Late merger of shaowei ‘slightly’ resolves the conflict

It appears that yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ and shaowei ‘slightly’ can never form a constituent at the position in which yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ is initially merged.

4.2.2.3 Late merger of shaowei ‘slightly’ resolves the conflict

The X shaowei A Y yi-dianer/yi-xie comparative exhibits properties that can not be easily accommodated in a single structure. In particular, there is convincing syntactic evidence that shaowei ‘slightly’ is the complement of yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’. However, there is also strong evidence that shaowei ‘slightly’ and yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ never appear together as a constituent.

Before we illustrate the architecture of the shaowei A Y yi-dianer/yi-xie comparative in some more detail, one point deserves particular clarification in connection with yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’. The measure phrase yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’

is interpreted as a quantificational expression which measures part of the scale associated with the adjective (cf. Schwarzchild and Wilkinson 2002). Under fairly standard assumptions, quantificational expressions undergo QR; similarly, yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ may be analyzed as moving to a scope position. However,

there are arguments against QR in Mandarin Chinese. The first argument is Huang’s (1982) isomorphism on the determination of scope relations between quantifiers.⁴ Although the English sentence in (77) is ambiguous in allowing the two readings represented in (78a-b), its Chinese counterpart in (76) cannot be so construed. The subject QP must take scope over the object QP in example (76). In other words, S-structure positions seem to determine the quantifier scopes in Mandarin Chinese.

(76) Mei-ge-ren dou ai yi-ge-ren. (unambiguous) quantificational phrases may take the wide-scope reading but manifest no island effects in various island constructions such as the complex NP in (79).

(79) Wo nian-le [_NP [_CP mei-ge-jiaoshou tuijian e_i] de shu_i]. (Yang 2002:14) I read-Asp every-CL-professor recommend DE book

4 The Chinese sentence in (76), contrary to its English counterpart in (77), is unambiguous. Huang (1982) accounts for such a contrast by postulating the existence of an Isomorphic Principle and assuming a difference in the restructuring possibilities between English and Chinese:

(i) The Isomorphic Principle

Suppose A and B are QPs. Then if A c-commands B at S-structure, A c-commands B at LF.

Restructuring nullifies the effect of the Isomorphic Principle in English but is prohibited by the phrase structure rules in Chinese. Therefore, English does not exhibit the effect of the Isomorphic Principle while Chinese does.

‘For every professor x, there is a book y recommended by x, such that I have read y.’ (wide-scope reading)

To account for the lack of scope ambiguity and island effects, quantificational phrases in Mandarin Chinese should be treated as variables which stay in-situ and whose scope marking and interpretation are determined by quantificational operators introduced by Merger at the sentential level following Tsai’s (1999) Lexical Courtesy Hypothesis (LCH).⁵ Therefore, instead of undergoing QR, the quantificational expression yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ is treated as a variable which is bound by a covert quantificational operator whose position marks the exact scope of yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’.

Turning now to the architecture of the shaowei A Y yi-dianer/yi-xie comparative, we propose that the conflicting evidence concerning the constituency of yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ and shaowei ‘slightly’ can be reconciled by positing that shaowei ‘slightly’ is merged late. Specifically, we propose that shaowei ‘slightly’ is merged countercyclically as the complement of the covert quantificational operator binding yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’, which is treated as a variable, after the covert quantificational operator adjoins in a scope position. The selectional restrictions between yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ and shaowei ‘slightly’ obtain because shaowei

‘slightly’ is merged as an argument to the covert quantificational operator binding yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’, which is treated as a variable. This approach allows us to derive the fact that there is a correlation between the surface position of the degree adverb shaowei ‘slightly’ and the semantic scope of the measure phrase

5 Tsai (1999) proposes a minimalist account with his Lexical Courtesy Hypothesis (LCH) in (i) to deal with the wh-dependency conditions in terms of Economy.

(i) Lexical Courtesy Hypothese (LCH)

If a language may introduce an operator by Merger, it will not resort to Chain formation.

yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’. The lack of adjacency effects between shaowei ‘slightly’ and yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ follows from the fact that yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’ is pronounced in situ.

In its essentials, this proposal follows Bhatt and Pancheva’s (2004) analysis that the degree clause is merged countercyclically, after –er moves covertly to its scope position, and Liu’s (2007) analysis that the X A (Y) D comparative contains the weak covert verbal suffix –guo2.

The architecture of the X shaowei A Y yi-dianer/yi-xie comparative is illustrated in some more detail as follows. The adjective gao ‘tall’ in (80) is merged with its NP complement yi-dianer ‘a little’ to form the A-bar gao yi-dianer ‘tall a-little’, and this A-bar in turn merges with the NP Zhaoying ‘Zhaoying’ to form the AP structure Zhaoying gao yi-dianer ‘Zhaoying tall a-little’. This AP then merges as the complement of the covert exceeding verbal suffix (i.e. -ex) to form the Ex-bar. The resulting Ex-bar structure is then merged with the subject Wangwu ‘Wangwu’ to form the ExP, as shown in (81).

(80) Wangwu shaowei gao Zhaoying yi-dianer.

Wangwu slightly tall Zhaoying a-little ‘Wangwu is a little bit taller than Zhaoying.’

(81) ExP

NP Ex’

N Ex AP

Wangwu -ex NP A’

N A NP

Zhaoying gao N

yi-dianer

The measure phrase yi-dianer ‘a little’ is then treated as a variable bound by a covert quantificational operator. The covert quantificational operator is assumed to adjoin in a scope position, that is, it adjoins to ExP, as shown in (82).

(82) ExP

NPi ExP

N NP Ex’

OPi N Ex AP

Wangwu -ex NP A’

N A NP

Zhaoying gao N

yi-dianer_i

The degree adverb shaowei ‘slightly’ is then merged as the complement of the covert quantificational operator, as in (83).

(83) ExP

NPi ExP

N’ NP Ex’

N AdvP N Ex AP

OPi Adv Wangwu -ex NP A’

shaowei N A NPi

Zhaoying gao N

yi-dianeri

The ExP is then merged with the T to form the T-bar. The adjective gao ‘tall’

originates as the head A of AP, and then raises up to adjoin to the covert verbal suffix –ex heading ExP due to the affixal feature of –ex; the subject Wangwu

‘Wangwu’ in turn originates in spec-ExP, and subsequently the [EPP] and φ-features of the T trigger raising of the subject into [Spec, TP], deriving the structure (84) below (where the dotted arrows show movements which have taken place in the course of the derivation). The analysis in (84) correctly specifies the word order in (80) Wangwu shaowei gao Zhaoying yi-dianer ‘Wangwu is a little bit taller than Zhaoying’.

(84) TP

NP T’

N T …ExP

Wangwu

NPi ExP

N’ NP Ex’

N ADVP N Ex AP

OPi ADV Wangwu gao-ex NP A’

shaowei N A NPi

Zhaoying gao N

yi-dianeri

In this section, the basics of the proposal regarding the architecture of the X shaowei A Y yi-dianer/yi-xie comparative have been illustrated at length. The two crucial aspects of the proposal―countercyclic merger and adjunction of a covert quantificational operator―are operations that have been independently proposed and are well justified. The contribution of this proposal is to relate these two ideas in a way that resolves the contradictory evidence with respect to the structure of the X shaowei A Y yi-dianer/yi-xie comparative and directly relates the surface position of the degree adverb shaowei ‘slightly’ with the scope of the measure phrase yi-dianer/yi-xie ‘a little’. The following two sections are devoted to presenting detailed evidence in support of the proposal for late merger of shaowei ‘slightly’ in the X shaowei A Y yi-dianer/yi-xie comparative.