2.5 Proposal
2.5.3 Main Claim: NEG-I-C Movement
Along the line of showing the affinity between the VP-mo questions and real A-not-A questions in section 2.4, I argue that Hakka sentence-final mo is the overt realization of the A-not-A morpheme embedded under the interrogative INFL in the spirit of Huang’s (1991) Modularity approach. Note that mo is not base-generated under this interrogative INFL.
When it serves as a sentence negation, it is base-generated under the head of NEG, while it moves from Negto Iand to C in forming questions. The following tree diagram illustrates how (57) is derived. Negation mo first undergoes head-to-head movement. Then the remaining IP will move to the specifier of C in forming a question.
(57) ngi siid jiu mo?
(59) Step two: Move the remaining IP to spec of C
CP
Next, I will demonstrate the way to derive a VP-NEG question with a particle attached to it. Mo still undergoes NEG-I-C movement. During the process of movement, mo brings
gi siid jiu
the particle no located in the head of CP1 up to the head of CP2. Then, the remaining IP will move to the specifier of CP1 and then to CP2.
(60) Step one: NEG-I-C1 movement
(61) Step two: move the remaining IP to spec of C1 and then to C2
CP2
2.5.4 Mo
8preferred over Kam
In conformity with Huang(1991), our analysis supports his proposal of interrogative INFL in analyzing Mandarin A-not-A questions. Contrary to Huang who argues that interrogative INFL can be lexically realized in Taiwanese kam, we would like to show that it is more convincing to argue that this abstract element is incarnated by mo in Hakka for two reasons.
Theoretically, an overt or covet element should yield the same semantic meaning.
Chinese A-not-A questions are a type of question without any presupposition. The speaker does not have the answer in mind in advance and the listener will answer the question based on his/her world knowledge but not according to some hints, such as intonation change from the speaker. Note that in Taiwanese, statements with kam are not a neural question.
When the speaker uses kam-question, he/she has already presented the presuppositions in his/her mind. Take (62) for example, the speaker expresses his attitude toward the topic of whether the man likes this woman. By using kam-questions, he/she has already shown that he does not believe the man will like the woman.
(62) i kam ga-i i? (Taiwanese) he Q like her
8 Readers interested in kam-construction can refer to Lau (2010).
‘Is it true that he like this girl?’
In addition, I have provide five pieces of evidence in section 2.4 to demonstrate the affinity between Hakka VP-mo questions and A-not-A questions. These similarities lead us to draw a conclusion that interrogative INFL is lexically realized in Hakka mo.
2.6 Negation mang
As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, mang generally shares the same syntactic distribution with mo. Though VP-mang is not a type of A-not-A questions, I would like to demonstrate that its derivation can still be accounted for by the NEG-to-I movement analysis. This indicates that our NEG-to-I movement is not restricted to VP-mo questions solely. In the following section, I demonstrate the syntactic distribution and semantic properties of mang first. Then the previous analysis of VP-mang will be introduced before I move to illustrate the derivation of VP-mang questions.
2.6.1 Syntactic distribution and Semantic properties
Like Hakka mo, mang can appear immediately before the verb or at the end of the
sentence. It can either serve as a sentential negation or a question marker9. Example (4a)
In terms of mang, it is hard to find a word-to-word correspondence in other Chinese dialects, such as Mandarin or Taiwanese Southern Min.
9 Aside from preceding the verb and adding to the sentence final position so as to form a question, the negator mang can be inserted into a compound word. Example (1b) illustrates that mang appears in the middle of the
compound word siid ded ‘eat DED’. Interestingly, (1a) and (1b) share the same semantic meaning though the negation mang is located in different sentence positions. I leave this issue for further research
(1) a. ya-tiau giung-zeu mang siid ded.
this-CL banana NEG-yet eat DED
‘This banana is not ripe enough that we can not eat.’
b. ya-tiau giung-zeu siid mang ded.
this-CL banana eat NEG-yet DED
‘This banana is not ripe enough that we can not eat.’
c. ya-tiau giung-zeu sidd ded mang?
this-CL banana eat DED NEG
‘Is this banana ripe enough?’
(65) ta hai-mei chi fan.
he yet-not eat rice
‘He hasn’t eaten yet’
(66) ta chi fan le-mei?
he eat rich Pref-NEG
‘Has he eaten yet?’
Additional evidence comes from a comparison between Taiwanese Southern Min and Hakka. It is shown in (67) and (68) that Hakka mang matches iau beu ‘not yet’ in Taiwanese Southern Min.
(67) a. li hit pun tsa khaoN-liao
iau bue?
you that CL book read-finish yet NEG?
‘Have you finished reading that book?’
b. ngi ge bun shu kung-ted
mang?
you that CL book read-finish yet-NEG
‘Have you finished reading that book?’
(68) a. i iau bue se sing-ku.
he yet-NEG wash body He hasn’t taken a bath.
b. gi mang se sinn?
he yet-NEG wash body
‘He hasn’t taken a bath.’
2.6.2 Previous analysis on VP-mang
In dealing with VP-mang questions, Lai (2005) argued that the underlying structure of VP-mang is formed by an affirmative sentence and a negative sentence. These two sentences are connected by coordinator yahe ‘or’. VP-mang is derived by deleting various constituents within the affirmative and the negative sentence. I demonstrate the derivation of gi sii fang mang ‘ has he eaten yet’ step by step here.
(69) a. Subject +you +VP(or NP)+e b. Subject +mang you +VP (or NP).
gi you siid fan e gi mang you siid fan
c. Subject +you +VP (or NP)+ e+ yahe+ Subject +mang you+ VP(or NP)?
gi you siid fan e yahe gi mang you siid fan delete the second Subject
d. Subject +you +VP (or NP)+ e+ yahe+ Subject +mang you+ VP(or NP)?
gi you siid fan e yahe gi mang you siid fan delete the second word of the coordinator
and the repeated VP e. Subject +you +VP (or NP) +ya+ +mang you+?
gi you siid fan ya mang you
delete the coordinator ‘ya’ and ‘you’
f. Subject VP (or NP) mang?
gi siid fan mang ?
(adapted from Lai, 2005:181)
I concur part of Lai’s analysis, but some problems make her analysis unattractive. It is possible to assume that the underlying structure of VP-mang is formed by an affirmative sentence and a negative sentence, but it is not reasonable to delete any part of the sentence without any theoretical basis. She does not elucidate the reason why some constitutes are deleted after another. Moreover, though she has mentioned that the negator mang in example (69f) moves directly from the pre-verbal position to the end of the sentence, she also does not clearly specify the intermediate or the final landing site of the negator mang. I attempt to provide a more elaborative derivation of VP-mang in my study.
2.6.3 Deriving VP-mang questions
Since Hakka negation mang has the similar syntactic distribution with Hakka mo, I am
going to illustrate that our NEG-I-C movement can not only account for VP-mo questions
(71) Step two: move the remaining IP to spec of C
CP
2.6 Summary
To sum up, in this chapter, I have dealt with two kinds of VP-NEG questions. For VP-mo questions, I argue that VP-mo questions are a type of A-not-A questions. Judging from its surface form, this argument seems not so convincing because there is no A-not-A form within VP-mo questions. However, I have shown that VP-mo questions behave like A-not-A questions in various ways. First, I demonstrated that VP-mo questions can not be answered by “Yes” or “No”; instead, the answer to the VP-mo questions needs to be the positive or negative form of the predicate. Secondly, VP-mo questions are not compatible with nandao’actually’ but daodi ‘truly’, which is one of the prominent characteristics of A-not-A questions. Third, like A-not-A questions, VP-mo questions are compatible with particles, such as ne and no in Mandarin Chinese and Hakka respectively. The last piece of evident is that VP-mo and A-not-A questions are both neutral questions. Speakers have no presupposition about the answer. Granted these similarities between VP-mo questions and A-not-A questions, I argue that mo is the overt realization of the Interrogative INFL. As for VP-mang questions, since the syntactic distribution of mang is similar to mo, I demonstrate that our NEG-I-C analysis can also apply to VP-mang questions as well.
Chapter Three
Classification of Hakka interrogatives
3.1 Overview
Few studies, to the best of my knowledge, have been done on Hakka interrogatives (Luo,1985; Chung,2000; Wang,2008).Our analysis on VP-NEG questions has important implications for the classification of Hakka interrogatives. In particular, I argue that previous analyses on Hakka A-not-A questions and particle questions need to be modified.
This chapter will be organized as follows: I begin by reviewing Chung’s work on the general overview of Hakka interrogatives. Then, differing from the previous classification, I will show that mo-interrogatives should not be viewed as particle questions in section 4.3.
Moreover, I provide evidence to support my view that the apparent Hakka A-not-A questions as claimed in the literature actually belong to alternative questions in section 4.4.
Besides, I discuss the inherent reason why [you...mo] construction noted in the previous literature can be treated as A-not-A questions. An interesting phenomenon will be demonstrated in section 4.5 as one piece of evidence for the existence of trace due to the application of ellipsis in various alternative questions. Finally I will conclude this chapter in section 4.6.
3.2 Previous Classification of Hakka interrogatives
Like other Chinese dialects, Hakka has several types of interrogative sentences, including particle questions, alternative questions and wh-questions. Luo’s (1984) book on Hakka Grammar identified six types of interrogatives. Later in Chung’s (2000) work, he refines Luo’s classification and points out that there are four types of interrogatives in Hakka. I will discuss each type in turn. As displayed in (1) to (6), basically, Hakka
wh-questions have the same syntactic property with Mandarin Chinese, in which they are
formed by leaving a wh-word or wh-phrase in-situ rather than moving such an interrogative constituent to a clause-initial position as in English.
(1) ng hi si-cong mai
ma-ge?
you go traditional market buy
what
‘What did you buy in the traditional market?’
(2) ng hi si-cong du-do
ma-ngin?
you go traditional market meet who
‘Who did you meet in the traditional market?’
(3) nai -kiu oi hi kuan a-gong?
when
will go see grandpa‘When do we go to visit grandpa?’
(4) iong-e zhong zo-ted da koi?
how adv can bite open
‘How can I open this?’
(5) gi zuo-ma-ge oi gio-zhi?
he why want cry
‘Why does he cry?’
(6) ng he-do
nai-vi?
he live where
‘Where does he live?’
The second type of Hakka interrogatives is called particle questions. It is constructed by simply adding a particle to the sentence-final position of the declarative sentences.
Compared with Mandarin Chinese, Hakka has more than twenty kinds of sentence final particles (Li, 2006; Cheng, 2007). In Chung’s work, he briefly mentioned that different question particles will have different pragmatic functions as illustrated in example (7).
Furthermore, he pointed out that VP-mo questions belong to particle questions. Specifically, for him, Hakka mo is on a par with Mandarin ma.
(7) gi zo-ded hi gung-ien gao mo/ho/ka?
he can go park play particle
‘Can he go to the park?’
Examples (8) and (9) illustrate characteristics of alternatives questions. In alternative questions, there will be two or more than two choices for the listener to choose from. And those options will be combined with a coordinator jahe.
(8) ng oi siid fang jehe siid miang?
You want eat rice or eat noodle
‘Which one would you want to eat, rice or noodles?’
(9) ng hi-fon cong-go-e tiau-vu jahe vag-tu
you like sing dance or draw
‘Which one do you like, sing, dance or draw?’
Last, Chung mentioned that the canonical example of Hakka A-not-A interrogative sentences is formed by a positive element disjoined with its negative counterpart with the ya morpheme, as exemplified in (10) to (12).
(10) ng fuang-xi ya m fuang-xi?
You happy or not happy ‘Do you feel happy?’
(11) ya liang shangfu ngi oi mai
ya mo oi
mai?this CL clothes you want buy or not want buy?
“Do you want to buy this clothe?”
(12) ya bun shu ngi zhong-i ya m zhong-i?
this CL book you like or not like?
‘Do you like this book?’
3.3 Genuine Particles
In this section, I am going to show that sentences with mo in the final position should not be treated on par with Mandarin ma. Let us consider Mandarin ma questions first, as shown in examples (13) and (14), the particle ma can be attached to both affirmative and negative statements.
(13) nainai xihuan zhe-ge nuhai ma?
grandma like this-CL girl particle
‘Does grandma like this girl?’
(14) nainai bu xihuan zhe-ge nuhai ma?
grandma not like this-CL girl particle?
‘Doesn’t grandma like this girl?’
However, a sharp contrast can be observed in Hakka mo questions. Hakka mo is not fully grammaticalized to a pure particle just as ma in Mandarin Chinese. Hence, unlike particle questions, mo-interrogatives require the predicate to be affirmative, as represented in (15).
Example (16) demonstrates that mo is unable to be used in a negative sentence. But, if we change negation mo into a genuine particle ho, it would turn an ungrammatical sentence into a grammatical sentence.
(15) apo zhongi ya-ge se-moi-e mo?
grandma like this-CL girl NEG?
‘Does grandma like this girl?’
(16) apo m zhongi ya-ge se –moi-e *mo/ho?
grandma not like this-CL girl *NEG/particle?
‘Doesn’t grandma like this girl’
3.4Genuine A-not-A questions
A few scholars approach Hakka A-not-A questions in a descriptive fashion (Chung, 2000; Tsai, 2002; Wang, 2008). In this section, I would like to argue against previous works on viewing two types of construction as A-not-A questions.
3.4.1 X-ya-m-X≠A-not-A
I argue that it is problematic to view X-ya-m-X questions as a type of A-not-A
questions in Hakka. I will use two tests proposed by Huang (1991) and MaCawly (1994) respectively to test the X-ya-m-X interrogative questions. Huang (1991) pointed out that the true A-not-A questions exhibit systematic island properties with respect to their distribution and interpretation, whereas haishi-questions are free from island constraints. Now let’s consider the Mandarin Chinese data first and then examine the Hakka data. In Mandarin Chinese, haishi questions can occur within the island, such as sentential subject islands or relative clause islands, without inducing any island violation. In (17), we have
hasishi-questions within the sentential subject and in (18) we have haishi-questions inside
the relative clauses. All of them are grammatical sentences.
(17) [wo qu Meiguo haishi bu qu Meiguo ] bijiao hao?
I go American or not go American more good?
‘Is it better that I go to American or that I do not go to American?’
(18) ni xihuang [renshi ni haishi bu renshi ni] de ren?
you like know you or not know you DE person?
‘Do you like people who know you or people who don’t know you?’
Nevertheless, if we locate A-not-A questions inside the island, this will yield ungrammatical sentences, as shown in (19) and (20).
(19) *[wo qu bu qu Meiguo] bijiao hao?
I go not go American more good?
‘Is it better that I go to American or not?’
(20) *ni xihuan [renshi bu renshi ni de ren]?
You like know not know you DE person?
‘Do you like people who know you or don’t know you?’
Since we know that haishi-questions differ from true A-not-A questions in their sensitivity to island constraints. Thus, I am going to show that X-ya-m-X is not a true A-not-A questions due to the reason that it is not constrained by the two islands noted above.
The following examples demonstrate X-ya-m-X can appear in sentential subject islands and relative clause islands , the same as haishi-quesiton in Mandarin Chinese.
(21) gi hi ya m hi miguo ka ho?
he go or not go American more good
‘Is it better that I go to American or that I do not go to American?’
(22) ngi hifon ngica ya m ngica ngi ge nin?
You like know or not know you DE person?
‘Do you like people who know you or don’t know you?’
Another test comes from McCawley (1994), who observed that when positive and negative elements are conjoined by haishi, the order of these two conjuncts is free. However, a true A-not-A question strictly requires A to occur before Not A.
(23) Ta daodi lai (haishi) bu lai?
He truly come (or) not come
‘Let me get to the answer: will he come or not?’
(24) Ta daodi bu lai *(haishi) lai?
He truly not come or come
‘Let me get to the answer: will he come or not?’
Again, based on MaCawley’s observation, it is shown that Hakka X-ya-m-X questions
can reorder the two elements.
(25) ngi cidou ya dong vog-e jiong ya m jiong?
you think this CL house pretty or not pretty
‘Do you think this is a big house or not?
(26) ngi cidou ya dong vug-e m jiong ya jiong?
You think this CL house not pretty or pretty
‘Do you think this is a big house or not?’
(27) ngi xifon ya m xifon ya bu tianyang?
You like or not like this CL movie
‘Do you like this movie or not?’
(28) ngi m xifon ya xifon ya bu tiangyang?
You not like or like this CL movie
‘Do you like this movie or not?’
Following my analysis, it is clear that the examples discussed in the previous works behave like alternative questions. That is because ya serves as a coordinator in connecting a positive constituent with its negative counterpart. Questions with a overt disjunctive coordinator should not be seen as genuine A-not-A questions.
3.4.2 you...mo≠A…… not-A
When negation marker mo is used as a question marker, it is usually paired with its affirmative counterpart you, as shown in (29) to (30). Under this circumstance, Tsai (2002) pointed out that in Hakka, as A-not-A questions are concerned, the affirmative part (A) and the negative part (not-A) are separated. Specifically, the negative part (not-A) does not immediately follow the affirmative part (A); instead, the negative part is located in the sentence final position.
(29) gi you zi vug-ga mo?
he have at home NEG
‘Is he at home?’
(30) ng
you
oi himo?
you have want go NEG
‘Do you want to go?’
I agree with part of Tsai’s argument in which examples (29) and (30) can be regarded as A-not-A questions, but the reason why (29) and (30) can be treated as A-not-A questions is because mo is the overt realization of Interrogative INFL not because you serves as positive element (A) and mo serves as negative element (not-A).
The paradigm in (31) illustrates that in Mandarin, A-not-A questions should include both a positive element (A) and a negative element (not A). Absence of either A part or not-A part will convert the A-not-A question into a declarative sentence, as demonstrated in (31b) and (31c).
(31)
a. ta xihuan bu xihuan zhe ge nvsheng? (A-not-A)
he like not like this CL girl.
‘Does he like this girl or doesn’t he like this girl?’
b. ta xihuan zhe ge nvsheng.
he like this CL girl
‘He likes this girl.’
c. ta bu xihuan zhe ge nvsheng.
he not like this CL girl
‘He doesn’t like this girl.’
Now, let us consider Hakka [you……mo] construction. If you serves as A part, the
absence of you will convert the question into a declarative sentence. However, examples (32) and (33) show that it is not obligatory for you to appear in [you……mo] construction. The absence of you does not either render the sentence ungrammatical or make the original
absence of you will convert the question into a declarative sentence. However, examples (32) and (33) show that it is not obligatory for you to appear in [you……mo] construction. The absence of you does not either render the sentence ungrammatical or make the original