1 Projections above NP in Mandarin
نویسندگان
چکیده
The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, I show that although Mandarin is an articleless language, its nominal expressions involve structures larger than a Noun Phrase (NP). I argue that two distinct projections, Demonstrative Phrase (DemP) and Unit Phrase (UnitP), should be identified in the structure above NP. Second, based on the proposal, I show that various ambiguous expressions, in fact, involve different levels of nominal structures, and that they can be disambiguated under specific contexts. The data in this paper suggest that classifiers are better analyzed as the head of UnitP that dominates NP (and takes number phrase as its specifier), and that DemP dominates UnitP, structurally. I also argue that true possessors should be distinguished from possessive modifiers, and I show that their structural difference explains the restriction concerning phenomena of extractions. Based on data of the fixed ordering of demonstrative-classifier-noun, the distribution and the interpretation of nominal modifiers, and the phenomena of coordination and nominal-internal ellipsis, I argue that identifying DemP and UnitP helps us explain the restrictions and the distribution of different types of nominal expressions through a unified account.
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تاریخ انتشار 2013