Article published In:
Linguistic Variation: Online-First Articles

Multifunctionality and contextual realization

A case study in Yixing Chinese

| Peking University
ORCID logo | University of Hong Kong
This paper aims to make a contribution to the study of the nature of syntactic categories by analysing a single element in a single language, namely the marker -lao in Yixing Chinese. Although this marker has previously been analysed as an adjectivaliser (Hu and Perry 2018), we show that it has a much broader range of uses. We suggest that the bulk of cases can be captured in a unified way by supposing that the marker in question displays a type of possessive semantics (which we label possession-as-attribute), which is defined by delineating a kind (in the sense of e.g. Carlson 1977; Chierchia 1998), with similar semantics being expressed by adjectival elements in languages such as English. It is observed, however, that this meaning can emerge in the absence of the marker -lao, and that -lao can, in a restricted set of cases, surface in the absence of this meaning, and we suggest that these facts are attributable to the diachronic development of the marker and can be captured synchronically by making use of late-insertion mechanisms for phonological and semantic features. We propose that the case of -lao provides a suggestive argument for a substance-free approach to syntactic features, whereby syntactic features are not inherently specified for interface interpretations. Other cross-linguistic implications of our analysis are noted, in particular for the representation of adjectives.
Keywords: Yixing Chinese, Minimalist Syntax, Distributed Morphology, contextual allomorphy, contextual allosemy, adjectives
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Outline
    • 1.2Yixing Chinese
  • 2.Linking elements in yixing
  • 3. -lao is not (just) an a head
    • 3.1Non-adjectival material with -lao
      • 3.1.1Nouns with -lao
      • 3.1.2Verbal and clausal material with -lao
    • 3.2Adjectival material without -lao
  • 4.The semantics of -lao and contextual allosemy
    • 4.1 -lao and possessive semantics
  • 5.Contextual allomorphy
    • 5.1Aside: Contrasting adjectival constructions in yixing and mandarin
  • 6. -lao as nominalizer and contextual allosemy
    • 6.1 -lao, negation and interrogatives
  • 7.Implications
    • 7.1Substance-free syntactic features
    • 7.2Additional implications
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 March 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.22013.per
References (78)
References
Baker, Mark & William Croft. 2017. Lexical categories: legacy, lacuna, and opportunities for functionalists and formalists. Annual Review of Linguistics 31. 179–197. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baker, Mark C. 2003. Lexical categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beard, Robert. 1976. Once more on the analysis of ed-adjectives. Journal of Linguistics 12(1). 155–157. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beck, David. 2002. The typology of parts of speech systems: the markedness of adjectives. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carlson, Gregory N. 1977. Reference to kinds in English. University of Massachusetts, Amherst dissertation.
Chafe, Wallace. 2012. Are adjectives universal? the case of Northern Iroquoian. Linguistic Typology 16(1). 1–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chan, Marjorie & Hongmo Ren. 1989. Wuxi tone sandhi: from last to first syllable dominance. Acta Linguista Hafniensia 211. 35–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren. 1926. 北京, 蘇州,常州語助詞的研究 [A study of particles in Beijing, Suzhou and Changzhou dialects]. 清華學報 [Tsing Hua journal of Chinese studies] 31. 580–587.Google Scholar
. 1928 [2011]. 現代吳語的研究 [Studies of the modern Wu dialects]. Beijing: Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen & Rint Sybesma. 2009. De 的 as an underspecified classifier: first explorations. 语言学论丛 [Yuyanxue Luncong] 391. 1–19.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. Reference to kinds across language. Natural Language Semantics 6(4). 339–405. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1970. Remarks on nominalization. In Roderick A. Jacobs & Peter S. Rosenbaum (eds.), Readings in english transformational grammar. Waltham, MA: Ginn.Google Scholar
. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chung, Sandra. 2012. Are lexical categories universal? the view from chamorro. Theoretical Linguistics 38(1–2). 1–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collins, Chris & Edward Stabler. 2016. A formalization of Minimalist Syntax. Syntax 19(1). 43–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 1977. Where have all the adjectives gone? Studies in Language 11. 1–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. & Alexandra Aikhenvald (eds.). 2004. Adjective classes: a crosslinguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(eds.). 2012. Possession and ownership. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Duffield, Nigel. 2017. On what projects in Vietnamese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 26(4). 351–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Embick, David & Rolf Noyer. 2001. Movement operations after syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 32(4). 555–595. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ernst, Thomas. 1995. Negation in Mandarin Chinese. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 13(4). 665–707. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nicholas & Stephen C. Levinson. 2009. The myth of language universals: language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sci ences 321. 429–492. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Francez, Itamar & Andrew Koontz-Garboden. 2015. Semantic variation and the grammar of property concepts. Language 91(3). 533–563. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017. Semantics and morphosyntactic variation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Francis, Elaine J. & Stephen Matthews. 2005. A multi-dimensional approach to the category ‘verb’ in Cantonese. Journal of Linguistics 41(2). 269–305. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gil, David. 2005. Word order without syntactic categories: how Riau Indonesian does it. In Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley & Sheila Ann Dooley (eds.), Verb first: on the syntax of verb-initial languages, 243–263. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grano, Thomas. 2012. Mandarin hen and universal markedness in gradable adjectives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 30(2). 513–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halle, Morris & Alec Marantz. 1993. Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. In Kenneth L. Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds.), The view from building 20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2007. Pre-established categories don’t exist: consequences for language description and typology. Linguistic Typology 11(1). 119–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies. Language 86(3). 663–687. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1997. Possession. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Higginbotham, James. 1985. On semantics. Linguistic Inquiry 16(4). 547–593.Google Scholar
Hirtle, W. H. 1970. -ed adjectives like ‘verandahed’ and ‘blue-eyed’. Journal of Linguistics 6(1). 19–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, Anders. 2015. The syntax of yes and no. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hu, Xuhui. 2023. Bundling telicity, verbal quantification and perfective aspect: a study on lә in Yixing Chinese. Journal of Linguistics (FirstView). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hu, Xuhui & J. Joseph Perry. 2018. The syntax and phonology of non-compositional compounds in Yixing Chinese. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 36(3). 701–742. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huang, C. T. James. 1988. Wo pao de kuai and Chinese phrase structure. Language 64(2). 274–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huang, He. 2016. 荆音韵汇:两百年前的宜兴话 [Jing Yin Yun Hui: Yixing dialect two hundred years ago]. Shanghai: Zhong Xi Press.Google Scholar
. 2017a. 从地理语言学的角度看地名学的语言学功能 [A geolinguistic approach to toponymy]. 中國言語硏究 [Studies in Chinese Language] 811. 301–316.Google Scholar
. 2017b. 同音冲突的地理格局触发官话化 [Mandarinization triggered by the geographical pattern of homonymic collision]. 语言学论丛 [Yuyanxue Lungcong] 561. 76–92.Google Scholar
. 2017c. 多维接触与语言扩散模型 [Multidimensional contact and language diffusion models]. 中国语文 [Studies of the Chinese Language] 3841. 313–322.Google Scholar
. 2017d. 社会地理语言学视野下的微观方言研究 [Microstudies of dialects from the view of social and geographical linguistics]. Peking University dissertation.
Huang, Zhaoyan. 2005. 方言“佬”的性质 [The nature of ‘lao’ in dialects]. 广西社会科学 [Journal of Guangxi Social Sciences] 61. 164–166.Google Scholar
Hudson, R. A. 1975. Problems in the analysis of ed-adjectives. Journal of Linguistics 11(1). 69–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaufman, Daniel. 2012. Austronesian nominalism and its consequences: a Tagalog case study. Theoretical Linguistics 35(1). 1–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krifka, Manfred, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Gregory N. Carlson, Alice ter Meulen, Godehard Link & Gennaro Chierchia. 1995. Genericity: an introduction. In Gregory N. Carlson & Francis Jeffry Pelletier (eds.), The generic book, 1–124. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Li, Yen-hui Audrey. 2012. de in Mandarin e in Taiwanese. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 33(1). 17–40.Google Scholar
Lin, Tzong-Hong Jonah. 2015. Tense in Mandarin Chinese sentences. Syntax 18(3). 320–342. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lin, Jo-wang. 2010. A tenseless analysis of Mandarin Chinese revisited: a response to Sybesma 2007. Linguistic Inquiry 41(2). 305–329. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marantz, Alec. 1997. No escape from syntax: don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 4(2). 201–225.Google Scholar
Marvin, Tatjana. 2002. Topics in the stress and syntax of words. MIT dissertation.
McCawley, James D. 1992. Justifying part-of-speech assignments in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 20(2). 211–245.Google Scholar
Mitrović, Moreno & Phoevos Panagiotidis. 2020. Adjectives exist, adjectivisers do not: a bicategorial typology. Glossa 5(1). 58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nevins, Andrew & Neil Myler. 2014. A brown-eyed girl. UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics 181. 243–257.Google Scholar
Nichols, Johanna. 1988. On alienable and inalienable possession. In William Shipley (ed.), In honor of Mary Haas, 557–610. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Johanna & Balthasar Bickel. 2013. Possessive classification. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The world atlas of language structures (online). Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.Google Scholar
Paul, Waltraud. 2005a. Adjectival modification in Mandarin Chinese and related issues. Linguistics 43(4). 757–793. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005b. Adjectives in Mandarin Chinese: the rehabilitation of a much ostracized category. In Patricia Cabredo Hofherr & Ora Matushansky (eds.), Adjectives: formal analyses in syntax and semantics, 243–263. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. Why Chinese de is not like French de: a critical analysis of the predicational approach to nominal modification. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 33(3). 183–201.Google Scholar
. 2015. New perspectives on Chinese syntax. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perry, J. Joseph. 2016. Tone and prosodic constituency in Gyalsumdo. University of Cambridge dissertation.
. Ms. Mapping and pruning: an approach to prosodification. Available at: [URL]
Pietsch, Lukas. 2005. “Some do and some doesn’t”: verbal concord variation in the north of the British Isles. In Bernd Kortmann, Tanja Hermann, Lukas Pietsch & Susanne Wagner (eds.), A comparative grammar of British English dialects. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shi, Youwei. 1982. 常州方言的“佬” [‘Lao’ in Changzhou dialect]. 中国语文 [Studies of the Chinese Language] (3). 208–214.Google Scholar
Snyder, William. 2012. Parameter theory and motion predicates. In Violeta Demonte & Louise McNally (eds.), Telicity, change and state: a categorial view of event structure, 279–299. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sybesma, Rint. 2007. Whether we tense-agree overtly or not. Linguistic Inquiry 38(3). 580–587. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tham, Shiao Wei. 2013. Change of state verbs and result state adjectives in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of Linguistics 49(3). 647–701. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsujioka, Takae. 2002. The syntax of possession in Japanese. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wetzer, Harrie. 1996. Nouniness and verbiness: a typological study of adjectival predication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wood, Jim. 2015. Icelandic morphosyntax and argument structure. Springer: Dordrecht. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2023. Icelandic nominalizations and allosemy. Manuscript available at: [URL]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logo
Wood, Jim & Alec Marantz. 2017. The interpretation of external arguments. In Roberta D’Alessandro, Irene Franco & Ángel J. Gallego (eds.), The verbal domain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yip, Virginia & Stephen Matthews. 2011. Cantonese: a comprehensive grammar (2nd edition). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
You, Xiaohui. 2004. 浅谈“佬” 字的音义 [An initial discussion of the sound and meaning of ‘lao’]. 西南民族大学学报 [Journal of Southwest Minzu University] 61. 359–360.Google Scholar
Zeijlstra, Hedde. 2008. On the syntactic flexibility of formal features. In Theresa Biberauer (ed.), The limits of syntactic variation, 143–173. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020. Labeling, selection and feature checking. In Peter W. Smith, Johannes Mursell & Katharina Hartmann (eds.), Agree to agree: agreement in the Minimalist Programme, 31–70. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Niina Ning. 2012. De and the functional expansion of classifiers. Language and Linguistics 13(3). 569–582.Google Scholar
Zhu, Keyi. 2002. 名词后缀“佬” 的感情色彩 [The emotion connotation of noun suffix ‘lao’]. 咬文嚼字 [Digesting Words] 91. 26–28.Google Scholar