Cover not available
Article published In:
Language and Linguistics
Vol. 24:2 (2023) ► pp.391–436

A more special use of the third person singular pronoun in Shanghainese

| Shanghai International Studies University
This paper investigates the syntax and semantics of the third person singular pronoun ɦi⁶ in Shanghainese in its non-referential use. Evidence from its phonological dependence and syntactic integration with the preceding host verb is presented to show that the non-referential ɦi⁶ is a clitic. It is further observed that this use of ɦi⁶ requires licensing from the [+subjunctive] feature, echoing Qian (2004) and Jin (2016). However, my analysis diverges from theirs in treating the ɦi⁶ in question as an expletive licensed by the [+subjunctive] feature, rather than a subjunctive marker itself on grounds that it is not obligatory in a subjunctive sentence and that the subjunctivity must always be encoded by other elements in the sentence. ɦi⁶ in this use serves as an emphatic, strengthening the effect of deontic or imperative force in subjunctive contexts. Furthermore, it is shown that the licensing must obey a locality condition, whereby the expletive ɦi⁶ must be licensed by a c-commanding licenser in its local domain. From the perspective of grammaticalization, I propose that ɦi⁶ is going through an intermediate stage of becoming a purely modal functional marker. A final stage of this “upward” grammaticalization can be found in the expletive use of the third person pronoun keoi in Cantonese, which has become a more grammaticalized marker that has scope over the sentence. It is pointed out that the development of the expletive pronoun suggests that being at the right-periphery is a crucial factor in motivating and facilitating grammaticalization in Chinese. Last, a comparison between the non-referential ɦi⁶ and the Mandarin non-referential third person pronoun ta in the V-ta-ge-NP/AP construction is presented, showing that both cases manifest interactions between VP-internal projections and higher functional categories.
Keywords: expletive, mood/modal, clitic, locality condition, grammaticalization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Distinguishing ɦi⁶ 2 from D-pronouns
    • 2.1Syntactic position of ɦi⁶ 2
    • 2.2Antecedent
    • 2.3Semantic constraints
  • 3.Non-referential ɦi⁶ 2 as a clitic
    • 3.1Phonological dependence
    • 3.2Host
    • 3.3Scope
  • 4.Deriving V-ɦi⁶ 2 structure
    • 4.1The licensing condition of ɦi⁶ 2: Subjunctive
    • 4.2Deriving V-ɦi⁶ 2 structure: Locality condition
    • 4.3Advantages and implications of the analysis
  • 5.Further implications on grammaticalization
    • 5.1Why subjunctive? Why agentive?
    • 5.2Some speculations on the grammaticalization process
    • 5.3A comparison between ɦi⁶ 2 and ta
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 9 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00135.zhu
References (75)
References
Bhatt, Rajesh. 2006. Covert modality in non-finite contexts (Interface Explorations 8). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. 1998. “Irrealis” as a grammatical category. Anthropological Linguistics 40(2). 257–271.Google Scholar
Chan, Ning-ping. 1985. The use of the third-person pronoun in Mandarin Chinese. Cahiers de Linguistique-Asie Orientale 14(1). 47–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chao, Yuan-Ren. 1968. A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding (Studies in Generative Grammar 9). Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
. 1986. Barriers (Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 13). Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Martin, Roger & Michaels, David & Uriagereka, Juan & Keyser, Samuel Jay (eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, 89–155. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chung, Sandra & Alan Timberlake. 1985. Tense, aspect, and mood. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, volume 3: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, 202–258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dai, Xiang-ling. 1992. Chinese morphology and its interface with the syntax. Columbus: The Ohio State University. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Diesing, Molly. 1992. Indefinites (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs 20). Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Emonds, Joseph E. 1970. Root and structure-preserving transformations. Cambridge: MIT. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Gan, Min. 2011. Jiujiang fangyan zhong de chuzhishi “keoi”ziju [Disposed sentences with third person singular pronoun keoi in Jiujiang dialect]. Xiandai Yuwen [Modern Chinese] 2011(7). 146–149.Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1994. Irrealis and the subjunctive. Studies in Language 18(2). 265–337. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hackl, Martin. 1998. On the semantics of “ability attributions”. Cambridge: MIT. (Manuscript.)Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane. 2012. Adverbial clauses, main clause phenomena, and the composition of the left periphery (The Cartography of Syntactic Structures 8). New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Han, Chung-hye. 1998. The structure and interpretation of imperatives: Mood and force in universal grammar. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania. (Doctoral dissertation.)Google Scholar
Haverkort, Jacobus Maria Wilhelmus. 1993. Clitics and parametrization: Case studies in the interaction of head movement phenomena. Tilburg: Tilburg University. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Hopper, Joan B. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1973. On the applicability of root transformations. Linguistic Inquiry 4(4). 465–497.Google Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1982. Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Cambridge: MIT. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Huang, C.- T. James. 1991. Modularity and Chinese A-not-A questions. In Georgopoulos, Carol & Ishihara, Roberta (eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to language: Essays in honor of S.-Y. Kuroda, 305–332. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huang, C.-T. James. 1999. Chinese passives in comparative perspective. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 29(4). 423–509.Google Scholar
Iljic, Robert. 1987. Empty ta in Mandarin Chinese. Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages 261. 15–34.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray S. 1972. Semantic interpretation in generative grammar (Studies in Linguistics Series 2). Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jiang, Yan & Wang, Yuying. 2016. Counterfactual subjunctive assertions in Shanghai dialect. In Chin, Andy C.-O. & Kwok, Bit-chee & Tsou, Benjamin K. (eds.), Commemorative essays for Professor Yuen-Ren Chao: Father of modern Chinese linguistics, 193–201. Taipei: Crane.Google Scholar
Jin, Yaohua. 2016. Cong rencheng daici dao xuni biaoji—Shanghaihua “dongci chongdieshi + yi” de yufahua [From personal pronoun to subjunctive marker: On grammaticalization of the VV+[i] construction in Shanghai dialect]. Fangyan [Dialect] 2016(4). 420–424.Google Scholar
Kao, Grant. 2014. What makes a Mandarin complement clause subjunctive? In Lam, Zoe & Weber, Natalie (eds.), Proceedings of Northwest Linguistics Conference 29 (University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 38), 59–98. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard S. 1975. French syntax: The transformational cycle. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
1994. The antisymmetry of syntax (Linguistic Inquiry Monograph 25). Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Klavans, Judith L. 1985. The independence of syntax and phonology in cliticization. Language 61(1). 95–120. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kojima, Miyuki. 2006. Yu “geiyu” xiangguan de rencheng daici wuzhi yongfa [The non-referential uses of personal pronouns related to give ]. (Paper presented at the IACL-14 & IsCLL-10, Taipei, 25–29 May 2006.)
Ladusaw, William A. 1980. Polarity sensitivity as inherent scope relations. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistic Club. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Laitinen, Lea. 2002. From logophoric pronoun to discourse particle: A case study of Finnish and Saami. In Wischer, Ilse & Diewald, Gabriele (eds.), New reflections on grammaticalization (Typological Studies in Language 49), 327–344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-wang. 1994. Object expletives, definitesness effect and scope interpretation. In Gonzàlez, Mercè (ed.), NELS 24: Proceedings of North Eastern Linguistics Society, vol. 11, 287–301. Amherst: GLSA, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.Google Scholar
Lin, Jo-wang & Zhang, Niina Ning. 2006. The syntax of the non-referential TA ‘it’ in Mandarin Chinese. Language and Linguistics 7(4). 799–824.Google Scholar
Lin, Huayong & Li, Minying. 2019. Cong Lianjiang fangyan kan Yueyu “keoi” zi chuzhiju [The Cantonese disposal construction with keoi: Evidence from the Lianjiang dialect]. Zhongguo Yuwen [Studies of the Chinese Language] 2019(1). 89–101.Google Scholar
Lu, Louis Wei-lun & Su, Lily I-wen. 2009. Speech in interaction: Mandarin particle Le as a marker of intersubjectivity. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht 14(1). 155–168.Google Scholar
Lü, Shuxiang. 1985. Jindai Hanyu zhidaici [Modern Chinese pronouns]. Shanghai: Academia Press.Google Scholar
Man, Patricia Yuk-Hing. 1998. Postverbal keoi as a marker for nonasserted bounded clauses. In Matthews, Stephen (ed.), Studies in Cantonese linguistics, 53–62. Hong Kong: Linguistic Society of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Matthews, Stephen & Yip, Virginia. 1994. Cantonese: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Obata, Masabumi. 1892. Huyu bian shang [The Shanghainese dialect guide for visiting traders]. Shanghai: Nihondō Shoten.Google Scholar
Pan, Victor Junnan. 2015. Mandarin peripheral construals at the syntax-discourse interface. The Linguistic Review 32(4). 819–868. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Panzeri, Francesca. 2006. Subjunctive relative clauses. In Denis, Pascal & McCready, Eric & Palmer, Alexis & Reese, Brian J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 2004 Texas Linguistics Society Conference: Issues at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface, 60–68. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Portner, Paul. 2018. Mood. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul M. 1969. On so-called “pronouns” in English. In Reibel, David A. & Schane, Sanford A. (eds.), Modern studies in English: Readings in transformational grammar, 201–224. Hoboken: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Postal, Paul M. & Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1988. Expletive noun phrases in subcategorized positions. Linguistic Inquiry 19(4). 635–670.Google Scholar
Qian, Nairong. 2004. Shanghai fangyan zhong de xuniju [On subjunctive sentence of the Shanghai dialect]. Fangyan [Dialect] 2004(2). 97–110.Google Scholar
Qiang, Xingna. 2011. Shanghaihua guoqu xuni biaoji “manhao”–jianlun Hanyu fangyan guoqu xuni biaoda de leixing [The past subjunctive mood marker manhao in the Shanghai dialect]. Zhongguo Yuwen [Studies of the Chinese Language] 2011(2). 155–163.Google Scholar
Roberts, Ian & Roussou, Anna. 2003. Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 100). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Ian. 2011. Head movement and the minimalist program. In Boeckx, Cedric (ed.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic minimalism, 195–219. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Su, Yu-Ying Julia. 2012. The syntax of functional projections in the vP periphery. Toronto: University of Toronto. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Sui, Na & Hu, Jianhua. 2016. Dongci chongdie de jufa [The syntax of verbal reduplication in Chinese]. Dangdai Yuyanxue [Contemporary Linguistics] 18(3). 317–338.Google Scholar
. 2019. Jumo zhuci “kan” de jufa he yuyi [The syntax and semantics of the tentative particle kan in Chinese: From the perspective of the new descriptivism]. Dangdai Yuyanxue [Contemporary Linguistics] 21(3). 350–363.Google Scholar
Sun, Chaofen. 1996. Word-order change and grammaticalization in the history of Chinese. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tang, Sze-Wing. 2003. Hanyu fangyan yufa de canshu lilun [A parametric theory of Chinese dialectal grammar]. Beijing: Peking University Press.Google Scholar
Travis, Lisa deMena. 1984. Parameters and effects of word order variation. Cambridge: MIT. (Doctoral dissertation.)
. 2010. Inner aspect: The articulation of VP (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 80). Dordrecht: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan. 2015. On the topography of Chinese modals. In Shlonsky, Ur (ed.), Beyond functional sequence (The Cartography of Syntactic Structures 10), 275–294. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. High applicatives are not high enough: A cartographic solution. Lingua Sinica 41. 1–21. (Article no. 2.) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Uriagereka, Juan. 1995. Aspects of the syntax of clitic placement in Western Romance. Linguistic Inquiry 26(1). 79–123.Google Scholar
van Riemsdijk, Henk. 1999. Clitics: A state-of-the-art report. In van Riemsdijk, Henk (ed.), Clitics in the languages of Europe, 1–30. Belin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wu, Xiu-Zhi Zoe. 2004. Grammaticalization and language change in Chinese: A formal view. New York: Routledge Curzon. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wu, Yicheng & Matthews, Stephen. 2010. How different are expletive and referential pronouns? A parsing perspective. Lingua 120(7). 1805–1820. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Dan. 1987. Ta non référentiel. Cahiers de Linguistique-Asie Orientale 16(2). 259–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Liejiong. 1999. A special use of the third person singular pronoun. Cahiers de Linguistique-Asie Orientale 28(1). 3–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Liejiong & Shao, Jingmin. 1998. Shanghai fangyan yufa yanjiu [Studies on Shanghainese grammar]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press.Google Scholar
Yeh, Jui-chuan. 2006. On the excessive construction in Mandarin Chinese. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics 32(2). 93–118.Google Scholar
Yuan, Yulin. 2003. Wuzhi daici “ta” de jufa yuyi gongneng [The syntactic and semantic functions of the non-referential pronoun ta ]. In Editorial Office of Zhongguo Yuwen (ed.), Yufa yanjiu he tansuo [Research & explorations in Chinese grammar], vol. 121, 44–64. Beijing: The Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Niina Ning. 2005. Juggling singular and plural pronouns. Chiayi: National Chung Cheng University. (Manuscript.)Google Scholar
. 2007. A syntactic account of the direct object restriction in Chinese. Language Research 43(1). 53–75.Google Scholar
. 2017. Unifying two general licensors of completive adverbials in syntax. Linguistics 55(2). 371–411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Dexi. 1982. Yufa jiangyi [Lectures on grammar]. Beijing: The Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Zhu, Jialei. Forthcoming. Shanghaihua zhong “dongjieshi-tʰəʔ⁷” de jufa jiegou [The syntax of VR-tʰəʔ⁷ construction in Shanghainese]. (Accepted by Yuyan Kexue [Linguistic Sciences].)
Zwicky, Arnold M. 1977. On clitics. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. & Pullum, Geoffrey K. 1983. Cliticization vs. inflection: English n’t . Language 59(3). 502–513. DOI logoGoogle Scholar