Abstract
This paper provides experimental and theoretical evidence for the syntactic realization of an implicit possessor argument in Relational Nouns (RNs, e.g. father) in Mandarin Chinese. The results of Experiment 1 show that the antecedent of the implicit argument in RNs must be a noun phrase (NP) in the sentence where the RN is located, rather than an NP in the discourse context. Experiment 2 shows that the implicit argument of RNs must be bound by a c-commanding NP. The results exclude the possibility that the RNs’ implicit argument is a pronominal that would link to a contextually salient NP and would not require a c-commanding referential antecedent. Rather, the experimental results show that the identification of the antecedent of the RNs’ implicit argument is constrained by the same principle of binding theory that constrains the reflexive zìjǐ ‘self’, specifically requiring a c-commanding antecedent.
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Notes
In the General Discussion and Conclusions section, the term implicit variable will be used to denote a variable that is semantically represented (and we will address its possible syntactic representations). In the Introduction section, we will maintain the common use of the term implicit argument in the literature to refer to different types of implicit variables, but in our proposed analysis in the General Discussion and Conclusions section, we will restrict the use of the term implicit argument only to the subset of variables that are syntactically represented as actual arguments (of bare RNs, in the case of this paper).
However, the of-complement test does not work well for body-part RNs, as shown by the ungrammaticality of the phrases in (i) (Vikner and Jensen (2002) treat this type of body-parts as non-RNs). Notice that the of-complement test is still useful for the other types of RNs.
(i)
a.
?*the hand of John
b.
?*the hair of John
A common diagnostic uses the pronoun + RN construction instead: for most speakers, RNs, unlike non-RNs, can appear directly after a pronoun, e.g. tā jiějie ‘her/his older sister’ versus ?*tā shūbāo ‘her/his schoolbag’. However, this is not a reliable test because the acceptability of pronoun + NP in general can be affected by other syntactic or non-syntactic factors (Cui 1992; Xu 2008; Wang 2008; Ke 2019; Xue and Duanmu 2018, among many others); there is also much variation among individuals. The NP being an RN is just one of these factors. For instance, when used in a context, tā shūbāo ‘her schoolbag’ in the subject position, as in (ia), is as acceptable as tā mèimei ‘her sister’, but in the object position, as in (ib), tā shūbāo is degraded (unless an intervening de is added), whereas tā mèimei is still perfect.
(i)
a.
tā
(de)
shūbāo/tā
(de)
mèimei
hěn
piàoliang.
her
de
schoolbag/her
de
younger-sister
very
beautiful
‘Her schoolbag/her younger sister is very beautiful.’
b.
Zhāngsān
tī-le
tā
?*(de)
shūbāo/tā
(de)
mèimei.
Zhangsan
kick-asp
her
de
schoolbag/her
de
younger-sister
‘Zhangsan kicked her schoolbag/her younger brother.’
The RN-de-RN-de-RN test, as far as we know, does not have the same problems.
An additional goal of this paper is to investigate adults’ knowledge regarding the syntax of RNs, in order to set up a baseline for child language acquisition studies. TVJT is specifically designed to elicit responses from young children. As will be shown in the Methodology section, our materials were constructed using basic-level vocabulary in Chinese and child-friendly stories and characters. The experiments thus have an advantage of being able to be conducted with both adult and child subjects without any substantial changes in methodology.
In Chinese, Little Zhang and Little Li here imply that they are Zhangsan’s son and Lisi’s son respectively.
Following Huang et al. (2009), V + asp does not move to the Asp position in overt syntax, but may move to that position at LF.
Jackendoff et al. (1993) argue for a difference between the implicit argument of home and a reflexive: the implicit argument of home is freer than a reflexive because its antecedent may not c-command it. For example, (i) is grammatical although the antecedent of home, a few of the boys, is to the right of home and does not c-command it; while a possible antecedent must c-command the reflexive themselves, which explains the ungrammaticality of (ii).
(i)The teacher sent home a few of the boys. ((8b) in Jackendoff et al. 1993)
(ii)*The teacher talked about themselves to the boys. ((9b) in Jackendoff et al. 1993)
Further analysis of the (internal) complement of the implicit anaphoric argument would include an extensive discussion of possessive RN structures with overt possessor arguments that are beyond the scope of this paper, which focuses on the experimental investigation of bare RNs with implicit possessor arguments.
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Appendix
Appendix
An example of test stories in Experiment 1 (corresponding to the English translation in (13)).
张三和李四商量去青岛旅游。他们准备各自带上自个儿的孩子,小张和小李,一起去旅游。但是,临行前,李四牙疼,去不了,而小李却一定要去。张三想,这该怎么办,自己一个人带两个孩子吃不消。最后,张三带上小李去了青岛。他们在青岛度过了一个愉快的假期。
An example of control stories in Experiment 1 (corresponding to the English translation in (16)).
张三和李四是舍友。一天晚自习后,他们打算一起回宿舍。在他们整理好书包要回去的时候,李四突然接到老师的电话,让他去办公室拿明天上课用的仪器。于是,李四拜托张三把书包带回宿舍,自己就跑去办公室拿仪器了。张三觉得拿两个书包太沉了。又想,反正明天一早还来自习室上自习,不把书包拿回去也罢。于是,他就把自己的书包搁在了自习室,帮李四把书包拿回了宿舍。
An example of the test stories in Experiment 2 (see the English translation in (22)).
米老鼠和唐老鸭商量着一起去一个小岛旅游。他们都觉得应该带上各自的儿子一起去。但是不幸的是,唐老鸭在出发前的一个晚上生病了,又牙疼又发烧,因此住进了医院。唐老鸭是去不成小岛了,但是唐老鸭的儿子还想去。米老鼠想,如果两个孩子一起去小岛,自己恐怕照顾不了。最后,米老鼠带了唐老鸭的儿子去小岛旅游。
An example of the control stories in Experiment 2 (see the English translation in (25)).
米老鼠邀请唐老鸭去吃麦当劳。他们两个都点了一个汉堡。由于外面下雨,里面地板很滑溜,米老鼠不小心摔了一跤。他的汉堡也掉地上弄脏了,很伤心。唐老鸭把自己的汉堡递给了米老鼠,劝道:“别难过,我的汉堡给你吃吧。汉堡其实不是我最喜欢的,我去再要个炸鸡腿。其实我最喜欢鸡腿了。”米老鼠想想也行,反正唐老鸭不是很喜欢汉堡,于是就把唐老鸭的汉堡吃了。
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Ke, A.H., Zhao, Y., Gao, L. et al. On the Implicit Anaphoric Argument of Relational Nouns in Mandarin Chinese. J Psycholinguist Res 48, 819–842 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-019-09633-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-019-09633-2