Abstract: The literature has debated whether Mandarin Chinese exhibits a finiteness distinction despite the absence of overt tense and agreement marking. C.-T. J. Huang (2022), along with other Generative studies, has re-affirmed this distinction and repeatedly rejected Hu et al. (2001), which presents opposing views. If the finiteness distinction exists, it should be a detectable empirical fact, transcending theoretical perspectives. To empirically test this, this paper first formulates finiteness as a relative concept using a methodological criterion, which is inspired by Lowe (2019) and potentially cross-linguistically applicable. Two testable hypotheses are devised to investigate the distributions of modals (hui/yao) and aspectual markers (-le/-guo) in the complement clause, which have been seen as having implications for finiteness distinction. After conducting tests on diverse complementation verbs, this paper argues that it is possible to synthesise insights from apparently opposite camps to form integrated perspectives which can account for a wider range of new empirical data. Under a broader concept of finiteness, this paper argues that the distributions of hui/yao and -le/-guo reveal Chinese finiteness as semantic dependency where non-finite complements are more semantically dependent on the matrix clause than finite complements. Overall, this paper employs a descriptive, evidence-based approach to address the Chinese finiteness conundrum.  

Abstract: This paper proposes a formal analysis of two displacement phenomena in Mandarin Chinese, namely inner topicalisation and focus fronting, capturing their correlational relationships with control and complementation. It examines a range of relevant data, including corpus examples, to derive empirical generalisations. Acceptability-judgment tasks, followed by mixed-effects statistical models, were conducted to provide additional evidence. This paper presents a constraint-based lexicalist proposal that is couched in the framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG). The lexicon plays an important role in regulating the behaviour of complementation verbs as they participate in the displacement phenomena. Unlike previous analyses that cast inner topicalisation and focus fronting as restructuring phenomena, this lexicalist proposal does not rely on hypothesised clause-size differences. It captures the empirical properties more accurately and accounts for a wider range of empirical patterns. Adopting the formally explicit framework of LFG, this proposal utilises constraints that have mathematical precision. The constraints are computationally implemented by the grammar-engineering tool Xerox Linguistic Environment, safeguarding their precision.

Abstract: This paper centres on two complement-control phenomena, namely copy control and partial raising using novel data from Mandarin Chinese. For copy control, conclusions are drawn regarding the overt controllee, including its licensing condition and how it differs from resumptive and intrusive pronouns in the cross-linguistic literature. Copy control helps to draw the dividing line between functional-control vs anaphoric-control equi verbs in Mandarin Chinese. This highlights a key insight that formal control mechanisms need to be determined empirically on the basis of the grammatical properties of individual matrix verbs in individual languages. Regarding partial raising, the paper shows that Mandarin Chinese allows partial raising where the matrix verb sub-categorises for an athematic OBJ. This challenges the existing view that partial raising is an impossible construct. Formal solutions are explored by integrating LFG with Glue Semantics and Partial Compositional Discourse Representation Theory to explicitly model the syntax-semantics-discourse interfaces.

Abstract: This paper centres on two phenomena – Aspect under Control (also known as “Aspectual Lowering”) and Inner Topicalisation, which have been analysed as “restructuring” phenomena in Minimalist studies (Grano, 2015; N. Huang, 2018).  The paper first focuses on the empirical properties revealed by linguistic diagnostics. The  empirical observations suggest that, for Aspect under Control, there is clausal restructuring at the phrase-structure level but no restructuring at the functional level. That means, an Aspect-under-Control construction is mono-clausal in the phrase structure but bi-clausal in the functional structure. These observations are best explained in a theoretical framework where clausehood embodies a multi-level construct. Empirical observations suggest inner-topic constructions are bi-clausal at both phrase-structure and functional levels. Therefore, Inner Topicalisation should not be analysed as a restructuring phenomenon. LFG analyses are provided and computationally instantiated on XLE to capture the complex interaction between control, complementation, Aspect under Control, and Inner Topicalisation.

Abstract: This paper proposes an LFG constraint-based approach to binding in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese. We illustrate the power of LFG’s f-structure in developing a formal model which is, in essence, a unifying proposal integrating syntactic anaphoric binding with pragmatically-rooted but grammaticised logophoric binding. The anaphoric-binding component of our model resolves the local binding of complex reflexives and that of simplex reflexives, whereas the logophoric-binding component handles the long-distance binding of simplex reflexives. Our view that Chinese binding is best explained by a dual system encompassing syntactic (anaphoric) and pragmatic (logophoric) aspects is in line with Huang and Liu (2001). While it is not easy for a syntactic theory to accommodate logophoric binding, the LFG formalism has a high degree of flexibility, allowing it to model both types of binding while maintaining its formal, mathematical rigour. Our constraint-based proposal offers analternative binding theory in response to recent Minimalist proposals on Chinese binding (e.g., Giblin, 2016; Reuland, Wong & Everaert, 2020), opening up a cross-theoretical dialogue. We establish the notion of grammaticised logophoricity in Chinese binding in connection with crosslinguistic studies. Empirically, we examine a range of data to clarify properties of Chinese reflexives and settle past debates, in particular, the animacy debate in relation to typological research on adnominal possession. The comparison between Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese contributes to the comparative study of binding phenomena in Sinitic languages.

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between language dominance and the under-investigated topic of inter-sentential code-switching in Hong Kong Cantonese–English bilingual children. Longitudinal data for six children showing different dominance patterns were analysed. MLU differentials (Yip & Matthews, 2006) were adopted to measure dominance based on five criteria: methodological compatibility, typological comparability, gradient measurement, variance validity, and multifaceted compatibility. Our results showed that bilingual children produced more inter-sentential code-switching in the context of their non-dominant language and less in their dominant-language context. We account for this asymmetry in relation to mechanisms of inhibitory control (Gross & Kaushanskaya, 2015). Further, we propose that intrasentential and inter-sentential code-switching each have a different status in bilingual children’s developing grammar, underlining the methodological importance of separating the two constructs in future investigations. We also suggest that, in societies where intra-sentential code-switching is a social norm, inter-sentential code-switching could serve as signs of early bilinguals’ dominance status.