Abstract
This paper proposes an analysis of Mandarin Chinese negation in whichbu ‘not’ is an adverb in Spec,AuxP or Spec, VP which may occur only with unbounded aspectual situations and which must cliticize to the following element at S-structure. Evidence comes primarily from the facts that (1)bu does not normally occur with perfective aspect markers or with telic situations (such as achievements), and (2) whilebu occurs with preverbal adjuncts, it cannot cooccur with certain types of postverbal adjuncts: it is argued that postposing the latter from their base preverbal position leaves a trace which preventsbu from cliticizing, as it must. Evidence comes also from (3) the untenability of alternative analyses invoking scope or overt head movement. This analysis supports the views that morphological requirements of functional items may have important consequences for syntax and that the distribution of such items can be accounted for, in part, by ‘Affix Checking’, i.e., head movement at LF rather than in overt syntax.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baker, Mark: 1985, ‘The Mirror Principle and Morphosyntactic Explanation’,Linguistic Inquiry 16, 373–416.
Belletti, Adriana: 1990,Generalized Verb Movement, Rosenberg and Sellier, Turin.
Benmamoun, Elabbas: 1991, ‘Negation and Verb Movement’,NELS 21, 17–31.
Benmamoun, Elabbas: 1992,Functional and Inflectional Morphology: Problems of Projection, Representation, and Derivation, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, USC.
Chao, Yuen-Ren: 1968,A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Cheng, Lisa and Yafei Li: 1991, ‘Double Negation in Chinese and Multi-Projections’, abstract for paper read at NACCL3, Cornell University, Ithaca, May 3–5, 1991.
Cheng, Robert: 1980, ‘Modality in Taiwanese’,Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 15, 45–93.
Cheng, Robert: 1985, ‘A Comparison of Taiwanese, Taiwan Mandarin, and Peking Mandarin’,Language 61, 352–377.
Chomsky, Noam: 1957,Syntactic Structures, Mouton, The Hague.
Chomsky, Noam: 1986,Barriers, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Chomsky, Noam: 1991, ‘Some Notes on Economy of Derivation and Representation’, in R. Freidin (ed.),Principles and Parameters in Comparative Grammar, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 417–454.
Chomsky, Noam: 1992, ‘A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory’,MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 1, MIT, Cambridge.
Chomsky, Noam and Howard Lasnik: to appear, ‘Principles and Parameters Theory’, in J. Jacobs et al. (eds.),Syntax: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
Comrie, Bernard: 1976,Aspect, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Dahl, Osten: 1979, ‘Typology of Sentence Negation’,Linguistics 17, 79–106.
Deprez, Viviane: 1989,ON the Typology of Syntactic Positions and the Nature of Chains, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Emonds, Joseph: 1976,A Transformational Approach to English Syntax, Academic Press, New York.
Ernst, Thomas: 1984,Towards an Integrated Theory of Adverb Position in English, Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington.
Ernst, Thomas: 1988, ‘Structure vs. Function in the Chinese Verb Phrase’, Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington.
Ernst, Thomas: 1991a, ‘On the Scope Principle’,Linguistic Inquiry 22, 750–756.
Ernst, Thomas: 1991b, ‘A Phrase Structure for Tertiaries’, in S. Rothstein (ed.),Perspectives on Phrase Structure: Heads and Licensing (Syntax and Semantics 25), Academic Press, New York, pp. 189–208.
Ernst, Thomas: 1992a, ‘The Phrase Structure of English Negation’,Linguistic Review 9, 109–144.
Ernst, Thomas: 1992b, ‘Phrase Structure and Directionality in Irish’,Journal of Linguistics 28, 415–443.
Ernst, Thomas: 1993a, ‘The Case of Adjuncts in Chinese’, unpublished ms. University of Delaware, presented at ICCL2, Paris.
Ernst, Thomas: 1993b, ‘Movement Triggers and Chinese Word Order’, unpublished ms., University of Delaware, presented at Annual Meeting of Linguistics Society of America, Los Angeles.
Ernst, Thomas: 1993c, ‘Levels and Locality in Phrase Structure’,Linguistic Review 10, 265–297.
Ernst, Thomas: to appear, ‘Chinese Adjuncts and Phrase Structure Theory’,Journal of Chinese Linguistics 21:3.
Ernst, Thomas and Chengchi Wang: 1993, ‘Object Preposing in Mandarin Chinese’, unpublished ms. University of Delaware, presented at ICCL2, Paris.
Frampton, John: 1991, ‘Relativized Minimality, A Review’,Linguistic Review 8, 1–46.
Frawley, William: 1992,Linguistic Semantics, Lawrence Earlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey.
Haegeman, Liliane and Raffaella Zanuttini: 1991, ‘Negative Heads and the Neg Criterion’,Linguistic Review 8, 233–251.
Hendrick, Randall: 1991, ‘The Morphosyntax of Aspect’,Lingua 85, 171–210.
Huang, C.-T. James: 1982,Logical Relations in Chinese and the Theory of Grammar, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Huang, C.-T. James: 1988, ‘Wo pao de kuai and Chinese Phrase Structure’,Language 64, 274–311.
Huang, C.-T. James: 1992, ‘Complex Predicates in Control’, in R. Larson et al. (eds.),Control and Grammar, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 119–147.
Huang, Chu-Ren: 1990, Review of James Tai and Frank Hsueh (eds.),Functionalism and Chinese Grammar, Journal of Chinese Linguistics 18, 318–334.
Huang, Chu-Ren and Louis Mangione: 1985, ‘A Reanalysis ofde: Adjuncts and Subordinate Clauses’,WCCFL 4, pp. 80–91.
Jackendoff, Ray: 1972,Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Jackendoff, Ray: 1977,X' Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Jespersen, Otto: 1917,Negation in English and Other Languages, A. F. Host, Copenhagen.
Kitagawa, Yoshihisa: 1986,Subjects in Japanese and English, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Klima, Edward: 1964, ‘Negation in English’, in J. Fodor and J. Katz (eds.),The Structure of Language, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, pp. 246–323.
Koopman, Hilda: 1983,The Syntax of Verbs, Foris, Dordrecht.
Laka, Itziar: 1990,Negation in Syntax: On the Nature of Functional Categories and Projections, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Li, Audrey Y.-H.: 1990,Order and Constituency in Mandarin Chinese, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Li, Charles and Sandra Thompson: 1981,Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Li, Paul Jen-kuei: 1971, ‘Two Negative Markers in Taiwanese’,Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology 43, 201–220, Academia Sinica, Taipei.
Lü, Shu-Xiang: 1985, ‘Yiwen, Fouding, Kending’, [Questions, Negation, and Affirmation],Zhongguo Yuwen 187, 241–250.
McConnell-Ginet, Sally: 1982, ‘Adverbs and Logical Form’,Language 58, 144–184.
Mulder, Rene, and Rint Sybesma: 1992, ‘Chinese is a VO Language’,NLLT 10, 439–476.
Ouhalla, Jamal: 1990, ‘Sentential Negation, Relativised Minimality and the Aspectual Status of Auxiliaries’,Linguistic Review 7, 183–231.
Payne, John: 1985, ‘Negation’, in T. Shopen (ed.),Language Typology and Syntactic Description I: Clause Structure, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 197–242.
Pollock, Jean-Yves: 1989, ‘Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the Structure of IP’,Linguistic Inquiry 20, 365–424.
Rivero, Maria-Luisa: 1991, ‘Long Head Movement and Negation: Serbo-Croatian vs. Slovak and Czech’,Linguistic Review 8, 319–351.
Rizzi, Luigi: 1990,Relativized Minimality, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Ross, Claudia: 1984, ‘Adverbial Modification in Mandarin’,Journal of Chinese Lingustics 12, 207–232.
Saito, Mamoru: 1992, ‘Long Distance Scrambling in Japanese’,Journal of East Asian Linguistics 1, 69–118.
Smith, Carlota: 1991,The Parameter of Aspect, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Speas, Margaret: 1990,Phrase Structure in Natural Language, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Speas, Margaret: 1991a, ‘Functional Heads and Inflectional Morphemes’,Linguistic Review 8, 389–417.
Speas, Margaret: 1991b, ‘Functional Heads and the Mirror Principle’,Lingua 84, 181–214.
Stowell, Tim: 1981,Origins of Phrase Structure, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Sybesma, Rint: 1992, ‘Causatives and Accomplishments: the Case of Chinese BA, Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics, Leiden.
Tai, James H.-Y.: 1983, ‘Temporal Sequence and Chinese Word Order’, in J. Haiman (ed.),Iconicity in Syntax, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 49–72.
Tang, C. C. Jane: 1990,Chinese Phrase Structure and the Extended X' Theory, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell.
Teng, Shou-Hsin: 1978, ‘Negation in Chinese’,Journal of the American Oriental Society 98, 50–60.
Teng, Shou-Hsin: 1979, ‘Progressive Aspect in Chinese’,Computer Analysis of Asian and African Languages 11, 1–12.
Travis, Lisa: 1984,Parameters and Effects of Word Order Variation, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Wang, William S.-Y.: 1965, ‘Two Aspect Markers in Mandarin’,Language 41, 457–470.
Yip, Moira: 1986, ‘On Negation as Lexical Rule in Cantonese’, unpublished, Brandeis University.
Zanuttini, Rafaella: 1991,Syntactic Properties of Sentential Negation, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Zimmer, Karl: 1964,Affixal Negation in English and Other Languages Supplement to Word, Monograph No. 5.
Zwicky, Arnold, and Geoffrey Pullum: 1983, ‘Cliticization vs. Inflection: English-n′t′, Language 59, 502–513.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
I am grateful to Carlota Smith, Shizhe Huang, Hao Li, Lisa Cheng, James Huang, Audrey Li, Peggy Speas, Bill Frawley, two anonymousNLLT reviewers, and audiences at the Jersey Syntax Circle (New Brunswick, February 1992), NACCL4 (Ann Arbor, May 1992), and ICCL1 (Singapore, June 1992) for discussion and useful comments. I also owe thanks to Jenny Zhijie Wang, Hao Li, and Shizhe Huang for help in collecting data. Of course, all errors remain my own. This research was partially supported by a General University Research fund grant from the University of Delaware.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ernst, T. Negation in Mandarin Chinese. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 13, 665–707 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992855
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992855