CCs, which are traditionally said to be syntactically embedded, formally marked as dependent clauses, and semantically integrated in a superordinate clause, function as subjects or objects of the matrix clause predicate. In spoken Mandarin, the matrix clause of a complementation structure is always short and formulaic, and the CC expresses the main proposition of the whole utterance (Huang, 2003). The construction with the CC is dominated by a number of lexically specific syntactic patterns and schemas. To be more specific, different types of matrix verbs occur with different types of CCs. When a CC takes the subject position of a matrix clause, it occurs with a very limited number of complement-taking verbs. According to Tsao (1990), verbs taking complement in subject positions contain all one-place verbs, which can be subdivided into two types: raising predicates, which allow topics involved in the subordinate clause to be raised, and non-raising predicates, which do not allow topics included in the embedded clause to be raised. Within these two kinds of verbs, raising predicates are much more common; in other words, the majority of the CCs in subject positions co-occur with raising predicates (Li & Thompson, 1981).
Example (1) lists possible sentences involving the raising predicate heshi
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‘appropriate.’ (1a) is the same as its underlying structure, while (1b), in which the subject NP in the CCs are raised as a topic, is the derivation form from the underlying structure. The object NP in the CCs can also be raised as a topic only when the subject NP in the CCs is also raised, as shown in (1c). By contrast, Example (2) shows that no topics can be raised when the matrix verb is a non-raising verb, like meiyong ‘useless.’
(1) Raising Predicate Taking a Statement as its Subject a. Women kan dianying bu heshi.
we see movie not appropriate
‘It is not appropriate for us to see a movie.’
b. Women bu heshi kan dianying.
we not appropriate see movie
‘For us, it is not appropriate to see a movie.’
c. Dianying, women bu heshi kan.
movie we not appropriate see
‘About movie, it is not appropriate for us to see it.’
(2) Non-raising Predicate Taking a Statement as its Subject a. Ni guang du shu meiyong.
you merely read book useless
‘That you merely read books is of no use.’
b. *Ni meiyong guang du shu.
you useless merely read book
‘That you merely read books is of no use.’
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c. *Shu meiyong ni guang du.
book useless you merely read
‘That you merely read books is of no use.’
As presented in the examples, the subject CC can be in the form of a statement.
Apart from statements, questions, including disjunctive questions, A-not-A questions and WH-questions, can also constitute CCs. Example (3) and (4) show respectively that either the base structure containing a raising predicate or the structure containing a non-raising predicate allows the three types of questions to occupy the subject position. Nevertheless, when topics are raised in the structure of the raising predicate, A-not-A questions will result in ungrammaticality, as shown in (5).1
(3) Raising Predicate Taking a Question as its Subject (Base Form) a. Disjunctive Question as the CC
Women kan dianying haishi ting yinyuehui bu heshi?
we see movie or hear concert not appropriate
‘Is it not appropriate for us to see a movie or to hear a concert?’
b. A-not-A Question as the CC
Women kan-bu-kan dianying dou bu heshi.
we see-not-see movie all not appropriate
‘It is not appropriate whether we see a movie or not.’
c. WH-Question as the CC
Shei kan dianying bu heshi?
who see movie not appropriate
‘For whom is it not appropriate to see a movie?’
1 The A-not-A questions used as the CCs in the study were neutral yes-no questions, that is, not real questions searching for answers, as can be seen from (3b) or (4b), in which dou ‘all’ seems to be required in the sentence.
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(4) Non-raising Predicate Taking a Question as its Subject a. Disjunctive Question as the CC
Ni guang du shu haishi ting yanjiang meiyong?
you merely read book or listen lecture useless
‘Is it of no use that you merely read books or listen to lectures?’
b. A-not-A Question as the CC
Ni du-bu-du shu (dou) meiyong.
you read-not-read book all useless
‘It is of no use whether you read books or not.’
c. WH-Question as the CC Shie du shu meiyong?
who read book useless
‘For whom is it of no use to read books?’
(5) Raising Predicate Taking a Question as its Subject (Topicalized Form) a. *Women bu heshi kan-bu-kan dianying.
we not appropriate see-not-see movie
‘For us, it is not appropriate to see a movie or not.’
b. *Dianying women bu heshi kan-bu-kan.
movie we not appropriate see-not-see
‘About movie, it is not appropriate for us to see it or not.’
Compared to CCs in the subject position, CCs as objects of the matrix clause can follow a great number of verbs. These verbs can be categorized into four groups:
verbs of locution, such as shuo ‘speak/say,’ tidao ‘mention’ and xuanbu ‘announce,’
verbs of cognition, such as zhidao ‘know,’ faxian ‘find out,’ kan ‘see’ and jide
‘remember,’ verbs of imagination, such as yiwei ‘assume,’ xiang ‘think,’ juede ‘feel,’
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xiaode ‘understand’ and xiwang ‘hope,’ as well as verbs of inquiry, such as wen ‘ask,’
diaocha ‘investigate’ and taolun ‘discuss’ (Tsao, 1990). The verbs of each group can be further divided into subtypes, which determine the types of CCs following them.
To put it briefly, apart from verbs of inquiry, verbs in other three classes can take both statement and question as object. However, two subtypes of verbs of imagination, viz.
verbs of approval and hope-fear, cannot co-occur with A-not-A questions.2 The most commonly used verbs are juede ‘feel/think,’ zhidao ‘know,’ kan ‘see/think,’ xiang
‘think/think about/intend to,’ xiaode ‘understand,’ xiwang ‘hope,’ wen ‘ask,’ yiwei
‘assume,’ faxian ‘find out,’ and jide ‘remember’ (Huang, 2003). The majority of the verbs, belonging to the epistemic semantic type, fall in the types of cognition, imagination and inquiry.
In brief, in Mandarin, complex sentences with CCs can be divided into constructions with left-branching CCs and constructions with right-branching CCs.
The CCs of either branching direction can be subdivided into statement CCs and question CCs. Since the surface structures of statements and questions in Mandarin are identical, namely, NVN, complex sentences with CCs only consist of two surface structures on the basis of branching directions: for those with left-branching CCs, [CC
NVN]V, where the NVN series conforms to SVO word order, and for those with
2 Verbs of locution can be further grouped into the say-type verbs, taking no unmarked indirect object (e.g., shuo ‘speak/say,’ jiang ‘speak,’ tidao ‘mention,’ baogao ‘report’ and baozheng ‘guarantee’) and the tell-type verbs, taking a statement as a direct object and an unmarked indirect object (e.g., gaosu
‘tell,’ huida ‘answer’ and jinggao ‘warn’). Verbs of cognition, such as zhidao ‘know,’ jide ‘remember,’
wangle ‘forgot,’ xiangdao ‘think of,’ kanjian ‘see,’ and tingjian ‘hear,’ etc., take objects denoting matters presupposed to be facts. Unlike verbs of cognition, verbs of imagination do not take complements that denote facts but ideas, plans, hopes or misconceptions that are related to an act of imagination. Verbs belong to this class can be subdivided into four types: verbs of judgment (e.g., jueding ‘decide,’ renwei ‘regard as’ and cai ‘guess), verbs of approval (e.g., tongyi ‘agree,’ fandui
‘oppose,’ piping ‘criticise,’ huanying ‘welcome’ and guanxin ‘be concerned about’), verbs of thinking-feeling (e.g., xiang ‘think,’ gandao ‘feel’ and mengdao ‘dream of’), and verbs of hope-fear (e.g., xiwang ‘hope,’ danxin ‘worry,’ taoyan ‘dislike’ and xihuan ‘like’). Verbs of inquiry can only take questions as their objects. They can be categorized into two types: ask-type verbs, taking an indirect object (e.g., wen ‘ask,’ diaocha ‘investigate’ and panwen ‘interrogate’), and test-type verbs, taking no indirect object (e.g., cai ‘guess,’ taolun ‘discuss’ and tantao ‘inquire’).
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right-branching CCs, NV[CC NVN], where the last NVN series conforms to SVO word order.
Regarding the branching direction effect on acquisition, there are two predictions in accordance with diverse theories. According to Bever (1970), Dryer (1992) and Goodluck (1991), who proposed that the consistency of the branching direction between complex structures and the nature basic syntax of the language causes less processing difficulties, one prediction is that in Mandarin, generally considered left branching, the CC in the left-branching position of a matrix clause is easier to process than the CC in the right-branching position. However, as Huang (1982), Huang and Li (1995) and many others have pinpointed out that in Mandarin complex sentences with CCs belong to the head-initial construction, it is also expected that right-branching CCs bear less processing difficulty than left-branching CCs. This prediction is somehow suggested by the fact that right-branching CCs can follow a great number of verbs, while left-branching CCs only occur with a very limited number of verbs. As for the effect of the CC types, although the word order of statements and that of questions in Mandarin are the same in the surface structure, the questions still undergo covert movement in the logical structure, that is, the movement of the wh-phrase or interrogative feature. Therefore, the questions should carry more burdens to process than statements.
These different processing difficulties resulted from the divergent linguistic properties of the CCs in disparate branching positions or those of diverse CC types may bring divergent influences to acquisition.