentence (37b) is a threat, meaning 'no money can be given to him.' The licensing of the minimizer in the (a) and (c) sentences of (36) and (37) is not a problem for Progovac because there is an operator that is located in the Spec of CP 209 licensing the minimizer. As for A-not-A questions, Progovac claims it is the negation in the A-not-A form itself that licenses an object NPI. She argues that an object NPI can be licensed by an A-not-A form because an A-not-A form has negation embedded within it. In contrast, a subject NPI cannot be licensed by negation because it is too low in the tree structure. This analysis, however, seems to miss an observation that can be made about licensing a minimizer. That is, a minimizer is licensed only if there is a strong negative interpretation. Note that the strong negative interpretation cannot come from the Spec of CP. If it were the case, we could not explain why the minimizer cannot be licensed in subject position: (38) *You ban-ge ren gei-mei-gei-guo ni qian?! have half-CL person give-not-give-ASP you money 'Is there anybody who has given you money at all?!' On the other hand, if we assume that what licenses a minimizer is a negative operator, then we can distinguish the licensers for a minimizer from those for a renhe NP. While the former requires a negative operator, the latter does not impose such a requirement. 6.4.3 Our Feature System vs. Aoun and Li's Feature System We have proposed above that an operator can be negative and be marked with [+NEG] feature. Also, as we have discussed in Chapter 4, an operator can have a [ +Q] feature. This [ +Q] feature can raise to the Spec of CP to check the strong [ +Q] feature of co. This [+Q] feature indicates the existence of an interrogative sentence and thus is not compatible with a negative operator. 210 In addition to the above values and features, we also propose that the morphologically complex A-not-A forms are marked with the [+WH] feature and this feature raises to check its feature with the [+WH] feature of Q. We will discuss this feature more below. For the time being, let us compare our system with Aoun and Li's (1993), which uses two features to distinguish four types of sentences: (40) a. [+Qu, +wh] --> [+wh] question b. [+Qu, -wh] -->yes/no question c. [-Qu, +wh] --> exclamatory sentence d. [-Qu, -wh] -->statement Our system is different from Aoun and Li's because in our system we attempt to capture the affinity between negation and question. One consequence of our proposal is that there is no yes/no question that is marked at the level of QP. A yes/no question has to be marked at a higher level, e.g. TP or CP. This then converges with the result that we obtained in Chapter 5 for the kam question in Southern Min. We claim that the predicate-initial question marker kam, which marks a yes/no question, occurs in T. Finally, let us compare an A-not-A form with weishenme 'why.' Consider the following examples: ( 41) *Ta na(r) xihuan-bu-xihuan zhe-ben shu? he where like-not-like this-CL book 'How is it possible that he likes this book?' (42) a. *Ta na(r) weishenme zhidao?! he where why know 'Why did he know?!' b. *Ta weishenme na(r) zhidao?! he why where know 'Why is it possible that he knows it?' 211 We have seen in the above section that a wh-word in a na(r)-rhetorical question cannot have an interrogative interpretation. Now the question is why the two question forms cannot have the non-interrogative interpretation. Our system can rule out (41) readily if we assume that the [+WH] feature of the A-not-A form will necessarily trigger the [ +Q] feature of the operator in the Spec of QP thus making impossible a non-interrogative interpretation. It is also clear that weishenme in ( 42b) is ruled out because it is not c-commanded by na(r). Now the problem is that weishenme in (42a) is not licensed. In fact, as shown in (43), weishenme, unlike zenme 'how,' cannot be licensed by negation either. Both of the two wh-words are treated as adverbs traditionally, so the licensing distinction cannot somehow derive from the syntactic categories of these wh-words. (43) a. *Ta mei(you) weishenme lai. he not(have) why come 'He didn't come for any reason.' b. *Tabu weishenme xihuan ta. he not why like he 'He does not like him for any reason.' (44) Tabu zenme xihuan ta. he not how like she 'He does not like her very much.' 212 One solution to this problem that is available in our QP analysis is that weishenme 'why,' just like the subject wh-word, occurs in a higher position than QP. Thus it is not possible for sentence (42a) to be generated. Similarly, neither example in (43) can be generated because weishenme 'why' must be higher than negation if it is higher than QP. This analysis is supported by the fact that when a licenser is available, licensing becomes possible. Consider the examples in ( 45) and ( 46). (45) a. Na(r) you shenme ren weishenme lai zhao ta?! where have what person why come look he 'Is there any person who came to look for him for any reason?!' b. Ta you weishenme bu hui jia rna? he again why not return home PRT 'Did he not want to go home for any reason again?' c. Y aoshi ta you weishenme bu hui jia dehua, ni jiu lai gaosu wo. if he again why not return that: case you then come tell me 'If he does not want to go home for any reason again, come and tell me.' ( 46) a. Shei qu, wo jiu da shei. who go I then beat who 'For every person x, if x goes, I will beat x.' 213 b. Zuotian Akiu weishenme mei(you) hui jia, wo jiu weishenme mei yesterday Akiu why not.have return home I then why not.have hui jia. 69 return home 'For every reason x, if for x Akiu didn't go home yesterday, then for x I didn't go home yesterday.' Note that in (45) weishenme can be interpreted non-interrogatively, meaning 'for any reason.' We assume that na(r) in this case is the negative operator in the Spec of CP, which c-commands weishenme 'why.' Sentence (46a) belongs to one example of the so-called wh-donkey sentences in Chinese (Cheng and Huang 1996), in which the two identical in-situ wh-words in separate clauses are analyzed as bound by a necessity operatorJO The necessity operator expresses conditional necessity and contributes universal force. It is available when no adverb of quantification is present. Cheng and Huang, however, exclude such a non-interrogative interpretation of weishenme in ( 46b ). 69 This example is taken from W.-T. Tsai (1999), where he claims this sentence is marginal. However, as W.-T. Tsai notes in his paper, some people find it completely acceptable. 70 This is referred to as a bare conditional. The other two types are the dou-conditional and ruguo conditional as exemplified below respectively: (i) a. Ni jiao shei jinlai, wo dou jian m. you call who enter I all see he 'Whomever you ask to come I will see.' b. Ruguo ni kandao shei, qing jiao !.alai jian wo. if you see who please tell he come see I 'If you see someone, please ask him to come to see me.' For the different properties of these conditionals and their analyses, see Cheng and Huang. 214 Cheng and Huang's position is similar to those of W.-T. Tsai (1994a) and Reinhart ( 1998). For these researchers, unselective binding is claimed to be not possible for wh-adverbials. For W.-T. Tsai, wh-adverbials are operators, whereas for Reinhart wh-adverbials cannot be interpreted via choice functions, which the interpretation of a wh-in-situ employs, and therefore, cannot be interpreted in situ. In fact, W.-T. Tsai (1999) also argues that ( 46b) is marginal, and it is only acceptable if it is analyzed on par with wei( -le) shenme 'for what.' According to him, we(-le) shenme 'for what,' zenme 'how' and zenme-yang 'how-manner,' unlike weishenme 'why,' can be construed as a wh-donkey sentence: (47) Akiu hui wei( -le) shenme zi-sha, wo jiu hui wei( -le) shenme zi-sha. Akiu will for( -ASP) what self-kill I then will for( ASP what self-kill 'For every purpose x, if Akiu will kill himself for x, then I will kill myself for x.' ( 48) a. Akiu zenme-yang qu, wo jiu zenme-yang qu. Akiu how-manner go I then how-manner go 'For every means/way x, if Akiu will go by x, then I will go by x.' b. Akiu hui zenme qu, wo jiu hui zenme qu. Akiu will how go I then will know go 'For every means/way x, if Akiu will go by x, then I will go by x.' (49) Akiu weishenme hui zi-sha, wo jiu weishenme hui zi-sha. Akiu why will self-kill I then why will self-kill 'For every purpose x, if Akiu will kill himself for x, then I will kill myself for x.' 215 Adopting Cheng and Huang's unselective binding analysis for the above cases, W.-T. Tsai argues that in (47) and (48a) a variable can be introduced by the head noun shenme 'what' and-~ 'manner' respectively. Zenme is analyzed on par with zenme-yang 'how-manner.' It is argued to be headed by an empty noun, just as zenme-yang is headed by -Y.ill).g. 'manner.' It is this head and its overt counterpart that make the unselective bounding possible. However, we find ( 49) to be grammatical. Furthermore, duo 'how' can also be present in a wh-donkey sentence. It is difficult to argue that duo is also headed by an empty head noun just like zenme 'how.' (50) Ta shuo you duo gao, jiu you duo gao. he say have how tall then have how tall 'He is as tall as what he said.' Therefore, the adverb weishenme 'why' should be able to be unselectively bound by a necessity operator. Interestingly, an A-not-A form, as opposed to weishenme, can never be interpreted non-interrogatively: (51) a. *Yaoshi ta lai-bu-lai, wo jiu lai-bu-lai. if he come-not-come I then come-not-come 'If he comes, I will come; if he does not come, I won't come either.' b. *Ta lai-bu-lai, wo jiu lai-bu-lai. he come-not-come I then come-not-come 'For either he comes or not, I came or not.' 216 Once again, we would like to contribute to this the fact that an A-not-A form is marked with the [+WH] feature. Raising of this feature to Q for feature checking will trigger the [+Q] feature of the operator in the Spec of QP. This will thus only give rise to an interrogative interpretation. 6.4.4 The Problem with Ne Finally, in this section let us deal with an apparent problem with our analysis of the na(r)-rhetorical question. We have seen in Chapter 4 that the sentence-final particle ne can appear in wh-questions, A-not-A questions and negative particle questions: (52) Ni chi-le shenme (ncl? you eat-ASP what PRT 'What did you eat?' (53) a. Ta qu-bu-qu (ne)? he go-not-go PRT 'Does he go or not?' b. Ta qu le meiyou (ncl? he go ASP not.have PRT 'Has he gone?' This particle is treated as a question marker in works such as Aoun and Li (1993), and Cheng and Rooryck (2000). In Aoun and Li (1993), ne that surfaces in the head Comp position is generated by the mechanism of Spec-head agreement with the Qu-operator that occurs in the Spec of CP. On the other hand, Cheng and 217 Rooryck (2000), who try to explain why Chinese is a wh-in-situ language, suggest that ne checks the strong Q-feature in the matrix co, and as a consequence, the wh feature of a wh-word will is not attracted to co. Analyses that take ne as a question marker are problematic for us because na(r) rhetorical questions can occur with ne as shown in (54). (54) Wo na(r) zhidao (ne)?! I where know PRT 'How do I know?!' We have argued that na(r) is an overt realization of the operator in the Spec of QP. This is a negative operator, and if it is negative, it does not mark a question. Then one question that arises is how it is possible for na(r) to occur with ne. To answer this, we have to know whether ne is truly a question marker. Before we try to answer this question, let us point out that ne is always optional. This is problematic for Cheng and Rooryck because they cannot explain why Chinese does not allow numerations without wh-particles, and permits overt wh-movement. Now let us consider the distribution of ne. In addition to occurring in interrogative sentences, ne can be found in non-interrogative sentences. S. Lii (1983) has classified three uses of ne in non-interrogative sentences. The first use of ne as exemplified in (55), according to S. Lii , refers to a piece of fact, and carries a tone of exaggeration. (55) a. Zhe tang li de yu ke dane. this pond inside DE fish indeed big PRT 'The fish in the pond are big.' b. Wo mei(you) shenme, nimen cai xinku ne. I not(have) what you only industrious PRT 'I didn't do anything. You are the ones who are industrious.' The second use of ne expresses a continuous state: (56) a. Waibian xia-zhe yu ne. outside fall-ASP rain PRT "It is raining outside.' b. Tamen dou zai gan huo ne. they all in do job PRT 'They are all working.' S. Lti claims that the third use of ne indicates a pause inside of a sentence. (57) a. Shang shi zhi-hao le, shenti ne, hai you dian xuruo. wound be treat-good ASP body PRT still have a:little weak 218 'The wound is healed. As far the body is concerned, it is still a little weak.' b. Ni yaoshi fei zou bu ke ne, wo ye bu liu ni. you if not go not possible PRT I also not detain you 'If you must go, I will not detain you.' The most recent paper on this issue is that of Shi and Chang (1995). They enumerate the three analyses of ne in interrogative sentences common in the literature: 219 (58) a. Both ne and wh-words are interrogative. b. Wh-words in Chinese are not interrogative. They are negative elements, and only when they occur with ne can they be interrogative. c. Ne is not interrogative no matter whether it occurs in an interrogative sentence or in a non-interrogative one. It represents 'reminding' or 'probing.' They refute the first and second analyses, and accept the third analysis, which claims there is only one ne. The meaning of ne, according to them, is the confirmation of a fact. Now let us return to na(r) sentences. When na(r) occurs with ne, it does not change the rhetorical nature of the question. Thus, we will follow Shi and Chang ( 1995) in treating ne as confirmation of a fact. (59) a. Wo na(r) zhidao? I where know 'How do I know?' b. Wo na(r) zhidao ne? I where know PRT 'How do I know?' 6.5 Conclusions In this chapter, we argue that na(r) in a rhetorical question is an overt realization of the negative operator in the Spec of a QP. This negative operator captures the 220 relation between negation and question in a na(r) rhetorical question. It is also shown to be relevant for the licensing of a special type of NPis, i.e. minimizers. CHAPTER 7 CONCLUDING REMARKS 7.1 The Results of Our Study 221 This dissertation deals with the issue of form and meaning as manifested in negation and question in Chinese. We study question forms that consist of a positive part and a negative part, and the question form that expresses negation obligatorily. The study of the former shows that the locus of negation and question is the QP between IP and PredP. Our analysis provides a unified analysis for the different patterns of questions formed by a positive part and a negative part. They all contain a QP, which is marked with the [+WH] feature, and they have an operator in the Spec of QP. This operator is marked with the [+Q] feature and raises to the appropriate Spec of C 0 for its scope. We assume this movement is driven by feature checking with the strong [+Q] feature of the appropriate co. The strong [+Q] feature can also be checked by the [ +Q] feature of a different element. We show kam in Southern Min is such an element. It is marked with the [ +Q] feature, and it is located in T. Finally, we assume that the strong [ +Q] feature can also be checked by merging a yes-no question marker such as rna in Mandarin. Based on our analysis of Mandarin, Southern Min, and other dialects, A-not-A questions and negative particle questions fall into three subcategories. The first subcategory contains a morphologically complex word, which is marked with the [+WH] feature. The [+WH] feature raises to Q for feature checking with Q. This conforms to the spirit of Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995), in which words are fully inflected before they enter syntactic computation. The second subcategory has 222 a QP taking a coordinate structure with the positive conjunct and the negative conjunct (with anaphoric ellipsis or VP ellipsis), and the third subcategory contains a negative particle that is located in Q. The existence of a QP is further supported by our study of the question form that necessarily implies a negative proposition, i.e. na(r) 'where.' It is argued that na(r) is an overt realization of the operator of the Spec of QP. This operator has the [+NEG] feature, which is responsible for licensing a special type of negative polarity item, i.e. minimizers such as ban-dian dongxi 'half-bit thing.' This [+NEG] feature captures the relation between negation and question in a na(r) rhetorical question. Other results of our study are as follows. The agreement requirement between negation and verb/aspect is characterized as a distinction between a dynamic and a non-dynamic situation: mei(you) denies a dynamic situation, while bu denies a non dynamic situation. We propose that there is a NegP for mei(you), which marks clausal negation, and sits in a position higher than PredP. Bu is adjoined to either Pred' and V'. 7.2 Theoretical Contributions On a theoretical level, this study has explored functional categories at the INFL level. We have established QP, AspP and NegP, and the hierarchy among them. AspP, which is headed by the sentence-final particle le, is higher than NegP. QP is higher than AspP. The postulation of the above functional categories allows us to characterize the syntax of negation and question in Chinese in a precise way. 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"V-neg-VO" Yu "VO-neg-V" Liang-Zhong Fanfu Wenju zai Hanyu Fangyan li de Fenbu [The Dialectal Distribution of the Interrogative Sentence Patterns: "V-Neg-VO" and VO-neg-V" in Chinese]. Zhongguo Yuwen 5: 321-332. APPENDIX A ASPECT IN CHINESE 234 Aspect, according to Comrie (1976), is concerned with the internal temporal constituency of a situation. Grammatical aspect, which is usually expressed by a grammatical morpheme, refers to notions such as perfective and imperfective. Perfectivity views a situation in its entirety or as a whole, whereas imperfectivity does not. Imperfectivity may include habitual and continuous, and continuous can be further divided into Non-progressive and progressive. A notion that is similar to, but different from, aspect is Aktionsarten. They are similar in the sense that they are marked by differences in verb stems, and both have to do with the internal structures of events or situations. Nevertheless, while aspect grammaticalizes relevant semantic distinctions, Aktionsarten lexicalize them by means of derivational morphology (Comrie, 1976, pp. 6-7). Binnik (1991, p. 170) compares aspect with Aktionsarten as follows: Aspect is a fully grammaticalized, obligatory, systematic category of languages, operating with general oppositions such as that of perfective and non perfective, while Aktionsarten are purely lexical categories, nongrammaticalized, optional and unsystematic, defined in very specific terms such as inceptive and resumptive. A yet different notion from Aspect and Aktionsarten is Aristotelian aspect (usually called the Vendlerian category), an unmarked category, which deals with the structure of situations. This categorization is originated from the distinctions between being (state) and doing (activity) made by Aristotle. Later scholars, such as Ryle (1949), Kenny (1963) and Vendler (1967), further distinguish four types of verbs: states, activities, accomplishments, and achievements. The time schemata for 235 the four categories of English verbs are given in (1), and Vendler's examples are given in (2). (1) Activities: Continuous tenses with no set terminal point. Accomplishments: Continuous tenses with set terminal point. Achievements: Lacking continuous tenses, predicated only for single instants of time. States: Lacking continuous tenses, predicated for a shorter or longer period of time. (2) Activities Accomplishments Achievements States run paint a picture recognize know walk draw a circle find love write run a mile lose have drive a car write a letter die desire It is later shown by Verkuyl (1972) that this is a classification of sentences, not verbs. More recently, the four situation types are distinguished by three features 'static,' 'durative' and 'telic' in Smith (1991) as follows: 71 (3) Accomplishments are dynamic, durative, telic events consisting of a process with successive stages and an outcome ('build a house,' 'walk to school,' 'learn Greek') 71 In addition the four usual Vendler's situation types, Smith (1991) has a situation type called Semelfactive. It refers to dynamic, atelic, and instantaneous events ('tap,' 'knock'). The distinction is not crucial to the choice between the two negative markers, so we do not include this situation type for the sake of simplicity. Achievements are dynamic, telic, instantaneous events ('win the race,' 'reach the top') 236 Activities are dynamic, durative, atelic events ('laugh,' 'stroll in the park') States are static, durative ('know the answer,' 'love Mary') The distinction between accomplishments and achievements, on the one hand, and activities on the other is telic vs. atelic. A telic event contains a natural end point, while an atelic event contains an arbitrary one. Two kinds of events are durative, i.e. accomplishments and activities, because they are not viewed as instantaneous as are achievements. The notion of 'durative,' however, also applies to states. Despite the fact that they do not have an initial point or an end point, they are also not instantaneous as are achievements. Instead of the four situation types in (3), some linguists distinguish three situation types: events, process, and states (e.g. Lyons 1977). Events are non-extended dynamic situations that occur, momentarily, in time; processes are extended dynamic situations that last, or endure, through time; states are like processes in that they too last, or endure, through time, but they differ from processes in that they are homogenous throughout the period of their existence. Some may use 'acts' and 'activities' to refer to agent-controlled events and processes, respectively. For our purpose, what is more crucial is the distinction between state and dynamic. We will follow Comrie (1976) in contrasting 'states' with 'dynamic situations.' A stative/dynamic distinction is characterized by Comrie (1976, p. 49) as follows. A state involves no change, whereas a dynamic situation necessarily involves change. For example, 'John knows where I live' describes a state because all phases of the situation are identical. 'John is running' refers to a dynamic situation because different phases of the situation are different: at one moment John 237 will have one foot on the ground, at another moment neither foot will be on the ground, and so on. A more precise characterization of the stative/dynamic distinction, according to Comrie, is as follows: With a state, unless something happens to change that state, then the state will continue... With a dynamic situation, on the other hand, the situation will only continue if it is continually subject to a new input of energy. According to this definition, the start or end of a state is dynamic, 'since for a state started or stopped something must come about to bring about the change into or out of this state.' Finally, since a punctual situation automatically involves a change of state, it is automatically dynamic. Note there are nonlinguistic things in the world corresponding to the linguistic items classified above: there are, in the world, accomplishments, achievements, activities, and states. Those are called 'eventualities' by Bach (1986). In this appendix, we will discuss how Aktionsarten, Aristotelian aspect and grammatical aspect are manifested in Chinese. 1. Aktionsarten Chinese has Aktionsarten. For example, completion is expressed by a resultative verb compound. A resultative verb compound is composed of a verb and a complement. The verb indicates action, and the complement indicates the result. Consider the contrast between the simple verb hua 'paint' and the resultative verb compound hua-wan 'paint-finish' in the following sentences (J. Tai 1984, p. 290): (4) a. Wo zuotian hua-le yi-zhang hua, keshi mei(you) hua-wan. I yesterday paint-ASP one-CL picture but not(have) paint-finish 'I painted yesterday, but I didn't finish the picture.' b. *Wo zuotian hua-wan-le yi-zhang hua, keshi mei(you) hua-wan. I yesterday paint-ASP one-CL picture but not(have) paint-finish 'I finished painting a picture yesterday, but I didn't finish it.' 238 The latter but not the former contains a contradiction. Tai points out when the English expressions such as 'to paint a picture' and 'to write a letter' are in past or perfect tenses, they necessarily imply attainment of the goal, but this is not the case in Chinese. To unambiguously indicate completion, Chinese resorts to a resultative verb compound. Similarly, sha 'kill' and sha-si 'kill-die' function the same way (J. Tai 1984, p. 291): (5) a. Zhangsan sha-le Lisi liangci, Lisi dou mei(you) si. Zhangsan kill-ASP Lisi twice Lisi all not(have) die 'Zhangsan performed the action of attempting to kill Lisi twice, but Lisi didn't die.' b. *Zhangsan sha-si-le Lisi liangci, Lisi dou mei(you) si. Zhangsan kill-die-ASP Lisi twice Lisi all not(have) die '*Zhangsan killed Lisi twice, but Lisi didn't die.' In addition to completion, there are other verb complements that are related to notion relevant to the internal structure of a situation. Here are some examples. Continuation: (6) Ni kan-xiaqu jiu zhidao le. you read-down then know ASP 'You will know when you continue to read it.' Inception: (7) Ta yijing chang-qilai le. he already sing-up ASP 'He started to sing already.' 2. Aristotelian aspect (Situation Types) 239 Situation types are covert categories in Chinese; they are expressed by independent verbs and their arguments. In this section, we will identify several tests for differentiating situation types. 2.1 Zai ... Nei Phrase vs. Durational Phrase The first test is the use of an 'in' phrase and a 'for' durational phrase. Both an 'in' phrase and a 'for' durational phrase mark duration. But the former indicates completion at an interval, while the latter marks the duration of an action. Thus, an accomplishment verb such as 'to learn' can only occur with the former, whereas an activity verb such as 'to study' can only occur with the latter: (8) a. *He has studied Chinese in five years. b. He has learned Chinese in five years. (9) a. He has studied Chinese for five years. b. *He has learned Chinese for five years. 240 Now consider the test applied to Chinese data. According to Smith (1991, p. 373), in Chinese there is no adverbial that indicates completion at an interval, in the sense of 'in' in English. The closest equivalent is the zai ... nei 'in' phrase, which may express either completion within an interval, or completion at an interval. Thus, both an accomplishment and an achievement can occur with a zai ... nei 'in' phrase as shown in ( 10) and (11). The situation type given at the end of each sentence is based on the verb and the argument(s) underlined in each sentence. (10) a. Ta zai yi-tian nei hua-le na/yi-zhang hua. (accomplishment) he in one-day in paint-ASP that one-CL picture 'He painted that/a picture in one day.' b. Ta zai wu-nian nei faxian-le na/yi-ge difang. (achievement) he in five-year in discover-ASP that one-CL place 'He discovered that/a place in five years.' In contrast, an activity and a state cannot be modified by a zai ... nei phrase. (11) a. ?*Ta zai yi-tian nei hua-le hua. (activity) he in one-day in paint-ASP picture 'He painted in a day.' b. *Ta zai wu-nian nei ai Wang xiaojie. (state) he in five-year in love Wang miss 'He loves Miss Wang within five years.' 241 On the other hand, a durational phrase can distinguish an activity from other situation types: (12) a. *Ta hua-le yi-tian de nalyi-zhang hua. (accomplishment) he paint-ASP one-day's that one-CL picture 'He painted that/a picture for a day.' b. *Ta faxian-le wu-nian de nalyi-ge difang. (achievement) he discover-ASP five-year 's that-CL place 'He discovered the place/a place for five years.' (13) a. Ta hua-le yi-tian de hua. (activity) he paint-ASP one-day's picture 'He painted for a day.' b. *Ta zhidao wu-tian de zhe-jian shi. (state) he know five-day 's this-CL matter 'He has known this for five days.' An achievement cannot occur with a durative phrase because it is instantaneous. However, a durational phrase can occur with an achievement verb if it is followed by the sentence-finalle, as shown in (14). It is possible because it means 'it has been five years since ... .' (14) a. Na-jian fangzi ta-le wu-xiaoshi *(le). (achievement) that-CL house fall-ASP five-hour ASP 'It has been five hours since the house collapsed.' b. Ta faxian na-ge difang wu-nian *(le). (achievement) he discover that-CL place five-year ASP 'It has been five years since he discovered that place.' 2.2 Hua 'cost' 242 The test using the verb hua 'cost' is very similar to the above test. An accomplishment can occur with hua 'cost,' but an activity cannot. (15) a. *It took him five years to study Chinese. b. It took him five years to learn Chinese. Consider the Chinese data. Hua 'cost' can occur with an accomplishment, but not others: (16) a. Hua na-zhang hua hua-le ta wu-nian. (accomplishment) paint that-CL picture cost-ASP he five-year 'It took him five years to paint that picture.' b. *Si hua-le ta yi-ge xiaoshi. (achievement) die cost-ASP he one-CL hour 'It took one hour for him to die.' (17) a. *Paobu hua-le ta wu-ge xiaoshi (activity) run Chinese cost-ASP he five-CL hour 'It took him five hours to run.' b. *Zhidao na-jian shi hua-le ta yi-tian. (state) know that-CL matter cost-ASP he one-day 'It took him one day to know that matter.' 243 2.3 Jihu 'almost' As Dowty (1979, p. 58) points out, when 'almost' occurs with an accomplishment verb, it has two possible readings as illustrated in (18). In one reading, John had the intention of painting a picture but changed his mind, and did nothing at all. In the second reading, John did begin work on the picture, and he almost but not quite finished it. This is because an accomplishment has two parts: the process and the outcome. Either one can be focused. (18) John almost painted a picture. Similarly, when jihu 'almost' occurs in an accomplishment in Chinese, it is also ambiguous. (19) Zhangsan jihu hua-le yi-zhang hua. (accomplishment) Zhangsan almost paint-ASP one-CL picture 'Zhangsan almost painted one picture.' However, when a resultative verb compound is used, only the second meaning is available. That is, in (20) Zhangsan started painting the picture, but did not finish it. (20) Zhangsan jihu hua-wan-le yi-zhang hua. (accomplishment) Zhangsan almost paint-finish-ASP one-CL picture 'Zhangsan almost painted one picture.' A possible explanation for the contrast between Chinese and English is that in a Chinese verb resultative compound, the verb part is presupposed and the complement part is asserted. Thus only the result complement can be focused (J. Tai 244 1984 ). What this means is that the event in the Chinese sentence in (20) has started, but has not yet finished. When jihu 'almost' occurs in an achievement or in an activity, which does not consist of two parts as does an accomplishment, the sentence is thus not ambiguous. (21) a. Tajihu faxian na-ge difang. (achievement) he almost discover that-CL place 'He almost discovered that place.' b. Tajihu zoulu qu. (activity) he almost walk go 'He almost walked there.' Finally, jihu can never occur in a state. , (22) *Ta jihu ai Wang xiaojie. (state) he almost love Wang miss 'He almost loves Wang.' 2.4 Progressive aspect Finally, the progressive aspect distinguishes an accomplishment and an activity from an achievement and a state as shown in (23)-(24). (23) a. Ta (zheng) zai gai san-jian fangzi. (accomplishment) he right in build three-CL house 'He is building three houses.' 245 b. *Ta (zheng) zai faxian na-ge difang. (achievement) he right in discover that-CL place 'He is discovering that place.' (24) a. Ta (zhheng) zai paobu. (activity) he right in run 'He is running.' b. *Ta (zheng) zai xihuan Wang xiaojie. (state) he right in like Wang miss 'He is liking Miss Wang.' Nevertheless, if an accomplishment is expressed by a resultative complement, then it cannot occur in a progressive aspect (J. Tai 1984): (25) *Ta (zheng) zai kan-wan na-ben shu. (accomplishment) he right in read-finish that-CL book 'He is finishing reading the book.' In contrast, an accomplishment in English can occur in the progressive aspect as shown in (26). (26) a. He is building a house. b. He is painting a picture. This also indicates that Chinese focuses on the result in a resultative verb compound, not the action part. Thus an accomplishment does not occur with the progressive aspect. 246 2.5 Summary In summary, we have the results in (27). (27) Accomplishment Achievement Activity State a. zai ... nei 'in' phrase ..J ..J ?* * durational phrase * * ..J * b. hua 'cost' ..J * * * c. jihu 'almost' ..J ..J ..J * d. progressive aspect ..J * ..J * The significant of test c is that only an accomplishment is ambiguous. 3. Aspect (Grammatical Aspect) For marking aspect, Chinese has two perfective markers ( -le and -guo), two imperfective markers (zai and -zhe), and a sentence-final particle le. There is a large body of literature on those aspectual markers. However, what we do here is merely to serve as a background for our discussion of the issues in the main text. 3.1 The Perfective Marker -Le The perfective marker -le is used to mark a situation as a whole. It, however, conveys an arbitrary final point as shown in (4a), repeated here. (28) Wo zuotian hua-le yi-zhang hua, keshi mei(you) hua-wan. I yesterday paint-ASP one-CL picture but not(have) paint-finish 'I painted yesterday, but I didn't finish the picture.' 247 In other words, what the perfective marker -le marks is termination rather than completion. Compare the two sentences in (29). The former has a bare NP, while the latter has an NP that denotes quantity. While the latter is complete as a sentence by itself, the former is not a complete sentence without the presence of the sentence-final particle le. (29) a. Ta chi-le fan *(le). he eat-ASP meal ASP 'He has eaten.' b. Ta chi-le san-wan fan. he eat-ASP three-CL rice ASP 'He ate three bowls of rice.' According to Li & Thompson (1981), -le can only occur in a bounded event. In (29b) the event is bounded because the object NP denotes quantity. In contrast, (29a) is not bounded because of the bare NP. It can be bounded by being the first event in a sequence: (30) Wo chi-le fanjiu zou. I eat-ASP meal then go 'I will go after I eat.' Similarly, (28a) is possible because the existence of the sentence-final particle le should make the whole event a bounded one. 248 3.2 The Perfective Marker -Guo The perfective marker -guo presents a situation as a whole just like the perfective marker -le. However, unlike -le, -guo indicates that the final state of that situation no longer obtains. Compare the following examples from Y.-R. Chao (1968). (31) a. Wo shuai-duan-le tui. I fall-break-ASP leg 'I broke my leg (it's still in a cast).' b. Wo shuai-duan-guo tui. I fall-break-ASP leg 'I have broken my leg (it has healed since).' The latter but not the former indicates a discontinuity with the present. According to Smith (1991, pp. 349-352), sentences with -guo have the essential properties of a perfect construction. They present a situation which occurs prior to the reference time, and ascribes to an experiencer the property of having participated in the situation. 3.3 The Imperfective Marker Zai Zai indicates the internal interval of a durative situation. It 1s a typical progressive marker. For example, (32) a. Ta zai paobu. he in run 'He is running.' b. Ta zai gai san-jian fangzi. he in build three-CL house 'He is building three houses.' 3.4 The Imperfective Marker -Zhe 249 The imperfective marker -zhe indicates a continuous and stable situation without referring to end points. Its basic meaning, according to Smith (1991), is a resultative state. It focuses typically on states of position and location: (33) a. Qiang shang gua-zhe yi-zhang hua. wall top hang-ASP one-CL painting 'There is a painting hanging on the wall.' b. Ta zai chuang shang tang-zhe. he in bed top lie-ASP 'He is lying on the bed.' The imperfective marker -zhe occurs with some stative predicates but not others: (34) a. Ta yizhi xian-zhe. he all:the:time free-ASP 'He has nothing to do the whole time.' b. Women bici shen ai-zhe, bici yilai-zhe. (Smith ibid., p. 359) we each:other deep love-ASP each:other rely-ASP 'We deeply loved each other, and relied on each other.' (35) a. *Ta congming-zhe. he intelligent-ASP 'He is intelligent.' b. *Ta yonggan-zhe. he brave-ASP 'He is brave.' 250 M. Yeh (1993) attributes the contrast to the distinction between individual-level predicates (ILP) and stage-level predicates (SLP)--the latter but not the former can occur with -zhe. According to Carlson (1977), ILPs roughly correspond to more or less permanent states such as 'unsuitable for eating,' 'intelligent,' and 'having six legs,' and SLPs correspond to temporary states such as 'available' and 'lying on the floor,' and transitory activities such as 'destroying my viola da gamba' and 'falling down the stairs.' The imperfective -zhe has an extended use as a progressive marker--it can focus on internal stages. In this usage, the two imperfective markers can co-occur: (36) Ta zai renzhen de kan-zhe shu, ni bie qu chao ta. he in diligent DE read-ASP book you don't go distract he 'He is studying diligently. Don't distract him.' 3.5 Sentence-Final Particle Le The function of the sentence-final particle le is characterized as indicating 'inchoativity' (Y.-R. Chao 1968), 'the occurrence of a new situation' (D. Zhu 1984), 251 'changes in a situation' (S. Lti 1991), and 'currently relevant state' (Li & Thompson 1981). Overall, the function of the sentence-finalle is to indicate that a new situation is relevant to the current situation. For example, (37) Wo chi-le san-wan fan le. I eat-ASP three-CL rice ASP 'I have eaten three bowls of rice.' By uttering (37), the speaker of (37) indicates a new situation in which s/he has eaten three bowls of rice, and the situation is relevant to the current situation, which may mean he/she is very full and can no longer eat. If the situation has not previously occurred either in reality or in the mind of the speaker, then the presence of the sentence-finalle indicates the beginning of a new situation. For example, (38) a. Xia yule. fall rain ASP 'It started to rain.' b. Tabu zhu sushe le. he not live dorm ASP 'He no longer lives in the dorm.' Sentence (38a) may be used to report a new situation that the speaker just discovered. Similarly, (38b) indicates the beginning of a new situation: he lived in the dorm, but he does not now. Note that the sentence-finalle can indicate the beginning of a situation regardless of the status of a predicate. 252 The sentence-finalle can also be used to indicate a new situation that is about to take place, i.e. imminent future: (39) Huoche yao kai le. train want leave ASP 'The training is leaving.' Overall, according to Li, Thompson & Thompson (1982), the sentence-final particle le performs many of the functions of the Perfect aspect. The essence of the Perfect is its function of relating events/states to a reference time, either to the time of the narrative or to the time of the speech act. G. Wu (2000) points out that among the four categories of English Perfect depicted by Comrie (1976, p. 56): 1) the Perfect of result, 2) the experiential Perfect, 3) the Perfect of persistent situation and 4) the Perfect of recent past, Chinese le Perfect overlaps with the English Perfect of result, of persistent situation and of recent past, but not with the experiential Perfect. G. Wu (2000) suggests that there is a contrast between English and Chinese in Perfect: while English Perfect looks into the past from the present, the sentence-finalle extends the past into the present. The three categories of English Perfect, i.e. the Perfect of result, the Perfect of persistent situation, and the Perfect of recent past, all involve a state extending up to the speech time or a reference time, and are thus compatible with le. The experiential Perfect, however, cannot be expressed by le because what is related is some experience from previous situations, not the state resulting directly from previous situations. This, according to G. Wu, is possibly why Chinese developed a separate experiential Perfect marker guo. The hypothesis that English Perfect looks into the past from the present while the sentence-finalle extends into the present also explains why Chinese le can refer to a 253 situation that is about to happen as in (39) above, but English Perfect cannot. Furthermore, it also explains why Chinese le is compatible with expressions of past time, but English Perfect is not. ( 40) a. Ta zuotian hui xuexiao le. he yesterday return school ASP 'He returned to the school yesterday already.' b. *I have got up at five o'clock this morning. (Comrie 1976, p. 54) Chinese le begins a past situation, and expresses the resulting state of this situation that lasts into the present. This hypothesis may be extended to the negative counterpart of the sentence-final le. If le extends past into present (or the reference time), its negative counterpart may be the mirror image of this. That is, it should look into the past from the present (or the reference time). Consider the 'before' clauses in (41). While one of them is positive, and the other is negative, the result of the interpretation is the same. ( 41) a. Zai ta hai mei(you) zhidao zhenxiang zhiqian, ni zuihao xian in he not(have) know truth before you had:better first ba dongxi huan ta. BA thing return he 'Before he knows the truth, you had better return the thing to him.' b. Zai ta zhidao zhenxiang zhiqian, ni zuihao xian ba dongxi huan ta. in he know truth before you had: better first BAthing return he 'Before he knows the truth, you had better return the thing to him.' 254 This is rather puzzling. But if we assume that hai mei(you) looks into the past from the present (or the reference time), then what is in the front is the time before the situation takes place. As a result of this, the negative and the positive 'before' phrase would have the same meaning. Finally, there is an extended use of the sentence-final le. Consider the following sentences. The first one is taken from Li & Thompson (1981), and the second one is from Jinri Taiwan, which is a Chinese textbook. (42) a. (a 3-year-old child who has just noticed the parrot in the zoo) Zhe shi yingwu le! this be parrot ASP 'This must be a parrot!' b. Luan jiu shi yeshi zui dade tese le. mess then is night:market most big characteristics PART 'Mess must be the most distinctive feature of a night market.' The function of le here is to mark inference (cf. Y.-H. Li 1992, p. 133). For example, in the essay in which ( 42b) is used, the author was talking about the characteristics of night markets in Taiwan, and concludes that mess must be the most distinctive feature of a night market as such a feature is evident. 4. Interaction between Grammatical Aspect and Situation Types In this section, we will discuss the interaction of grammatical aspect and situation type. Grammatical aspect can change the situation type denoted by the verb and the argument(s). For example, the imperfective marker zai usually does not occur with 255 an achievement. Given appropriate contexts, (43) is possible, but it no longer denotes an achievement. It denotes a multiple-event activity. (43) Hen duo fangzi yi-jian yi-jian de zai ta. (achievement--> activity) very many house one-CL one-CL DE in collapse 'A lot of houses are collapsing one after another.' Now consider the perfective marker -le. It can occur with all of the three dynamic situation types. (44) a. Wo zuotian xie-le yi-feng xin. (accomplishment) I yesterday write-ASP one-CL letter 'I wrote a letter yesterday.' b. Zhangsan zai zhongwu dao-le shanding. (achievement) Zhangsan at noon arrive-ASP hilltop 'Zhangsan reached the hilltop at noon.' c. Tamen zuotian zai gongyuan chao-le yi-yia. (activity) they yesterday in park quarrel-ASP one-CL 'They quarreled in the park yesterday.' As for a state situation type, in some cases the presence of the verbal -le seems completely unacceptable (e.g. (45)), but in others le seems to be very much acceptable (e.g. (46)): (45) a. *Zhangsan ai-le Lisi. (state) Zhangsan love-ASP Lisi 'Zhangsan loved Lisi.' b. *Zhangsan zhu-le Meiguo. (state) Zhangsan live-ASP America 'Zhangsan lived in the U.S.' (46) a. Chenshan xiao-le san cun. (state--> dynamic; state) shirt small-ASP three inch 'The shirt is smaller by three inches.' b. Wo zai nali zhu-le liang-ge yue. (state--> dynamic) I in there live-ASP two-CL month 'I lived there for two months.' 256 Consider ( 46a) first. Sentence ( 46a) can have two possible readings, depending on different contexts. Li & Thompson (1981, p. 188) give the following contexts: ( 4 7) a. (talking about a laundry mishap) Chenshan xiao-le san cun. shirt small-ASP three inch 'The shirt got smaller (i.e. shrank) by three inches.' b. (trying on clothes) Chenshan xiao-le san cun. shirt small-ASP three inch 'The shirt is (too) small by three inches.' It is clear that the first use involves a change of state. According to Comrie (1976), when the perfective marker -le occurs with a stative predicate, it denotes the 257 beginning of a situation, i.e. a change into a state. Comrie (1976, pp. 19-20) reports the following: In many languages that have a distinction between perfective and imperfective forms the perfective forms of some verbs, in particular of some stative verbs, can in fact be used to indicate the beginning of a situation (ingressive meaning) ... Thus the first use refers to a dynamic situation. On the other hand, if Li & Thompson are correct, the second use refers to a state. This seems to be on the right track since the same construction can occur in a comparative sentence that requires a stative predicate. (48) a. Ta bi ta duo-1~ san kuai. he than she more-ASP three dollar 'He has three dollars more than she.' b. Ta bi ta gao-le liang cun. he than she tall-ASP two inch 'He is taller than she by two inches.' This use of -le has a sense of "excessiveness" (Y.-R. Chao, 1968). This meaning, according to Z. Shi (1990), comes from the comparison of the speaker's expectations with the norm. We will thus treat this use as a special use of -le and assume this use does not change the situation type of the sentence. Now recall the example in (46b). The relevant situation type is no longer a state because it is a situation which has an initial point and an end point as indicated by the durational phrase. Comrie (1976, p. 50) gives two similar examples of this: One means 'I stood there for an hour' in Russian, and the other means 'He reigned for ten 258 years' in Ancient Greek. Both of them involve states that are referred to by the forms with perfective meaning. However, the form describing the state refers not only to the state, but also to its inception and termination. Thus, these sentences should be considered dynamic. Now recall (45). Compare (45) with the sentences in (49). A stative verb such as you 'have' can occur with -le when the sentence-final particle leis present. (49) a. Ta you-le haizi *(le). (state--> dynamic) he have-ASP child ASP 'He has a child now.' b. Ta you-le san-ge haizi *(le). (state--> dynamic) he have-ASP three-CL child ASP 'He has three children now.' Note that both ( 49a) and ( 49b) are ungrammatical without the sentence-finalle, despite the fact that the latter but not the former has a NP that denotes quantity. This is unlike what we have seen in (28), repeated here. (50) a. Ta chi-le fan *(le) he eat-ASP meal ASP 'He has eaten.' b. Ta chi-le san-wan fan. he eat-ASP three-CL rice ASP 'He ate three bowls of rice.' The presence of the sentence-final particle le in ( 49) indicates that the state remains at the reference time, i.e. the speech time. The contrast between (49) and (50) also 259 shows that only when a stative predicate is present can the verbal -le indicate a change of state. This is different from the sentence-final particle le because it indicates a change of state regardless what kind of predicate it occurs with. Note that not all stative predicates can occur with the verbal -le and the sentence finalle: (51) *Ta zhu-le Meiguo le. he live-ASP U.S. ASP 'He has lived in the U.S.' The lexicon may determine which verb or adjective can occur in such a construction. Finally, consider the perfective -guo. It can occur with any situation type. (52) a. Ta yiqian gill-guo yi-jian fangzi. (accomplishment) he before build-ASP one-CL house 'He has built one house before.' b. Zhe-ge fangzi yiqian ta-guo. (achievement) this-CL house before collapse-ASP 'This house has fallen before.' c. Ta yiqian zai he li you-guo Y.Qng. (activity) he before in river inside swim-ASP swim 'He has swum in a river before.' d. Ta yiqian zhu-guo Meiguo. (state--> dynamic) she before live-ASP America 'She has lived in the U.S. before.' 260 However, when it occurs with a stative verb as in (52d), it also indicates a change out of a state, and thus it is dynamic. In summary, considering the interaction between the two perfective markers and a stative predicate, we can say that the relevant situation is dynamic (with the exception of the excessive use of the verbal -le ). 261 APPENDIXB TENSE AS A GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY IN CHINESE In some recent studies of Chinese syntax, Y.-H. Li (1990) and B. Chiu (1993) claim that Chinese sentences bear tense. Y.-H. Li distinguishes finite from non finite (i.e. infinitives) clauses. Following C. L. Tsang (1981), she takes the two modals hui 'will' and yao 'want, surely' to be future tense markers, and claims that they cannot occur in infinitives because infinitives do not have tense. On the other hand, B. Chiu (1993) claims that the verbal suffix -le is a past tense marker, which heads a TP (Tense Projection). In contrast, Cheng & Tang ( 1996) (C & T) argue against the view that Chinese has tense, and claim there is no syntactic projection of Tense. The three arguments that they provide are as follows. First, not all verbs can occur with hui, yao and -le. For example, ( 1) a. *Ta mingtian hui/yao neng lai. he tomorrow will/surely can come 'He will can come tomorrow.' b. *Ta qunian zai-le Meiguo. he last:year be:located-ASP America 'He was in America last year.' Sentence (la) contains the modal neng 'can,' which can occur with neither hui nor yao. This is not surprising because the English counterparts are ungrammatical. Modals do not seem to be able to be marked with future tense. Sentence ( 1 b) shows that the verbal suffix -le is not compatible with a stative verb such as zai 'be located.' 262 This is also expected because not all of the stative predicates can occur with the verbal-leas we have discussed in Appendix A. Another argument is based on the contrast between (2) and (3). (2) a. He was at home yesterday/*right now/*tomorrow. b. John would/should/might/can/must go to school *yesterday/now/ tomorrow. (3) a. Ta zuotianlxianzai/mingtian zai jia. he yesterday/now/tomorrow be:located home 'He were/is/will be home yesterday/now/tomorrow.' b. Ta zuotian/xianzai/mingtian keyi/yinggailkeneng/bixu/neng lai. 72 he yesterday/now/tomorrow can/should/may/need/can come 'He can/should/may/need/can come yesterday/now/tomorrow.' According to C & T, if Chinese does have overt tense markers, the difference between Chinese and English cannot be accounted for in a principled way. We will discuss the contrast between (2a) and (3a) below. The contrast between (2b) and (3b) is potentially problematic. However, if we treat modals as verbs as Lin & Tang ( 1991) do, then they are not predicted to behave like modals in English. 72 One difference between the modals in Chinese and those in English is that some modals in Chinese can precede hui 'will,' while this is not possible in English: (i) Ta mingtian keneng/yinggai hui lai. he tomorrow may/should will come 'It may/should be the case that he will come tomorrow.' (ii) *He may/should will come tomorrow. 263 Finally, C & T claim that 'the fact that epistemic modals themselves carry the meaning of future possibility does not mean that they should be analyzed as tense morphemes.' In what follows, we will show that hui, but not yao, should be analyzed as a tense morpheme, marking (relative) future tense. 1. (Relative) Future Tense There are two modals in Chinese, hui 'will' and yao 'surely,' which refer to future tense: 73 (4) Nar hui hen leng. there will very cold 'It will be cold there.' (5) a. Huoche kuai yao lai le. train soon surely come ASP 'The train will soon be coming.' b. Kan yangzi mingtian yao xia yu. see appearance tomorrow surely fall rain 'Looks like it will rain tomorrow.' 7 3 Jiang 'be going to,' which is often seen in formal writings also has future reference. It behaves like an adverb, rather than a modal verb: (i) a. Ta jiang tiqian li Tai. he be:going:to ahead:of:schedule leave Taiwan 'He is leaving Taiwan ahead of schedule.' b. *Ta jiang-bu-jiang tiqian li Tai. he be:going:to-not-be:going:to ahead:of:schedule leave Taiwan 'Is he going to leave Taiwan ahead of schedule?' 264 C. L. Tsang ( 1981) claims that both hui and yao should be considered relative future tense markers. In this section, we will argue that the former but not the latter can be considered a (relative) future tense marker. Like Chinese, the so-called future tense in English is indicated by modals, i.e. 'will' and 'shall.' It is a controversial issue in the literature on English whether these expressions of future time reference are in fact distinct tense forms or merely forms with more general meanings subsuming future time reference. While some agree that English has a future tense, this view is rejected either explicitly or implicitly by others.7 4 This issue is discussed in Comrie (1985, pp. 47-48; 1989), in which it is suggested that English has a separate grammatical category of future time reference, i.e. future tense. Comrie ( 1985) points out that the so-called future tense is clearly distinct from the modal use because the former makes a clear prediction about some future state of affairs, while the latter only makes reference to alternative worlds. Compare (6a) with (6b). ( 6) a. It will rain tomorrow. b. It may rain tomorrow. Sentences (6a) and (6b) are distinct because the former is 'a very definite statement about a state of affairs to hold at a certain time subsequent to the present moment,' and the latter is 'simply a claim about a possible world in which there is rain tomorrow.' (p.44) The two are different in the way their truth conditions are evaluated. According to Comrie, the truth conditions of the former can be tested at that future time by seeing whether it does in fact rain or not, yet those of the latter 74 For a review of early literature on this subject, please see Wekker (1976). 265 cannot be evaluated in the same manner. Thus future tense is distinct from the modal use. In addition, Comrie gives two pieces of evidence that suggest that English marks future tense. The first piece of evidence has to do with the distinction between scheduling and future time reference. In English, a matrix clause which bears future time reference does not have to be marked by the auxiliary 'will' if it refers to a situation which is scheduled to happen. Thus, (7a) is acceptable because departing can be scheduled, while (7b) is not since raining cannot be scheduled. (7) a. The train departs at five o'clock tomorrow morning. b. It will rain/*rains tomorrow. The ungrammatical example in (7b) would be acceptable if, according to Comrie, one imagines a context in which rain is scheduled, e.g., if God is talking, or advances in meteorology make it possible for human beings to schedule rain. Crucially, the contrast between (7a) and (7b) cannot be explained if one does not make explicit separate references to scheduling and future time reference. The second piece of evidence comes from the use of the auxiliary 'will' in temporal and conditional clauses. In general, the auxiliary 'will' with future time reference is normally excluded from these contexts even when scheduling is not possible. For example, as shown in (8a), the auxiliary 'will' cannot occur in a conditional clause. Sentence (8b) is possible only with the modal meaning of 'will.' (8) a. If it *will rain/rains tomorrow, we will get wet. b. If he will go swimming in dangerous waters, he will drown. 266 Thus, the uses of 'will' with future time reference are GRAMMATICALLY distinct from the modal uses of 'will' in these subordinate clauses. This again suggests that the grammar must refer to future time reference independent of the modal meaning. Now let us consider Chinese data. There are cases where neither hui nor yao is required for the indication of future time reference: (9) Wo qu. I go 'I go/want to go/1 will go.' ( 1 0) a. Huoche wu dian kai. train five o'clock leave 'The train departs at five o'clock.' b. Wozaijia. I in horne 'I am at horne.' One might want to argue that Chinese, like many European languages, simply does not distinguish present and future. In those languages, the so-called present tense, the normal verb form, can be used to indicate future time reference, despite the fact that these languages do also have specific constructions with exclusively future reference (Comrie 1985). For example, in German both (lla) and (llb) are acceptable: ( 11) a. Ich gehe morgen. I go tomorrow 'I will go [literally: I go] tomorrow.' b. Ich werde gehen. I will go 'I will go.' 267 Sentence ( 11 b) is normally only used where there would otherwise be danger of misunderstanding in the direction of present time reference. In these languages, then, it is reasonable that the only tenses distinguished grammatically are past and non-past. However, Chinese is different from these European languages because there are clear cases in which a future tense marker is required: (12) a. Mingtian *(hui) xia yu.7s tomorrow will fall rain 'It will rain tomorrow.' b. Ta mingtian *(hui) zhidao na-jian shi. he tomorrow will know that -CL matter 'He will know that matter tomorrow.' Note that in the above cases the presence of the time adverb mingtian 'tomorrow' is insufficient to indicate future time reference. 75 The sentence without hui might be acceptable if it were uttered by a weatherman. 268 Now the question is why in the earlier examples neither hui nor yao is needed for indicating future time reference. In (9), it is reasonable to believe that the future time reference derives from the volitional interpretation.7 6 Now consider the contrast between the sentences in (10) and the sentences in (12). The former but not the latter can be scheduled. Thus, the former do not need an auxiliary, while the latter are ungrammatical without the presence of hui 'will.' In what follows we will provide evidence to show that hui, but not yao, is a relative future tense marker. 1.1 Hui Hui 'will,' just like 'will' in English, is excluded in conditional clauses: ( 13) a. *(Yaoshi) mingtian hui xia yu dehua, women jiu hui linshi.7 7 if tomorrow will fall rain that:case we then will get: wet 'If it rains tomorrow, we will get wet.' 76 For more discussion of this issue, see Section 2.5 in Chapter 2. 77 The sentence in (i) is good in contrast to the sentence discussed in the text. (i) Yaoshi mingtian hui xia yu dehua, wo jiu gei ni yiqian kuai qian. if tomorrow will fall rain if I then give you one:thousand money 'If it is possible to rain tomorrow, I will give you one thousand dollars.' However, unlike the sentence in the text, example (i) refers to a highly hypothetical situation. While the former is neutral about whether it will rain tomorrow, (i) strongly implies it is not possible for it to rain tomorrow. Thus, the use of hui in (i) should be considered a modal one. b. *(Yaoshi) ta mingtian hui zhidao na-jian shi dehua, ta hui hen if he tomorrow will know that-CL matter that: case he will very shengqi. angry 'If he knows that matter tomorrow, he will be very angry.' 269 The fact that hui is not allowed in these contexts strongly suggests that in Chinese, just as in English, future time reference must be referred to independently of the modal meaning. On the other hand, there is evidence suggesting that the future tense in Chinese is relative. We follow Comrie (1985) in defining tense as the grammaticalization of location in time and in distinguishing two subtypes: absolute and relative tense. The former locates the situation in question at, before, or after the present moment, while the latter locates it at, before, or after a point of reference given by the context. The examples in ( 14) show that hui can locate the situation after a point of reference in the past. Given this possibility, hui should be considered a relative future tense marker rather than an absolute one. ( 14) a. Zhangsan qiantian hen danxin zuotian Lisi hui Zhangsan the:day:before:yesterday very worried yesterday Lisi will zhidao na-ge mimi. know that -CL secret 'Zhangsan was worried the day before yesterday that Lisi would know about that secret yesterday.' 270 b. Wo qiantian zai dianshi li kandao zuotian taifeng hui I the:day:before:yesterday in TV inside see yesterday typhoon will lai de baodao. come DE report 'I saw on TV the day before yesterday the report that the typhoon would come yesterday.' In summary, if 'will' and 'shall' in English can be considered future tense markers, hui in Chinese is qualified to be a relative future tense marker. Now the question is why hui has the absolute tense reading in matrix clauses such as ( 12). We will return to this in Section 3. 1.2 Yao It is commonly held that yao 'be going to' in Chinese also indicates future tense. Yao, however, behaves differently from hui 'will' in several ways. First, yao, but not hui, can occur with the sentence-final particle le indicating imminent future as shown in the examples below: (15) a. Huoche kuai yao lai le. train soon be:going:to come ASP 'The train is coming soon.' b. *Huoche hui lai le. train will come ASP 'The train is coming.' 271 However, as shown in (16), yao in this pattern is not obligatory as long as there are adverbs such kuai 'soon' or .iliJ. 'immediately': (16) a. Huoche kuai lai le. train soon come ASP 'The train is coming soon.' b. Huoche .iliJ.lai le. train immediately come ASP 'The train is coming in no time.' In the cases where the sentence-final particle le does not occur, this use of yao indicating future time reference is highly restricted. Yao must occur in contexts in which there is some indication in the present that the future event in question will happen, a constraint which hui is not subject to. Consider the contrast between hui and yao in ( 17), and that between ( 17) and ( 18). ( 17) a. Mingtian hui/*yao xia yu. tomorrow will/surely fall rain 'It will rain tomorrow.' b. Ta mingtian hui/*yao danxin. he tomorrow will/surely worried 'He will be worried tomorrow.' c. Ta mingtian hui/*yao shengbing. he tomorrow will/surely sick 'He will get sick tomorrow.' ( 18) a. Kan yangzi mingtian yao xia yu. see appearance tomorrow surely fall rain 'Looks like it will rain tomorrow.' b. Ta mingtian you yao danxin. he tomorrow again surely worried 'He will be worried again tomorrow.' c. Ta mingtian kending yao shengbing. he tomorrow definitely surely sick 'He will definitely be sick tomorrow.' 272 The fact that yao co-occurs when expressions such as kan yangzi, you, and kending in ( 17) suggests that a felicitous occurrence of yao may require some present indication of the future event. This difference between yao and hui is very similar to the difference between 'will' and 'be going to' in English as exemplified in (19): sentence (19a) is oriented toward the future, while (19b) focuses on the preparatory state which leads to a future state. ( 19) a. It'll rain this afternoon. b. It's going to rain this afternoon. Comparing the difference between the two sentences, Wekker (1976, p. 124) observes that while (19a) sounds odd as it stands, (19b) sounds perfectly normal. He points out when ( 19a) is used, there would normally be at least some implication of an association with something else in the context of the situation. For this reason, (19a) is felicitous if it is followed by a discourse fragment such as 'so don't go out without a good raincoat.' In contrast, (19b) does not have this same implication. Its 273 implication, according to Wekker, is that some present situation indicates the future event in question will occur. Present indications are 'facts and circumstances existing at the present moment, from which the speaker infers a future happening, or on which he bases his prediction.' Wekker points out that this is the reason why (19b) tends to be preceded by the following sentences: 'Look at those clouds,' or 'I can see the black clouds gathering.' In other words, (19a) is a simple prediction, and its orientation is toward the future, whereas (19b) refers to the preparatory state that characteristically precedes the event described by the predication of the sentence. The difference between yao and hui is further demonstrated by the contrast in (20). (20) a. Zhangsan qinyan kanjian huoche you yao kai. Zhangsan with:own:eye see train again surely leave 'Zhangsan with his own eyes saw the train about to depart again.' b. *Zhangsan qinyan kanjian huoche hui kai. Zhangsan with:own:eye see train will leave 'Zhangsan with his own eyes saw the train will leave.' While (20a) is perfectly grammatical with the interpretation involving direct perception, sentence (20b) is ungrammatical. Sentence (20a) shows again that yao does not mark a future event. If yao denoted future tense, Zhangsan would not be able to see anything. In contrast, sentence (20a) is possible because the preparations leading to a future situation could be seen. Thus far, we have pointed out several differences between hui and yao. These differences do not necessarily disqualify the latter from being a tense marker. However, there is indeed evidence that suggests that only the former, but not the 274 latter, should be treated as a future tense marker. First, yao can occur in conditional clauses as shown in (21). (21) a. Mingtian yao xi a yu dehua, women jiu hui linshi. tomorrow surely fall rain that:case we then will get:wet 'If it rains tomorrow, we will get wet.' b. Ta mingtian yao zhidao na-jian shi dehua, ta hui hen shengqi. he tomorrow surely know that-CL matter that:case he will very angry 'If he knows that matter tomorrow, he will be very angry.' This contrasts with hui in (13), repeated here. (22) a. *(Yaoshi) mingtian hui xia yu dehua, women jiu hui linshi. if tomorrow will fall rain that: case we then will get: wet 'If it rains tomorrow, we will get wet.' b. *(Yaoshi) ta mingtian hui zhidao na-jian shi dehua, ta hui if he tomorrow will know that-CL matter that:case he will hen shengqi. very angry 'If he knows that matter tomorrow, he will be very angry.' Thus, unlike hui, the future time reference uses of yao do not seem to be distinct from its modal uses. Further evidence that suggests yao should not be treated as a tense marker comes from negation and question formation. First, when yao is negated by bu 'not' as shown in (23), it does not have the future reference reading. Instead, it only has the imperative reading: (23) a. Danyuan mingtian bu-yao xia yu. hopefully tomorrow don't fall rain 'I hope it will not rain tomorrow.' *'It will not rain tomorrow.' b. Ni jinnian dongtian bu-yao shengbing. you this:year winter don't get:sick 'Don't get sick this winter.' *'You will not get sick this winter.' Moreover, yao cannot form A-not-A questions directly: (24) a. *Mingtian yao-bu-yao xia yu? tomorrow surely-not-surely fall rain 'Will it rain tomorrow?' b. *Ta jinnian dongtian yao-bu-yao sheng bing? he this:year winter surely-not-surely grow sickness 'Will he be sick this winter?' An A-not-A question with yao can only be formed using the copula shi 'be': (25) a. Mingtian shi-bu-shi yao xia yu? tomorrow be-not-be surely fall rain 'Will it rain tomorrow?' b. Huoche shi-bu-shi yao kai le? train be-not-be surely leave ASP 'Is the train going to leave?' 275 276 In contrast, hui can be negated directly, and it can be used to form an A-not-A question: (26) a. Mingtian bu hui xia yu. he tomorrow not will fall rain 'It will not rain tomorrow.' b. Ta mingtian hui bu hui zhidao na-jian shi? he tomorrow will not will know that -CL matter 'Will he know about that matter tomorrow?' The above evidence suggests yao is not a future tense marker. If it were, there would be no reason why it could not be negated, or form an A-not-A question directly. These facts can be explained, however, if it is analyzed as a modal, since modals tend to act differently from verbs with respect to negation and question formation. To compare, let us consider the modal dei 'must.' As shown in (27), dei cannot be negated by bu, or form an A-not-A question directly. (27) a. Wo (*bu) dei qu. I not must go 'I must go.' b. *Ni dei-bu-dei qu? you must not must go 'Must you go?' Finally, consider (28), which shows that when both hui and yao are present in a sentence, the former must precede the latter. (28) a. Kan yangzi hui yao xia yu. (S. Lti 1991) see appearance will surely fall rain 'It looks like it will rain.' b. Bu guan shiji yiwei man gan hui yao shibai de. (S. Lti 1991) not care reality obstinate hard do will surely fail DE 'You will fail if you disregard reality and persist obstinately.' 277 This fact cannot be accounted for if both hui and yao mark future tense. If hui marks relative future tense as we have argued above, yao cannot be a relative tense marker. In summary, the above study suggests that yao should not be treated as a future tense marker, in contrast to C. L. Tsang's (1981) position in which both hui and yao are considered relative future tense markers. 2. Tense Interpretations and Time Adverbs In this section, we consider the manners in which time adverbs interact with hui. If our claim that hui marks (relative) future tense is correct, the time adverb should be able to denote a point of reference in time, and hui should be able to locate the situation before this point of reference denoted by the time adverb (cf. Comrie 1985, p. 64). However, as shown in the example below, hui cannot locate the situation relative to the reference point denoted by a time adverb in the same clause. (29) a. Ta mingtian hui zhidao na-jian shi. he tomorrow will know that -CL matter 'He will know about that matter tomorrow.' b. Ta zuotian benlai hui you weixian. he yesterday originally will have danger 'Originally he was in danger yesterday.' 278 The time adverb mingtian 'tomorrow' in (29a) cannot be taken to be a point of reference in time, and thus the situation referred to cannot be located after the reference point denoted by the time adverb. Similarly, the relative future reading in (29b) is also missing. The only reading that is possible is the epistemic possibility reading. The results are the same when the time adverb is detached from the rest of the clause. (30) a. Mingtian ta hui zhidao na-jian shi. tomorrow he will know that -CL matter 'He will know about that matter tomorrow.' b. Zuotian ta hui you weixian. yesterday he will have danger 'It is possible that he was in danger yesterday.' A possible analysis explaining why relative tense makers do not take time adverbs in the same clause as their reference point is that there is a general tendency in language for the present moment to be taken as the reference point.7 8 This accounts for the fact that in the following hui behaves like an absolute tense marker. 78 This suggestion is due to B. Comrie. 279 (31) Ta hui zhidao na-jian shi. he will know that -CL matter 'He will know about that matter.' In embedded clauses, as in the sentences in (14), repeated here, the tense of the closest verb can be taken as a point of reference: (32) a. Zhangsan qiantian hen danxin zuotian Lisi hui Zhangsan the:day:before:yesterday very worried yesterday Lisi will zhidao na-ge mimi. know that-CL secret 'Zhangsan was worried the day before yesterday that Lisi would know about this secret yesterday.' b. Wo qiantian zai dianshi li kandao zuotian taifeng hui I the:day:before:yesterday in TV inside see yesterday typhoon will lai de baodao. come DE report 'I saw on TV the day before yesterday the report that the typhoon would come yesterday.' In summary, hui is a relative tense marker. In sentence with hui in the matrix clauses, the time of utterances is the reference time, and the tense of the closest verb serves as the reference time when these relative tense markers occur in embedded sentences. 280 3. Aspect and Tense Interpretations In the case of sentences in which there are no tense markers, it is conceivable that time reference is determined by several distinctions, including time adverbs, verbal aspect (stative vs. eventive), grammatical aspect (progressive vs. perfective), mood, and clause type (finite clause vs. infinitive). Take Japanese as an example. Japanese has a basic past/non-past distinction because it lacks any verb form that specifically refers to future time. According to Comrie (1989), in the absence of other contextual indicators, the most likely interpretation of sentences with non-past tense is determined mainly by grammatical aspect and verbal aspect. Thus the form in (33a) below will usually be assigned present time reference and thus means '(he) is going.' On the other hand, (33b) can either have a habitual interpretation, or it can be assigned future time reference and mean '(he) will go.' This future time reference is assigned because it is not possible for a complete act of going to take place entirely in the present. (33) a. it-te i-ru go-progressive-nonpast '(he) is going' b. ik-u go-nonpast '(he) will go' Stative sentences with no overt adverbial can have both possible time references, as in the following sentence: (34) Taroo-ga koko-ni i-masu. (Ogihara 1996) Taro-NOM here-at be-PRES (progressive) 'Taro is here now' or 'Taro will be here.' 281 Note that sentence (34) is considered by Ogihara ( 1996) to be genuinely ambiguous. This is because it cannot be used to assert that John is here at some non-past time. In other words, the speaker must decide whether a claim is being made about the current time or about some future time. We have argued above that hui is a (relative) future tense marker in Chinese. In the case that hui does not appear (nor other modals), then a sentence must have either past time reference or present time reference. In the following, we will discuss the manner in which aspect and situation type determine the tense interpretations of a sentence in Chinese. 3.1 Sentences with Perfective Markers As shown in (35), sentences with the perfective marker -le or -guo denote past: (35) a. Ta kan-le san-ben shu. he read-ASP three-CL book 'He read three books.' b. Ta qu-guo Beijing. he go-ASP Beijing 'He has been to Beijing.' This is expected because both -le and -guo are perfective, and it is not possible for a complete event to take place entirely in the present. 282 When a resultant state is involved, the most natural interpretation of a sentence with -le is present time reference, though past time reference is still an available interpretation. (36) a. Nar gua-le yi-zhang hua. there hang-ASP one-CL painting 'Here is/was a painting hanging on the wall.' b. Nar ting-man-le che. there park-full-ASP car 'That place is/was full of cars.' Contrasting with (35a), the sentences in (36) refer to the resultant state of a relevant action. The present time reference interpretation, in addition to the past time reference interpretation, is available because the resultant state may still be ongoing at the time of utterance. English uses different tenses for similar situations. For example, seeing a broken window lying on the floor, (37a) can be used if it is the resultant state that is focused. On the other hand, if it is the event that is focused, (37b) is more appropriate. One difference between the two sentences lies in tense. The former sentence is in present tense because the resultant state is ongoing. The second sentence, however, is in past tense because for the sentence to be felicitous the event must have taken place. (37) a. The window is broken. b. The window was broken by John. 283 3.2 Sentences with Imperfective Markers The most natural tense interpretation for sentences with the imperfective marker zai or -zhe is the present tense. However, these sentences can also have past time reference: (38) a. Ta zai renzhen de kan shu. he ASP diligent DE read book 'He is/was studying diligently.' b. Na-kuai heiban shang xie-zhe zi. that-CL blackboard top write-ASP word 'There are/were a lot of words written on the blackboard.' That imperfectives can have present time reference is expected because they do not have the same restriction as perfectives. Thus imperfective sentences can have either present or past time reference. 3.3 Sentences with no Overt Aspectual Markers In Chinese, some of the sentences that are not overtly aspectually marked are stative sentences, including habituals and generics. Generic sentences are considered to be true at all time, and thus the issue of tense does not arise. Habitual sentences, on the other hand, can be interpreted as either in the past or in the present, just like other stative sentences: (39) a. Ta tiantian kai che. he everyday drive car 'He drove/drives everyday.' b. Na-ben shu hen gui. that-CL book very expensive 'That book is/was expensive.' 284 As for non-stative types of sentences, there are two subtypes that do not bear aspectual markers. In one subtype the presence of perfective markers is prohibited or marginal. In the other subtype perfective markers and imperfective markers are optional. As an example of the first subtype, consider ( 40). (40) a. Wo tingshuo(*-le) ta zou le. I hear-ASP he leave ASP 'I heard that he left.' b. Ta hen limao de ba tajieshao(?-le) gei women. he very polite DE BA he introduce-ASP to us 'He introduced him to us very politely.' There are several reasons that ( 40a) should be considered to bear past time reference. First, it is unlikely that the sentence in ( 40a) is something that will be scheduled. This may have something to do with the manner adverb hen limao de 'politely.' Second, it is unlikely that ( 40a) refers to a habitual situation because there are no adverbs such as changchang 'often.' Finally, the imperfective reading is also unlikely. Given these, past time reference is the only possibility remaining. Similarly, the matrix verb in ( 40b) can only bear past time reference. 285 For the second subtype, consider the examples in (41). The examples in (41) show that aspectual markers can be optional. (41) a. Ni mai (-le) shenme shu?79 he buy-ASP what book 'What book did you buy?' b. Ni nar (zai) xia(-zhe) yu rna? you place in fall-ASP rain PART "Is it raining at the place where you are?' c. Ni shou shang na( -zhe) shenme? you hand top take-ASP what 'What are you holding in your hand?' The first sentence in (41a) can be used when the speaker presupposes that the hearer has bought book(s), and when the speaker wants to know what book(s) the hearer bought. Sentence ( 41 b) can be used felicitously when the speaker is interested in knowing the current weather condition in the hearer's location. The former sentence is perfective, whereas the latter sentence is imperfective. Thus the former bears past time reference, and the most natural interpretation for the imperfective sentence is the present time reference. Finally, (41c) can be used when the speaker presupposes that the hearer is holding something and thus the sentence bears present time reference. 79 Without -k.. this sentence can refer to a future situation since the volitional interpretation is available.

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Creator Hsieh, Miao-Ling (author)

Core Title Form and meaning: negation and question in Chinese

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Linguistics

Defense Date 05/01/2001

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