A Generative Study Of Focus Constructions In Mandarin Chinese

This dissertation investigates the syntactic behaviors of three focus constructions in Mandarin Chinese with the particular emphasis on exploring the syntax of these three constructions. A variety of issues have been discussed with the aim to find out and capture the common underlying principles to govern the focus construction in Mandarin, thus shedding light on the complexity of the focus phenomena with the hope to benefit the following studies on focus constructions in Mandarin and Generative Syntax in general.In this dissertation, the focus constructions examined are shi constructions, lian...dou/ye constructions and zhi you...cai constructions. We have conducted a research on the syntactic distributions and features of the three configurations. It has been demonstrated that they exhibit strikingly similar syntactic characteristics. In the light of this, following Rizzi’s (1997) Split-CP hypothesis, we assume that the three focus constructions bear similar syntactic structure [TopP...[FocP...[IP...[VP...]]]]. Under this hypothesis, shi, lian...dou/ye pattern or zhi you...cai pattern immediately comes from the Lexicon once triggered by the [+F] feature of the sentence. The functional head shi, dou/ye or cai occupies the head position of FocP, the focus scope marker lian or zhi you merges with the focused constituent. In the lian...dou/ye or zhi you...cai construction, the focused element together with the focus scope marker moves to Spec, FocP to check the uninterpretable strong [+F] feature to fulfill Principle of Full Interpretation (FI). This feature checking mechanism complies with Chomsky’s (1995) Checking Uniformity Hypothesis suggesting that feature-checking relations must be licensed within a uniform Spec-Head or Head-adjoined locality. Nevertheless, the feature checking issue in the shi construction where functional head shi precedes or is a little far away from the focus cannot be accounted for. In this connection, we propose that the uninterpretable strong [+F] feature is checked "at a long distance" in the sense of Simpson (2000). While it is argued that the "long distance" in this regard is constrained to be within the c(constituent)-command domain of shi, which is testified to be its focus scope domain. We hold that this proposition is theoretically grounded on Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist Link Condition and his statement on feature checking based on the operation of Agree (see Chomsky2000,2001,2004). Empirically Simpson’s observation of Iraqi Arabic wh-question constructions lends support for our proposal.Object focus shift in the lian...dou/ye and zhi you...cai construction poses challenge to the syntax analysis of the focus construction in question due to the occurrence of scrambling. The shifted object focus can occupy either pre-subject position or post-subject position. Therefore to assume them to bear the same syntactic structure and derivation process would be ad hoc. It is proposed that in the lian-object+subject+dou/ye construction,lian-object, bearing focus reading after [+F] feature is checked off, goes on raising to Spec, TopP, thus leading to slightly different syntactic structure from the subject+lian-object+dou/ye configuration. This is the same case with the zhi you...cai construction. Accordingly, the three focus constructions possess similar syntax. It is generally considered that scrambling occurs in those languages full of morphological markers, such as Germanic language. Mandarin Chinese is assumed to be lack of morphological markers. Nevertheless, we hold that scrambling in object focus shifting focus sentences is attributable to the presence of the focus scope marker lian or zhi you. Mandarin Chinese prefers to employ syntactic device to highlight focus. It is therefore our viewpoint that Mandarin Chinese is rich in morphological markers in terms of focus marking. Concomitantly, arguing against the common idea that Chinese is lack of morphological markers, we contend that Mandarin Chinese is comparatively impoverished with regard to morphological markers.Further, we put forward an alternative Foe-criteria which is testified to cover not only in-situ focus but also ex-situ focus in our discussion. It is still to be seen whether it could stand up the testing of crosslinguistic evidence, whereas it is applicable to [+F] feature checking of the focus constructions in question. Nevertheless, it is argued to gain theoretical and empirical advantages over the previous ones proposed by Ernst&Wang (1995) and Shyu (2001).Our study is conducted under the framework of Generative Grammar. It is pioneering the systematic research of dealing with the Mandarin Chinese focus construction under Generative syntax. It is illustrated that the focus sentences exhibit strikingly similar syntactic behaviors; they bear common underlying syntactic principles to govern the derivation and representation as well. This work further proves the strong power of Generative Grammar which is meanwhile further enriched with Mandarin Chinese data with regard to focus constructions.