This paper presents a novel analysis of the grammaticalization path of the various uses of Pi 23 ... more This paper presents a novel analysis of the grammaticalization path of the various uses of Pi 23 kã 34 ('he says') in modern Shanghainese. We propose that Pi 23 kã 34 originated from a quotative clause, then developed its reportative use by making the source of information obscure (in the sentence-final position), and finally integrated with the proposition to form a modal particle indicative of the speaker's subjective evaluation. Recently, Pi 23 kã 34 has been raised to topic position to serve as a topic-marking function; specifically, one that expresses a counter-expectation meaning. The whole process can be chronologized as follows: quotative clause > reportative clause > modal particle > topic-marking particle. Such a path is considered to be elegant and practical since not only do the stages involved gracefully follow the principles of grammaticalization as delineated by , but it is also helpful for the analysis of similar patterns across languages.
We adopt the corpus-informed approach to example sentence selections for the construction of a re... more We adopt the corpus-informed approach to example sentence selections for the construction of a reference grammar. In the process, a database containing sentences that are carefully selected by linguistic experts including the full range of linguistic facts covered in an authoritative Chinese Reference Grammar is constructed and structured according to the reference grammar. A search engine system is developed to facilitate the process of finding the most typical examples the users need to study a linguistic problem or prove their hypotheses. The database can also be used as a training corpus by computational linguists to train models for Chinese word segmentation, POS tagging and sentence parsing.
This study attempts to explain the inconsistent acceptability judgments resulting from the extrac... more This study attempts to explain the inconsistent acceptability judgments resulting from the extraction of the object of adjunct PPs in Chinese relative clauses. The facts observed is that the extraction of arguments and the object of obligatory adjunct PPs is always judged to be acceptable, whereas the extraction of the object of optional adjunct PPs is sometimes judged to be acceptable and sometimes unacceptable. Such an inconsistency is in contrast to the uniform pattern of acceptability judgment predicted by a syntactic analysis. In this study, a syntactic-pragmatic account is proposed which can better explain the observed facts and is compatible with the Minimalist Program (MP). This study shows that extractions of the object of optional adjunct PPs are syntactically legitimate and the related inconsistent judgments can be resolved by pragmatics. Particularly, a successful enrichment of a structure ensures a correct interpretation of an utterance which in turn entails an acceptab...
The scope properties of Chinese Wh-elements, which are in situ in the syntax, are usually account... more The scope properties of Chinese Wh-elements, which are in situ in the syntax, are usually accounted for by assuming that they are raised at LF as operators. Not only does such an account rely on costly stipulations but it also fails to generalize to Whelements which are not XPs. The proposal here is that Wh-eiements be treated as variables bound by a OUESTION (Q) operator which assigns scope to the Wh-elements in its domain. The Q operator can be attached to a verb and realized as the A-not-A form of the verb when there is no Wh-element in its domain. The Q operator, including the one realized as the A-not-A verb form, is raised at LF to satisfy selectional restrictions and its movement is regu!ated by the standard constraints. The scope properties of Wh-elements and the distribution of A-not-A verbs are accounted for within the current theoretical framework without further stipulation.
Uploads
Papers by Tim Stone