Chinese Null Objects and Their Syntactic Derivations

UM > Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Status	已發表Published
	Chinese Null Objects and Their Syntactic Derivations
	Xu, J.
	2010-09-01
Source Publication	UM Chinese Scholarly Serial
ISSN	978-99965-1-011-3
Pages	191-213
Abstract	An alternative explanatory framework is offered hereby to accommodate the subject-object asymmetry phenomenon and the apparent Subjacency-violating null object constructions in Chinese. It is also argued that a topic position is always available syntactically, but an NP there could be either base-generated or being moved there from somewhere else. A null object in the language is a trace created by A’-movement of a pro to a topic position of its own clause, which could be a topic position of a relative clause, then from there the pro may or may not move further up if all applicable conditions such as the Subjacency allow it to do so. In those constructions which appear to have violated the Subjacency condition, the object trace, variable, is in fact not created by an A’-movement to the matrix topic position. Rather, it is a trace created by an A’-movement of pro to an embedded topic position. The lexical NP in the matrix topic position is base-generated in-situ, thus the Subjacency is well observed. The co-reference between the NP in the matrix topic position and the null object in embedded clauses is made possible indirectly through two independent steps: The first step is an A’-movement of a pro from the object position to the embedded topic position within the same clause; and the second one is a co-indexing process that co-indexes the NP in the matrix topic position and the pro in the embedded topic position.
Keyword	null Object Chinese syntax movement asymmetry
Language	英語English
The Source to Article	PB_Publication
PUB ID	2921
Document Type	Journal article
Collection	Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Recommended Citation GB/T 7714	Xu, J.. Chinese Null Objects and Their Syntactic Derivations[J]. UM Chinese Scholarly Serial, 2010, 191-213.
APA	Xu, J..(2010). Chinese Null Objects and Their Syntactic Derivations. UM Chinese Scholarly Serial, 191-213.
MLA	Xu, J.."Chinese Null Objects and Their Syntactic Derivations".UM Chinese Scholarly Serial (2010):191-213.

Files in This Item:
There are no files associated with this item.

If you have any objections to this item, please fill out the form below and the administrator will contact you as soon as possible.
Content:
Email：	*
Affiliation No.
Verification Code:	Refresh

Any comments and suggestions are welcomed.
Title:	*
Content:
Email：	*
Verification Code:	Refresh