On the Syntax of Vp Dislocation in Mandarin*

Abstract

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 Cavar'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.*This article is a revised version of Chapter 2 and 3 of my PhD dissertation. I wish to express my gratefulness to Hsiao-hung Iris Wu, Wei-tien Dylan Tsai, Wei-wen Roger Liao and Chyan-an Arthur Wang for their constructive comments on the earlier versions of the article and two anonymous reviewers of Studia Linguistica for their valuable suggestions which make this article close to being in the vicinity of satisfaction and adequacy. I owe deeply to Chris Hsu, Mindy Kuo, Larry Liu and Grace Liu for discussing the data with me. The remaining inadequacies, conceptual or empirical, are solely my own responsibility.