Cover not available
Article published In:
Concentric
Vol. 47:1 (2021) ► pp.61–92

Two types of peripheral adjunct WHATs

 | National United University
This study investigates two types of adjunct WHATs merged at peripheral positions in Chinese. The L-WHAT is merged within VP and denotes a why-interpretation with an aggressive, prohibitive force. The H-WHAT is merged at the left periphery of a sentence and is exclusively used in expressing a speaker’s refutatory force without interrogativity. The two WHATs are encoded with different modalities: the L-WHAT with root modality while the H-WHAT with epistemic modality. It is proposed that the interpretations of the two types of WHATs are compositionally derived from the modality and speaker force. This study not only explores the origins of different interpretations of adjunct WHATs, but also advances a uniform approach in mapping the speaker force onto syntax.
Keywords: adjunct WHAT, reason-asking WHAT, why-like WHAT, refutatory WHAT, negative wh , speaker force
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.More on the adjunct WHATs
    • 2.1The L-WHAT
    • 2.2The H-WHAT
  • 3.Positions of the two WHATs
    • 3.1Merging L-WHAT low
    • 3.2Merging H-WHAT high
  • 4.Deriving the interpretation
    • 4.1The interrogativity
    • 4.2The modality
    • 4.3Deriving the speaker force
  • 5.Conclusion and further remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • List of abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 19 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/consl.00023.yan
References (60)
References
Abraham, Werner. 2002. Modal verbs: Epistemics in German and English. Modality and Its Interaction with the Verbal System, ed. by Sjef Barbiers, Frits Beukema and Wim van der Wurff, 19–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Adger, David, Daniel Harbour, and Laurel Watkins. 2007. Feature intervention, information structure and word order. Paper presented at the 30th GLOW Colloquium, Tromsø, Norway.
Adger, David, and Peter Svenonius. 2011. Features in minimalist syntax. The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism, ed. by Cedric Boeckx, 27–51. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Akiba, Daigo. 2014. Interpreting modals by phase heads. Modes of Modality: Modality, Typology, and Universal Grammar, ed. by Elizabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham, 19–42. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alexiadou, Artemis, and Elena Anagnostopoulou. 1998. Parametrizing Agr: Word order, v-movement and EPP-checking. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 16.3:491–539. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aoun, Joseph, and Yen-hui Audrey Li. 1993. Syntax of Scope. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Beck, Sigrid. 1996. Wh-constructions and Transparent Logical Form. Doctoral dissertation, University of Tübingen, Tübingen.Google Scholar
Beck, Sigrid, and Shin-Sook Kim. 1997. On wh- and operator scope in Korean. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 6.6:339–384. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bennis, Hans. 1995. The meaning of structure: The wat voor construction revisited. Linguistics in the Netherlands, vol. 121, ed. by Marcel den Dikken and Keers Hengeveld. 25–36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bennis, Hans, Norbert Corver, and Marcel den Dikken. 1998. Predication in nominal phrases. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 11:85–117. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Butler, Jonny. 2003. A minimalist treatment of modality. Lingua 113.10:967–996. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chao, Yuen-Ren. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa L.-S. 1991. On the Typology of Wh-questions. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa L.-S., and C.-T. James Huang. 1996. Two types of donkey sentences. Natural Language Semantics 41:121–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheung, Lawrence Y.-L. 2008. The Negative Wh-construction. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
2009. Dislocation focus construction in Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 18.3:197–232. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. Step by Step: Essays on Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik, ed. by Roger Martin, David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 2001. Derivation by phase. Ken Hale: A Life in Language, ed. by Michael Kenstowicz, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chou, Chao-Ting Tim. 2012. Syntax-pragmatics interface: Mandarin Chinese wh-the-hell and point-of-view operator. Syntax 151:1–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Endo, Yoshio. 2015. Two ReasonPs: What are*(n’t) you coming to the United States for? Beyond Functional Sequences: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Volume 10 (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax Series), ed. by Ur Shlonsky, 220–231. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guerzoni, Elena. 2007. Intervention effects on NPIs and feature movement: Towards a unified account of intervention. Natural Language Semantics 141:359–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hacquard, Valentine. 2006. Aspects of Modality. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2006a. Argument fronting in English, Romance CLLD and the left periphery. Negation, Tense and Clausal Architecture: Cross-linguistic Investigations, ed. by Raffaella Zanuttini, Hector Campos, Elena Herburger and Paul Portner, 27–52. Georgetown, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
. 2006b. Conditionals, factives and the left periphery. Lingua 116.10:1651–1669. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014. West Flemish verb-based discourse markers and the articulation of the speech act layer. Studia Linguistica 68.1:116–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Han, Chung-Hye. 1997. Deriving the interpretation of rhetorical questions. Proceedings of the 16th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL-16), ed. by Emily Curtis, James Lyle and Gabriel Webster, 237–253. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
. 2002. Interpreting interrogatives as rhetorical questions. Lingua 1121:201–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hill, Virginia. 2007a. Romanian adverbs and the pragmatic field. The Linguistic Review 241:61–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007b. Vocatives and the pragmatics-syntax interface. Lingua, 117.12:2077–2105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1982. Logical Relation in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.Google Scholar
. 1988. Wo pao de kuai and Chinese phrase structure. Language 641:274–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kayne, Richard S. 2016. The silence of heads. Studies in Chinese Linguistics 371:1–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kiss, Angelika. 2015. On Chinese Negative-Wh Constructions and Causal/Denial-How Questions. MA thesis, Leiden University, Leiden.Google Scholar
Ko, Hee-jeong. 2005. Syntax of wh-in-situ: Merge into [Spec, CP] in the overt syntax. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 23.4:867–916. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kurafuji, Takeo. 1996. Unambiguous checking. Proceedings of Formal Approaches to Japanese Linguistics 2 (FAJL2), ed. by M. Koizumi, M. Oishi and U. Sauerland (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 29), 81–96. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 1997. Case checking of accusative wh-adjuncts. Proceedings of the Eighth Student Conference in Linguistics (SCIL8), ed. by B. Bruening (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 31), 253–271. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Li, Yen-hui Audrey. 1992. Indefinite wh in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 1.2:125–155. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lin, Tzong-Hong Jonah. 2001. Light Verb Syntax and the Theory of Phrase Structure. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Irvine.Google Scholar
Lü, Shuxiang. 1980. (ed.) Xiandai Hanyu Babai Ci [ Eight Hundred Words in Modern Chinese ]. Beijing: The Commercial Press.Google Scholar
. 1985. Yiwen, fouding, kending [Question, negation, and affirmation]. Zhongguo Yuwen 41:241–250.Google Scholar
Obenauer, Hans-Georg. 2006. Special interrogatives—Left periphery, wh-doubling, and (apparently) optional elements. Romance Language and Linguistic Theory 2004 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 278), ed. by Jenny Doetjes and Paz Gonzalez, 247–273. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochi, Masao. 2004. How come and other adjunct wh-phrases: A cross-linguistic perspective. Language and Linguistics 5.1:29–57.Google Scholar
Pan, Victor Junnan. 2014. Deriving special questions in Mandarin Chinese: A comparative study. Paper presented at the 16th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (SICOGG 16), Dongguk University, Seoul.
Postma, Gertjan. 1994. The indefinite reading of WH. Linguistics in the Netherlands 1994, ed. by Reineke Bok-Bennema and Crit Cremers, 187–198. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1995. Zero Semantics: A Study of the Syntactic Conception of Quantificational Meaning. Doctoral dissertation, University of Leiden, Leiden.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. Elements of Grammar, ed. by Liliane Haegeman, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. On the position of “Int(errogative)” in the left periphery of the clause. Current Studies in Italian Syntax: Essays Offered to Lorenzo Renzi, ed. by Guglielmo Cinque and Giampaolo Salvi, 287–296. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
. 2004. Locality and left periphery. Structures and Beyond: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Volume 3 (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax Series), ed. by Adriana Belletti, 223–251. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 2013. Locality. Lingua 1301:169–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shao, Jingmin. 1996. Xiandai Hanyu Yiwenju Yanjiu [ Studies on Chinese Interrogative Constructions ]. Shanghai: Huadong Normal University Publisher.Google Scholar
Shao, Jingmin, and Xiufeng Zhao. 1989. “Shenme” fei yiwen yongfa yanjiu [A study on the non-interrogative usages of “what”]. Yuyan Jiaoxue Yu Yanjiu 11:26–40.Google Scholar
Speas, Margaret. 2004. Evidentiality, logophoricity and the syntactic representation of pragmatic features. Lingua 144.3:255–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Speas, Margaret, and Carol Tenny. 2003. Configurational properties of point of view roles. Asymmetry in Grammar, ed. by Anna Maria Di Sciullo, 315–344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Starke, Michal. 2001. Move Dissolves into Merge. Doctoral dissertation, University of Geneva, Geneva.Google Scholar
. 2004. On the inexistence of specifiers and the nature of heads. Structures and Beyond: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Volume 3 (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax Series), ed. by Adriana Belletti, 252–268. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 1994. On Economizing the Theory of A-Bar Dependencies. Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.Google Scholar
. 2011. Cong ‘zhe hua cong he shuo qi’ shuo qi [Speaking from ‘where should I begin?’]. Yuyanxue Luncong 431:194–208.Google Scholar
Wang, Changsong. 2017. Yunlü jufa jiaohu zuoyong xia de Hanyu fei dianxing yiwenci yanjiu—Yi “V shenme (V)/(NP)” zhong de “shenme” wei li [A study on the non-canonical wh-word in Mandarin under the interaction between prosody and syntax—An example from “V shenme (V)/(NP)”]. Yunlü Yufa Yanjiu 2.1:73–100.Google Scholar
Yang, Barry C.-Y. 2008. Intervention Effects and the Covert Component of Grammar. Doctoral dissertation, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu.Google Scholar
Yang, Yang, and Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai. 2019. Nianli yizhuan de yunlü yufa ji shiyan yanjiu [An experimental study of the prosodic syntax of force shift]. Shijie Hanyu jiaoxue 33.1:36–46.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Yang, Barry C.-Y.
2024. Revisiting sentence-final adjunct WHAT. Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學 25:1 ► pp. 162 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.