Relativization Test And Derivation Of Topic Constructions In Mandarin Chinese

Since 1960s, the topic and topic construction in Mandarin Chinese have been the focus in linguistic research. Li & Thompson (1976) identify Chinese as a topic-prominent language according to linguistic typology. There exist a variety of topic constructions in Mandarin Chinese. More and more linguists delve into this topic, accounting for the property of topics and the derivation of topic construction from different perspectives. We currently focus on the research done by Huang (1982, 1984), Xu & Langendoen (1985), Shi (1992), and Pan & Hu (2001, 2002).In order to systematically analyze the topic and topic construction in Mandarin Chinese, this thesis mainly puts forward the following three research questions: (a) Whether Subjacency Condition can be regarded as the standard to judge the derivation of topic construction? (b) How does the relativization test identify the distinct derivation of topic constructions? (c) What are the detail derivation operations of topic constructions in Mandarin Chinese?In view of the above three research questions, this thesis proposes three hypotheses: the first assumption is concerned about Subjacency Condition. Based on the contrastive research on movement and base-generation of topic constructions, we find that Subjacency Condition as the standard is controversial, and thus we propose that Subjacency Condition cannot be regarded as the standard to judge the derivation of topic construction.The second hypothesis concentrates on the relativization test. According to Li's (2002, 2003) observation, topicalization and relativization are not completely in one to one correspondence with each other in Mandarin Chinese. Some topic constructions can be relativized, such as topicalization and left-dislocation, we suppose that they are derived by movement. While the other topic constructions can not be relativized, we assume that they are base-generated. The relativization test can identify the distinct derivation of topic constructions in Mandarin Chinese.The third proposal concerns the movement and base-generation of topic constructions in Mandarin Chinese. As for the topic construction derived by movement, we follow Chomsky (1998, 1999); the driving force of movement is feature-checking. The stimulating mechanism of topic movement mainly comes from the uninterpreted feature [-Top] of movement constituent. Kayne's (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA) decides the copies-deletion in Spell-out. Topicalization would be generated through deletion of all copies except for the sentence-initial one. With these operations as the basis, when the lowest copy has a resumptive pronoun spell-out, left-dislocation would be derived. As for the"Chinese-style"topic construction, we suggest that"Chinese-style"topic could be introduced by the functional category Top, and it is actually the argument chosen by Top. Because the significance of the functional category Top is"aboutness", the relationship between topic and comment can only be based on"aboutness".Through the research on the relativization test and the derivation of topic construction, we can provide more systematic and reasonable explanations in the topic and topic construction in Mandarin Chinese.