Identifying Chinese dependent clauses in the forms of subjects

Abstract

How is the (in)-dependence (or finiteness) of a clause identified in a language that has no tense, case, or agreement morphology, such as Chinese? This paper investigates the control verb construction and the generic sentential subject construction, bringing to light the special forms and interpretations of the subjects of the dependent clauses in the constructions. The special properties are not found in the subjects of independent clauses. Therefore, contrasts between dependent and independent clauses are attestable in the language. The paper also proposes a derived predication analysis of the interpretation patterns of embedded empty subjects of the language.

Controlling overt subjects in Mandarin

“…Therefore, contra previous work (e.g. Hu et al 2001, Zhang 2016, this section argues only PC verbs allow overt controlees.…”

“…( We now proceed to the phenomenon of overt embedded subjects in control. Previous literature has argued that all the different types of control verbs allow overt embedded subjects, and that the overt subjects can be pronouns, ziji 'self', reflexives (pronoun + ziji), or complemented pronouns (CPro, pronoun + numeral), (4a), (Hu et al 2001, Zhang 2016. Different analyses of the construction have been proposed.…”

“…Although previous work reported that ziji, reflexives and CPros can be used as overt controlees under both PC verbs and EC verbs (e.g. Hu et al 2001, Zhang 2016, it is necessary to investigate the nature of those words when they appear under control verbs, because they can be used either as a DP or as an adverb, meaning 'by oneself'. In this section, I use four tests to show that those elements under EC verbs are actually adverbs.…”

“…Overt embedded subjects under control predicates have been observed in different languages (e.g. Yang 1985, Burzio 1986, Hu et al 2001, Szabolcsi 2009), but previous proposals diverge in whether to analyze them as lexicalized PROs (Madigan 2006, Landau 2013, Zhang 2016 or not (Lee 2009). In this study, I present new evidence from Mandarin for non-PRO overt controlees in finite control.…”

“…The next diagnostic is pronouns. As discussed above, it has been proposed that pronouns can serve as overt controlees(Hu et al 2001, Zhang 2016; but different from the other overt controlee elements, pronouns do not have an adverbial use. Therefore, if only PC verbs allow overt controlees, then it will be ungrammatical to embed pronouns as subjects under EC verbs.…”