On the Syntax of VP Dislocation in Mandarin
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[1] National Taitung University
National Taitung University
Taitung City, Taiwán
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- Localización: Studia linguistica: A journal of general linguistics, ISSN 0039-3193, Vol. 77, Nº 1, 2023, págs. 122-171
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
By drawing on data of two types of VP dislocation in Mandarin, this paper argues that these two types represent a syntactic incarnation of XP-split constructions providing an interesting argument for the conception of information structure starting in the numeration and multiple Spell-Out of copies regulated by the checking of strong features over the course of a syntactic derivation. Building on Fanselow and Ćavar’s (2002) distributed deletion analysis, I show that Type 1 involves two autonomous nominals that form a nominal predicate structure in a VP, and the VP is copied and internally merged to a topic position, followed by multiple Spell-Out of the copies whose information structural features are checked. In contrast, Type 2 is derived via base-generation. I argue that the two types are derived employing the same set of operations in the computational system without extra postulations. Issues involved in dealing with Mandarin topic constructions are addressed.
