Phi-Agree, A-movement, and Complementizer-Tense Relations in Chinese.

Universal Grammar;Parameters;Minimalist Syntax;Chinese Syntax;A-movement;Phi-features/Agreement;Linguistics;Humanities;Linguistics

Chou, Chao-TingKeshet, Ezra Russell ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Universal Grammar;    Parameters;    Minimalist Syntax;    Chinese Syntax;    A-movement;    Phi-features/Agreement;    Linguistics;    Humanities;    Linguistics;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/99859/ctchou_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

This dissertation reveals an apparent paradox presented by Chinese which confronts current theories of Universal Grammar, parametric variation, and typology of human languages. Specifically, Chinese presents a problem for the feature inheritance hypothesis (Richards 2007; Chomsky 2007, 2008; Miyagawa 2010) because Chinese seems to manifest neither phi-features/Agree on T nor the freedom to raise any topic phrase to spec-TP (a hallmark feature of discourse-configurational languages like Finnish). That is, the UG-typology advanced under the feature inheritance hypotheses seems to exclude Chinese.In view of this apparent paradox, I investigate the distribution and motivation of A-movement in Chinese in chapter 2 and argue that Chinese is in fact compatible with Miyagawa’s feature inheritance approach. I contend that Chinese displays A-movement motivated by two distinct forces: the Case feature (see Epstein and Seely 2006, Bošković 2002) and the Topic feature (as in Miyagawa 2010).Chapter 3 investigates the question of whether Chinese lacks phi-features/Agree altogether by examining the blocking effects observed in the long-distance construal of the reflexive ziji (see Huang and Liu 2001) and the formation of Chinese wh-the-hell questions (see Huang and Ochi 2004 and Chou 2012). I contend that these two types of blocking effects receive a unified analysis if we assume phi-Agree exists at the CP level in Chinese, and involves [Speaker] and [Participant] features.Chapter 4 examines the derivation of locative inversion in English and Chinese, particularly focusing on why T-to-C inversion is not allowed in English locative inversion, whereas the counterpart operation is allowed in Chinese. I argue that (i) locative inversion in both English and Chinese is topic A-movement, and (ii) the possible presence of φ-features on T and the categorial status of the locative phrase jointly determine whether a language can implement T-to-C inversion in locative inversion. Chapter 5 discusses two foundational theoretical implications, including (i) how to express the A/A;;-distinction in languages without φ-features on T, and (ii) the postulation of featurally crash-proof grammar in which uninterpretable features present at the CI interface do not cause crash (see Frampton and Guttman 2002; Carstens 2011; Epstein, Kitahara and Seely 2010; Putnam 2010).