Chapter 9
Quantifictional binding without surface c-command in Mandarin
Chinese
This article discusses quantificational binding
without surface c-command in Mandarin Chinese. Jin (1998) pointed out that Chinese
quantificational NPs (Q-NPs) headed by mei ‘every’
are capable of binding out of containers such as sentential
subjects, relative clauses or adverbial clauses and there is a
subject/object asymmetry with respect to such binding. This
asymmetry, if correct, is reminiscent of the non-coreference rule on
pronominal anaphora which also displays an effect of subject/object
asymmetry (cf. Huang 1982
and Teng 1985) and would
call for a unifying treatment of the two phenomena. However,
contrary to Jin’s observation, this article shows that universal
Q-NPs in object position may actually bind out of their containers
just like universal Q-NP subjects, thus making it infeasible to
define a common locality domain to which both quantificational
binding and referential pronominal anaphora are sensitive. Instead,
this article argues that quantificational binding is an LF
phenomenon constrained by LF mechanisms. A minimum requirement for
quantificational binding is that the pronoun bound by a given
quantifier must be within the scope of that quantifier at LF. Though
this minimum requirement in principle enables Q-NPs to have high
scope, they are subject to other conditions such as the general
Condition on Scope Interpretation, which prevents a Q-NP from taking
scope over another one that c-commands it at surface structure. The
interaction of the two conditions explains why in some cases Q-NPs
may take high scope and bind a pronoun that they do not c-command
but not in some other cases. Backward quantificational binding, on
the other hand, is a result of the interaction of several
independently motivated mechanisms, including the possibility of
reconstruction at LF, the Chinese-specific non-coreference rule and
Chomsky’s Leftness Condition.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The case of Chinese: Previous literature
- 3.A preliminary first attempt to account for QBWC in
Chinese
- 4.Problems of the preliminary attempt
- 5.Scope requirement on quantificational binding
- 6.Scope ambiguity and quantificational binding
- 7.Weak crossover and the c-command requirement
- 8.
Dou and the scope of universal NPs
- 9.Conclusions, implications and residues problems
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
References
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Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Lyu, Jun, Zuzanna Fuchs & Elsi Kaiser
2024.
Anticipatory processing of cataphora is constrained by binding principles in L2 English.
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