Spatial anaphors in Mandarin: How grammar principles inform discourse structure

• Francesco-Alessio Ursini ^[1]
  1. [1] Central China Normal University

     Central China Normal University

     China

     
• Localización: Italian journal of linguistics, ISSN 1120-2726, Vol. 34, Nº. 2, 2022, págs. 227-272
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The first goal of this paper is to present data pertaining to the distribution of categories acting as spatial anaphors in Mandarin, i.e. elements that can refer to locations. The paper shows that so-called compound localisers (e.g. qian-mian literally ‘front side’) but not simple localisers (e.g. qian ‘in front’) can establish anaphoric relations and can license ground NP ellipsis, in discourse-bound contexts. It is shown that this is the case because compound localisers are fullfledged anaphoric NPs, whereas simple localisers are clitic-like (phrasal) affixes to other NPs. The second goal is to account these patterns via a Type-Logical formalism. The key proposal is that compound localisers can carry features licensing the formation of anaphoric relations via feature-matching operations, and can thus license ellipsis patterns in discourse. It is thus shown that via this proposal, one can account intra-sentential (‘grammatical’) and inter-sentential (‘discourse’) structures via a single derivational engine, while also accounting novel ground NP ellipsis data. The paper then discusses the consequences for a general theory of spatial categories and the grammar-discourse distinction.