4. Findings and Analysis
4.1.4 Intonational Phrase and the Foot
國
立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
optionally includes the nearest clitic group on the nonrecursive side within Xmax to form a PhP. However, when the recursive side branches, the optional inclusion of the complement is blocked. This may suggest a tendency of the heads forming PhPs more towards the nonrecursive side than towards the recursive side in general.
4.1.4 Intonational Phrase and the Foot
Based on the revised definition of the PhP in (57), reproduced as (71) below, for VPs that contain branching nonrecursive sides, PhPs that cannot convey complete semantic content by themselves, such as zong3 tong3 fu3 zou3 “walk, Presidential Office”, are derived, because the head zou3 “walk” forms a PhP with the nearest C zong3 tong3 fu3 “Presidential Office”, as in (72). According to Nespor & Vogel
(1986), the boundaries of an IP are the positions for potential natural pauses; and that an IP is constructed by one or more PhPs. If that is the case, then we might produce the IP phrasing in (72). However, the IP phrasing does not sound natural because the IP zong3 tong3 fu3 zou3 “walk, Presidential Office” does not denote a complete meaning on its own. More IPs that are constructed on PhPs like this are found in (73), and a revision of the IP construction rule is called for in order to produce natural IP breaks.
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(71) The phonological phrase construction and reconstruction rule
a) If the nonrecursive side does not branch in terms of its phonological phrase structure on the PhP level, the head X obligatorily contains all the Cs on its nonrecursive side within Xmax to form a PhP.
b) If the nonrecursive side branches in terms of its phonological phrase structure on the PhP level, the head X optionally adjoins the nearest C on its nonrecursive side within Xmax to form a PhP.
c) The PhP optionally adjoins the first nonbranching complement on the recursive side to form a larger PhP.
(72) “Please walk toward the Presidential Office.”
qing3 wang3 zong3 tong3 fu3 zou3
In the corpus, the total number of VPs containing a branching nonrecursive side is 140, in which 24% of the verb heads form PhPs with the nearest C on the branching nonrecursive side; whereas, 76% of them do not, as shown in (73). This indicates that 24% of the PhPs may independently construct IPs that do not convey complete meanings.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
(73) VPs containing a branching nonrecursive side
1C/1C+0 RE/1C+opt. RE Others Total No. of V heads
24% (33) 76% (107) 140 (100%)
If an IP is simply made of one or more PhPs, pausings such as those in (74) may occur, which sound less natural than those in (75). Thus, in order to prevent unnatural pausing, the semantic aspect of the IP must be considered in the definition. In drawing on Selkirk (1984)’s SUC, mentioned in (10) and recaptured as (76), the difference between the pausings in (74) and (75) can be explained. The boldfaced PhPs in (74) do not satisfy the head-argument or the modifier-modified relations required by the SUC, while those in (75) do. For instance, the IP zong3 tong3 fu3 zou3 “walk, Presidential Office” in (74a) violates the SUC in that the modifier (wang3 zong3 tong3 fu3 “toward the Presidential Office”) is not completely included in the same IP
with the modified verb zou3 “walk”, so the PhPs (wang3 “toward” and zong3 tong3 fu3 zou3 “Presidential Office, walk”) should be combined to form an IP (as in (75a))
that conveys a complete modifier-modified relation.
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“Please walk toward the Presidential Office.”
b Lao3 Li3 / qing3 / biao3 jie3 / wang3 / bei3 zou3
“Old Li asks Cousin to walk toward the north.”
c biao3 jie3 / ba3 / ye3 gou3 gei3 / lao3 ban3
“Cousin gives wild dogs to Boss.”
d Lao3 Li3 / qing3 / biao3 jie3 / wang3 / bei3 zhao3 / Li3 xiao3 jie3
“Old Li asks Cousin to find Miss Li toward the north.”
(75) More natural pausing
a qing3 / wang3 zong3 tong3 fu3 zou3
“Please walk toward the Presidential Office.”
b Lao3 Li3 / qing3 / biao3 jie3 / wang3 bei3 zou3
“Old Li asks Cousin to walk toward the north.”
c biao3 jie3 / ba3 ye3 gou3 gei3 / lao3 ban3
“Cousin gives wild dogs to Boss.”
d Lao3 Li3 / qing3 / biao3 jie3 / wang3 bei3 zhao3 / Li3 xiao3 jie3
“Old Li asks Cousin to find Miss Li toward the north.”
(76) Sense Unit Condition
Two constituents Ci, Cj form a sense unit if (a) or (b) is true of the semantic interpretation of the sentence:
a. Ci modifies Cj (a head).
b. Ci is an argument of Cj (a head).
Now that we have prevented PhPs that violate the SUC from forming IPs by themselves, there is still another type of PhPs that does not form natural IPs—that is, the monosyllabic PhPs. The monosyllabic PhPs are the verb heads that form PhPs with neither the nonrecursive nor the recursive side, as shown in (77). In (77a), the
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
verb head qing3 “ask” does not have any Cs on its nonrecursive side within Xmax, and its complement is branching. In (77b), the verb heads zhao3 “find” and mai3 “buy” do not have any Cs on their nonrecursive sides within Xmax, and they do not include their complements because the inclusion is optional as stated in (57). Hence, these phrasings produce monosyllabic PhPs. The monosyllabic PhPs account for 28% of the verb heads in the corpus, as shown in (78).
(77) Monosyllabic VPs (The asterisked IPs are deemed unnatural.)
a. “Old Li asks Cousin to walk toward the north”
Lao3 Li3 qing3 biao3 jie3 wang3 bei3 zou3
UT 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
PhWd-D (2 3) (3) (2 3) (3) (3) (3)
C-D (2 3) (3) (2 3) (3) (3) (3)
PhP-D (2 3) (3) (2 3) (3) (2 3)
*IP-D (2 3) (3) (2 3) (3) (2 3)
IP-D (1) (2 2 3) (2 2 3 2 3)
Inf. 1, 2&4 2 2 3 2 2 3 2 3
IP-D (2) (2 3) (3 2 3) (3 2 3)
Inf. 3 2 3 3 2 3 3 2 3
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b. “President Ma finds Old Li to buy wine”
Ma3 zong3 tong3 zhao3 Lao3 Li3 mai3 jiu3
(78) The number of V heads that form monosyllabic PhPs
0 RE / 0 NON / 0 C(s) on NON + 0 RE Others Total No. of V heads
28% (162) 72% (422) 100% (584)
However, since the definition of a sense unit states that a single constituent can form a sense unit, the exclusion of monosyllabic PhPs to form independent IPs cannot be explained by the SUC. This necessitates another restriction on the minimal length of an IP.
As Hsiao (1991) mentioned, the foot, different from the prosodic hierarchy, belongs to the metrical hierarchy that operates foot formation cyclically within the PhP domain and the IP domain. This thesis proposes a similar viewpoint that the metrical categories (i.e. the syllable and the foot) and the prosodic categories (i.e. the PhWd, the C, the PhP and the IP) belong to different hierarchies, but TS does not apply to the foot domain. It cyclically applies from the PhWd domain to the IP
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
domain. The foot functions to restrict the minimal length of the PhP or the IP domains, depending on which level TS applies last. The restriction of the foot on the minimal length of TS domain is specified in (79).
(79) Foot formation condition
a) Foot formation forbids monosyllabic phonological domains.
b) If TS applies up to the PhP level, foot formation combines a monosyllabic PhP with the nearest PhP that the monosyllabic PhP c-commands, in order to prevent
monosyllabic PhP domains.
c) If TS applies up to the IP level, foot formation combines a monosyllabic IP with the other IP(s) according to the SUC, in order to prevent monosyllabic PhP domains.
The phenomenon that monosyllabic PhPs are forbidden to form IPs can be accounted for by (79a) and (79c). Further, since the corpus data were collected at a very fast speech rate (at least 200 bpm), the final prosodic level to which TS applies is assumed to be the IP level, so the restriction dictated in (79c) does not affect the formation of the PhPs, and that monosyllabic PhPs cannot be forbidden by this rule on the PhP level, as seen in the monosyllabic PhP domains of qing3 in (77a) and zhao3 and mai3 “buy” in (77b). On the IP level, these PhPs are forced to combine with other PhP(s) to form various multisyllabic IPs as long as the IPs satisfy the SUC, as seen in IP-D (1)-(2) in (77a) and IP-D (1)-(3) in (77b).
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Nevertheless, if the speech rate is slower, the final prosodic level to which TS applies is assumed to be the PhP level. If that is the case, foot formation condition will operate on the PhP level to combine each monosyllabic PhP with the nearest PhP that it c-commands, as specified in (79b). An illustration is shown in (80). In this structure, the monosyllabic PhP is allowed by the PhP construction and reconstruction rule in (57), because the head mai3 “buy” does not have any Cs on the nonrecursive side within Xmax, and the inclusion of the complement shou3 tao4 “gloves” is optional. At
a slower speech rate, TS applies up to the PhP level, so the monosyllabic PhP mai3
“buy” should be restricted by (79b) to combine with shou3 tao4 “gloves”, which is
the nearest PhP mai3 “buy” c-commands, so as to derive a natural slow reading.
(80) “Old Li buys gloves.”
To conclude, an IP is believed to consist of one or more PhPs, but the construction of an IP should also be restricted by the foot formation condition as stated in (79). The definition and restriction of the IP provided in this thesis under the combined framework of the prosodic hierarchy, SUC and the foot formation condition
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
show that the formation of an IP does involve many aspects of the grammar, including syntax, prosody, metrics and semantics etc., as pointed out by (Tooley, Konopka &
Watson, 2014). Thus, the elusive nature of the IP is successfully captured.