Why particles are not particular: Sentence‐final particles in Chinese as heads of a split CP

Paul, Waltraud

doi:10.1111/stul.12020

Cited by 67 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Sentence final particles. Somewhat similar to Haegeman's proposal, the AttP postulated by Paul (2014) in fact can be further subdivided into two layers. The combination of ne (a particle of the first layer) and ba (a particle of the second layer) is possible, as demonstrated in detail further below in this section.…”

Section: Sqp and Iforcepsupporting

confidence: 67%

“…Core projections 3.1. Introduction Paul (2005Paul ( , 2014Paul ( , 2015 proposes the following three-layered hierarchy for sentence final particles (SFPs), which are analyzed as root complementizers.…”

Section: Main Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…< Attitude (a etc.) (Paul 2014(Paul , 2015 In this section, I will show that each layer proposed by Paul (2014Paul ( , 2015 can be further decomposed, since each of them corresponds to a cluster of different functional projections, whose order is fixed.…”

Section: Main Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They are better analyzed as heads of a functional projection, all the more so as they occur in sentence-final position, in contrast to adverbs which must precede the verb. This is the main motivation for Erlewine (2011) to treat éryǐ as a lowC head in the spirit of Paul (2014). Note though that the LowC proposed by Paul (2014Paul ( , 2015 in fact contains several projections in a fixed hierarchy.…”

Section: Embeddability Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is the main motivation for Erlewine (2011) to treat éryǐ as a lowC head in the spirit of Paul (2014). Note though that the LowC proposed by Paul (2014Paul ( , 2015 in fact contains several projections in a fixed hierarchy. The particles éryǐ and bàle mark the sentence as an exclusive focus and in our system, they can occupy the head position of a projection dedicated to this interpretation, noted as OnlyP.…”

Section: Embeddability Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Mandarin peripheral construals at the syntax-discourse interface

Pan¹

2015

The Linguistic Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Inspired by the split-CP hypothesis, different orders of the functional projections in the left periphery are proposed for Chinese. Based on previous studies, this paper proposes the following hierarchy for Chinese: AttitudeP1 > AttitudeP2 > Special QuestionP > Illocutionary ForceP > Only-focusP > Sentential.AspectP > TP. These projections host sentence final particles (SFP) or null operators. When the compared projections are both head-final, the syntactic word order reflects the relevant hierarchy; when the compared projections are not uniformly head-final, their scope interaction reflects the order. This study shows that the higher a projection, the more subjective its interpretation and the harder it can be embedded. For instance, being subject-oriented sentential aspects and only-type focus are not directly linked to the speaker's attitude and therefore, they can be embedded and be interpreted within the subordinate clause. As for the SFPs linked to illocutionary forces, some can be embedded, while others cannot. Special questions and the SFPs expressing the speaker's mood, interjection and attitude cannot be embedded at all. This fact is regarded as an indirect argument in favor of my proposal.Keywords: left-periphery, sentence final particles, Mandarin Chinese, root, Main Clause Phenomena IntroductionAdopting the split-CP hypothesis (Rizzi 1997, among others), a number of generative linguists have been working on the "cartography" of the left-periphery with the aim of establishing a map, as detailed as possible, of the functional projections in the CP domain. The study of Italian (Cinque 1999, Rizzi 2004, Benincà and Poletto 2004, Cinque and Rizzi 2008 shows that functional projections which host elements such as topics, foci, interrogative words, different adverbs, etc. are hierarchically ordered in precise ways. Whether these heads/projections whose existence has been argued for in Italian are universally true is still an issue. However, this hypothesis helps us to study the left periphery in many other languages, for instance, Chinese (Paul 2002, 2015, Badan 2007, Stepanov and Tsai 2008, 2011, 2015, Pan 2011b. Based on the previous work, this article intends to establish an even more fine-grained cartography of the Mandarin left-periphery. It will also show in what way the hierarchy of the functional projections proposed here is compatible with the previously established orders. The general conclusion of this study reveals that the

show abstract

Section: Sqp and Iforcepsupporting

confidence: 67%

Section: Main Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Main Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Embeddability Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Embeddability Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Mandarin peripheral construals at the syntax-discourse interface

Pan¹

2015

The Linguistic Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Topic Prominence

Paul

Whitman

2017

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We assimilate the typological feature of topic prominence to established treatments of the left periphery. East Asian languages grouped together as topic‐prominent turn out to display important differences. In Japanese and Korean, the A‐domain extends higher than in Chinese, to include a fused FocusP/FiniteP projection. Descriptive properties sometimes associated with topic prominence include (1) obligatoriness of topics, (2) null topics, (3) overt spell‐out of the head of TopicP, (4) wh in situ, (5) obligatory topicalization of generic DPs, (6) multiple topics, and (7) free ordering of argument and adjunct topics. However, all or most of these features can be found in non‐East Asian languages with an active left periphery, including full and residual V2 languages. The salient feature of the languages traditionally labeled topic‐prominent is that they do not fill the functional head of the Topic projection by movement; if at all, this head is filled by topic particles.

show abstract

Aspectuality and Subjectivity of Le in Chinese Conditionals

Wang

Yuan

2023

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Why particles are not particular: Sentence‐final particles in Chinese as heads of a split CP

Cited by 67 publications

References 32 publications

Mandarin peripheral construals at the syntax-discourse interface

Mandarin peripheral construals at the syntax-discourse interface

Topic Prominence

Aspectuality and Subjectivity of Le in Chinese Conditionals

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About