On The Syntax-prosody Interface

As tone sandhis in Chinese are domain-sensitive phonological activities,investigations into them are conducted in two independent but closely related aspects:the phonology of tone sandhi and the phonological domain structure of tone sandhi.The study of the phonological domain structure of tone sandhi is still at the tentative stage,since it cannot proceed without a thorough understanding of the phonology of tone sandhi.In this dissertation,the author investigates the phonology of the domain structure of tone sandhis in Chinese,and tries to answer the following questions:a)How do we diagnose a domain of tone sandhi?What systematic properties does the phonological domain structure of tone sandhi possess?b)Do these properties originate solely from morphosyntactic structures?If not,what are the other intervening factors,prosody,tone sandhi rules,or what else?c)Do the morphosyntactic-dependent properties interact with those morphosyntactic-free properties?If so,how?d)Is the interaction between these factors unanimous across Chinese dialects?To be specific,how shall we explain the typological differences in the phonological domain structure of tone sandhis?Eight dialects from the Northern family,the Jin family,the Wu family and the Min family are selected as the research subjects.Besides the data collected from.literature,the author has collected data pertaining to Tianjin,Shaoxing and Chenghai.With reference to perceptive annotation,pitch contour is abstracted and taken as a phonetic clue in identifying the domain of tone sandhi.Statistic analysis reveals that the domain of application of tone sandhi cannot be directly predicted from morphosyntactic structure.Because multiple intervening factors are observed,this thesis argues for an interface approach(Selkirk 2009,2011)to the construction of domain of application of tone sandhi in Chinese dialects,whereby it is proposed that:The construction of the domain of tone sandhi is a consequence of language-particular rankings of universal constraints on syntactic-prosodic constituency correspondence(formalized into constraints MATCH(S,P)and MATCH(P,S))with respect to prosodic structure wellformedness constraints.Language-particular syntactic and phonological properties will also address requirements on domain structure.Differences in the patterns of the phonological domain structures of tone sandhis between dialects are reducible to language-particular differences in the ranking of these factors.Hence,adopting Match theory,this research explores the phonological structure of the domain of tone sandhi under the framework of prosodic phonology,and the research results are presented in the form of constraint ranking.Based on a large amount of empirical data,it is found in this research that:1)Tone sandhi domains of Tianjin,Yuncheng and Type I tone sandhi in Shaoxing are defined through Prosodic Word.On this prosodic level,the size effects on the domain of tone sandhi suggest that prosodic structure markedness constraints override syntax-prosody constituency correspondence constraints.For instance,in Shaoxing,prosodic markedness constraints*{(?)?} and*{(?)?},(??????)?} outrank syntax-prosody constituency correspondence constraints MATCH-X-? and MATCH-?-X.2)Tone sandhi domains of Xiamen,Zhangzhou and Chenghai are defined through Phonological Phrase.On this prosodic level,recursion in the prosodic domain of tone sandhi indicates that syntax-prosody constituency correspondence constraint MATCH-XP-? is dominant.Recursion in syntactic phrase is transmitted to Phonological Phrase in the mapping process,in violation of the prosodic structure wellformedness constraint NONRECURCIVITY.3)Tone sandhi domains of Zhenjiang,type II tone sandhis in Shaoxing and Wenzhou are defined through Intonational Phrase constructed through observing the syntax-prosody constituency correspondence constraint MATCH-CP-?.But ? restructuring takes place frequently.Tone sandhi rules state language-particular requirements on ? restructuring.For instance,in Zhenjiang,the right boundary of a restructured ? always aligns with the right boundary of a syntactic phrase,namely,XP)?>>MATCH-CP-?.4)The control over the construction of tone sandhi domain from tone sandhi rules can be witnessed in every level of the prosodic domain of tone sandhi.For instance,in Yuncheng,apparently the domain of tone sandhi may not coincide with either a Prosodic Word or a syntactic word,because tone sandhi can only be activated by the rightmost disyllabic immediate constituent within a ?.The properties of the domain structure of tone sandhi explored in this research prove the fundamental assumption of prosodic phonology that phonological rules apply to prosodic constituents which are mapped from morphosyntactic constituents.The faithful mapping from morphosyntactic constituents to prosodic constituents may be reinforced or undermined in the face of language-particular morphosyntactic structuring,prosodic structure wellformedness requirements and phonological properties.