Li (2007a, b) proposes that NO in Chinese is a True Empty Position (TEP), which is ‘an empty position devoid of any material, coming into existence only to fulfill subcategorization requirements’ (Li 2007b:37). In other words, a TEP exists because the empty position is not filled by any item from the Lexicon, including empty pronouns. This makes TEP a last resort strategy when the subcategorization requirement requires an object to be present but no element from the recognized inventory of empty categories can occupy the position. The missing part is truly empty—a TEP. The proposal of TEP is intended to provide a unified account to all NOC, Aux construction and Shi construction (see note four). For instance, in an Aux construction, if an auxiliary subcategorized a verb phrase as its complement, the elided complement is a VP; it is not a nominal category and is not a variable or a pro in the standard sense, which is a nominal category. On Li’s analysis, it is a TEP with VP form. We will soon examine whether or not TEP works for NOC.
How is such a TEP interpreted? Li suggests that the interpretative requirement is met by copying at LF the materials from a linguistic antecedent or the
8 Ai follows Xu and Langendeon (1985) to argue that a discourse topic is the topic which is linguistically mentioned or implied previously by a speaker.
discourse/pragmatic context, if a linguistic antecedent is not available. Just as Xu’s (1986) FEC, TEP resorts to pragmatics and therefore allows freer interpretations. For example, Li notes that although (41), as Huang argued, can most naturally be interpreted as coreferent with a discourse topic, (41) can allow the possibility of coreferential NO with subject. (42) contains such examples.
(41) Zhangsani shuo Lisij bu renshi e*i/*j. (Huang 1987, (19)) Zhangsan say Lisi not know
‘Zhangsan said that Lisi does not know (him).’
(42) a. haizii yiwei mama yao zeguai ei le. (= (17a)) child think mother will reprimand LE
‘The child thinks (his) mother is going to reprimand (him).’
b. xiaotoui yiwei mei ren kanjian ei. (= (17b)) thief think no man see
‘The thief thought nobody saw (him).’
c. xiaotoui yiwei jingcha bu renchi ei. thief think police not know
‘The thief thought that the police did not know (him).’
Generally speaking, the thief is afraid to be seen. The person who scolds child is always the mother. (42c) shows that even we use the same verb as (41), it is possible for the NO to corefer with the matrix subject. Li then concludes that these sentences are basically grammatical but pragmatics favors certain interpretations so strongly that they make certain other interpretations difficult to obtain.
In arguing for the emptiness of TEP, Li provides evidence which comes from the Aux construction. Specifically, the behavior of relativization from within the missing VP in the Aux construction shows that the missing phrase is indeed empty syntactically. Consider the following sentence: (Li 2007b:35)
(43) [[ta bu hui xihuan de] xuexiao] gen [[women bu hui *(xihuan) de] xuexiao]
he not will like De school as we not will like De school shi yiyang de
be the same De
‘The school he will like is the same as the school we will not like.’
(43) involves a relativization of an argument by directly raising the phrase from the original position inside the relative clause to the position occupied by the NP (the
‘Head’), modified by the relative clause. (44) shows this relativization.
(44) argument relativization with a gap (Li 2007b:36) [[CP [IP….[NP ti ]…][Head NP ] i]
…direct NP movement to Head
In (44), an argument from within the relative clause is raised to the Head position directly, leaving a trace in the original position. The relativization of an object in (43) must consider the object inside the VP, which makes a missing VP impossible, as shown by the unacceptability of (43). By use of the interaction of Aux construction and relativization, Li suggests the missing VP is indeed syntactically empty.
However, although Li’s argument shows that Aux construction may involve TEP, this does not show that NOC involves TEP. Specifically, we would like to examine if the NO can be relativized. If the NO can be relativized, it is not truly empty, but a null
argument that is relativized. Consider the following example and its syntactic structure in (45):
(45) a. [wo xihuan t] de e] shi Jenny.
I like De be Jenny ‘(The girl) who I like is Jenny.’
b. [[wo xihuan ___] de ___ ] shi Jenny.
Li (2007b: 43) argues that when [XP + de] contains a YP that is not overt, i.e., [XP + de + [YP___]], the YP is a TEP.9 However, when a relative clause has an empty head, there is evidence that movement is involved, and the YP/TEP is raised to the head position. Consider (46).
(46) *[[yinwei Zhangsan xie-le e] wo hen bu manyi] de (na feng xin) because Zhangsan write-Asp I very not satisfied DE that CL letter ‘Because Zhagnsan wrote (the letter) with which I am not satisfied.’
Suppose (46) has an empty head. If movement were not involved, (46) would contain two TEPs, and we would expect no island effects due to the lack of movement.
However, we observe island effects in (46) no matter the head na feng xin ‘that letter’
is overt or not. This shows that relativization in (46) involves movement. Therefore, (45) involves a covert head moved from inside the island. If a missing object is indeed empty as Li argues, no object could exist to be relativized. That is, object relativization is not supposed to be possible in a NOC. However, example (45) and (46) show that the NO can be relativized; this is counter to Li’s argument for the
9 In Li’s (2007b) study, de within nominal expressions occurs with a “modifying” expression, such as a relative clause, an adjective, and a possessor.
emptiness of the position after stranded V and also counter to the arguments for TEP analysis.
Since we have seen that NO is not as empty as Li argues, it is better to approach NOC with a different approach. Li’s discussion on the properties of NOS sheds some light on our search of another approach. Specifically, Li notices similar properties between TEP and pro. However, Li does not allow a pro in the NOC in order to maintain Huang’s proposal of Generalized Control Rule (GCR), which requires pro to be controlled by the nearest c-commanding NP. So if a NO in an embedded clause is a pro and can be coindexed with subjects in the matrix clause, GCR cannot be maintained. However, Chung (1984) has shown that in Chamorro, null objects pattern differently from variables and must be instances of small pro. Furthermore, GCR is severely questioned ever since it is proposed (Chapter Three will discuss its inadequacy in detail). Therefore, if we do not adopt the controversial GCR, the most possible candidate for this type of NOs we have been discussed in Chapter Two, which cannot be variables, must be pros. Hence, this thesis agrees with Li that some NOs after the stranded V involve a base-generated null argument. However, they are not TEPs; rather, we will argue that this type of referential NOs is a pro (if they are not variables). Furthermore, we also agree with Li that the interpretation of these NOs need to resort to pragmatics/discourse for freer interpretation possibilities.
2.7 Summary
Summing up, this chapter has concentrated on previous studies on referential NOs in Chinese. The review presents a very mixed picture of NOs. Some NOs are A’-bound while some NOs are A-bound. Some NOs have interpretations through the topic antecedents, while some NOs depend on pragmatics for interpretation. It has
been demonstrated that these referential NOs do not always correspond to a variable bound by a covert or overt A’-binder. In some cases, NOs within an island can refer to elements outside the island, and in some cases, NOs can be A-bound. We also present arguments against this type of NOs being analyzed as a VPE in disguise. Specifically, this type of NO portrays typical properties of pronouns, such as adjunct exclusion, sensitivity to subcategorization and referential possibility. Furthermore, this type of NOs is subject to discourse for its interpretation.
Other than referential NOs, we have seen in Chapter One that there is another type of NOs that are not referential shown by the lack of antecedents. As we can see in the literature review, this type of NOs has not been studied by any of the previous analyses in Chinese. Therefore, none of the previous analysis can accommodate the whole range of facts in NOC in Chinese. It is concluded that there is a necessity to make another proposal not only to incorporate their insights and to avoid their problems, but also to accommodate various different types of NOs in Chinese. In Chapter Three, we propose a modular account to approach this issue.