Negative Modal Elements in Late Archaic

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Aiqing Wang

University of York

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Outline

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  1. Introduction

—background on Late Archaic Chinese (LAC) syntax

  2. Medial domain for object preposing

—negative/modal elements and their relative order

  3. Pronoun fronting to negation

  4. Intervention Effect of negation

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Introduction

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  LAC of the Warring States period (5th-3rdc BC) as SVO

language

  Predominant SVO word order (Aldridge 2011, 2012,

Djamouri et al 2012, Meisterernst 2010)

  (S)OV patterns:

  NP objects

  Pronoun objects

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 

Preposed nominal objects

(1) a. ling zhi bu [VP cong tling] (5thc BC; Guoyu)

order ZHI not obey “(people) do not obey orders”

 

Preposed pronominal objects

b. shi zhi bu [VP wu tshi] (5thc BC; Zuozhuan)

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Two landing sites of object preposing

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 

between TP and

v

P

 

evidence: relative order between preposed objects

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7



 

Wh

-elements

 fronted wh-elements > negative/modal constituents

 negative/modal constituents > fronted wh-elements

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

 

Non-

wh

-elements

 fronted non-wh-elements > negative/modal constituents

 negative/modal constituents > fronted non-wh-elements

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Medial Elements

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

 

Canonical order:

Between subject and verb

 

Auxiliary

 

Adverb

 

Negative

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Medial Elements

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

 

Marked order

Between two landing sites of object preposing

 

Negative

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Medial Elements

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 

Passive marker:

complementary distribution with object preposing

 

Adverbial:

between subject and higher position

(7) Qi you he ke [VP wei the] hu?

3.Subj then what can do Excl “Then what can he do?”

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Relative Order between Medial Elements

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

 

Clausal positions:

subject > high position > other modal > negative

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Relative Order between Medial Elements

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 

Negative > modal of ability

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Shu

bu ke [

VP

ren

t

shu

] ye!

what not can endure Nmlz

“What (he) cannot endure!”

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Relative Order between Medial Elements

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 

Negative > modal of ability

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Shu

bu ke [

VP

ren

t

shu

] ye!

what not can endure Nmlz

“What (he) cannot endure!”

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Relative Order between Medial Elements

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 

Other modal > negative

(10) jiang bu wei

weiguo

zhi [

VP

bai

t

weiguo

]

will not WEI State.of.Wei ZHI ruin

“it is not only the State of Wei (he) will ruin”

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Fronting Markers

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 

Further evidence for two fronting positions

 

Further evidence for functional projections

 

之

ZHI

higher or lower position

 

是

SHI

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Fronting Markers

21

 

Further evidence for two fronting positions

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Fronting Markers

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 

Further evidence for functional projections

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Pronoun Fronting to Negation

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

 

Extra position

(13) you wei

zhi

neng [

VP

de

t

zhi

]

still not.yet 3.Obj can obtain

“(they) still have not managed to obtain it”

₍₃

rd

_{c BC;}

_Lvlan

₎

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Intervention Effect of Negation

 In LAC, negation displays an Intervention Effect

 Focus construction in LAC is the constituent undergoing

further movement

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(15) Guaren jiang shui [VP shu guo tshui]? (3rdc BC; Lvlan)

I will who entrust state

“To whom will I entrust the state?”

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Wh

_-DPs>Neg

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(16) a. Ke

shu

[

VP

nian

t

shu

] zai? (4

th

-5

th

c BC;

Liezi

)

can what care Decl

“What can (one) care about?”

b.

shu

bu ke [

VP

ren

t

shu

] ye!

”

what not can endure Decl

_{“what (he) cannot endure!”}

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Conclusion

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

 

1. Object preposing

subject > high position > other modal > negative > modal of ability > low position > v_P



 

2. Pronoun fronting to negation

negative > extra position > modal of ability

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References

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  Aldridge, E. 2011. Survey of Chinese historical syntax. Ms., University of

Washington.

  Aldridge, E. 2012. Focus and Archaic Chinese Word Order. In L. E. Clemens and

C-M. L. Liu (eds.), The Proceedings of the 22nd North American Conference of Chinese Linguistics (NACCLS-22) and the 18th_{Annual Meeting of the International}

Association of Chinese Linguistics (IACL-18), vol. 2, 84-101.

  Djamouri et al. 2012. Syntactic change in Chinese and the argument-adjunct asymmetry. In G. Cao, H. Chappell, R. Djamouri, T. Wiebusch (eds.), Breaking down the barriers: Interdisciplinary studies in Chinese linguistics and beyond. Taipei: Academia Sinica.

  Kim, S-S. 2002. “Intervention Effects Are Focus Effects”. In N. Akatsuka & S. Strauss (eds.), Japanese/Korean Linguistics 10, 615–628. Stanford: CSLI.

  Meisterernst, B. 2010. Object Preposing in Classical and pre-Medieval Chinese.

Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 19.1, 75-102. 19.1 and Online publication doi: 10.1007/s10831-010-9056-x.

  Paul, W. 2002. Sentence-internal topics in Mandarin Chinese: the case of object

preposing. Language and Linguistics [Academia Sinica, Taiwan] 3, 4: 695-714.

  Paul, W. 2005. Low IP area and left periphery in Mandarin Chinese. Recherches

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Thank you!

謝謝！

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