Clitic climbing in archaic Chinese
-
Edith Aldridge
Abstract
Object pronouns in archaic Chinese negated clauses were required to move out of VP and cliticize to the negator. Cliticization was gradually lost, however, beginning with clitic climbing from embedded clauses. A mysterious exception to the loss of clitic climbing was that raising remained obligatory when the matrix subject was the negative quantifier mo ‘none’. In this chapter, I propose that cases involving mo ‘none’ are not exceptions if we assume Hornstein’s (1999, 2001) movement analysis of control. Under this analysis, the matrix subject mo ‘none’ is base merged in the embedded clause and subsequently moves to its surface position in the matrix clause. Cliticization takes place locally in the embedded clause before movement of the subject. The appearance of clitic climbing is then the result of pied-piping of the pronoun as the subject raises. Given this analysis, cliticization in the classical period can be viewed as uniformly clause-bound. This chapter additionally proposes an analysis of the origin of the negator fu. I argue that fu was not derived through the fusion of the negator bu and a raised third person object pronoun zhi. Rather, I suggest that fu be analyzed as the fusion of bu and the causative prefix /*s-/.
Abstract
Object pronouns in archaic Chinese negated clauses were required to move out of VP and cliticize to the negator. Cliticization was gradually lost, however, beginning with clitic climbing from embedded clauses. A mysterious exception to the loss of clitic climbing was that raising remained obligatory when the matrix subject was the negative quantifier mo ‘none’. In this chapter, I propose that cases involving mo ‘none’ are not exceptions if we assume Hornstein’s (1999, 2001) movement analysis of control. Under this analysis, the matrix subject mo ‘none’ is base merged in the embedded clause and subsequently moves to its surface position in the matrix clause. Cliticization takes place locally in the embedded clause before movement of the subject. The appearance of clitic climbing is then the result of pied-piping of the pronoun as the subject raises. Given this analysis, cliticization in the classical period can be viewed as uniformly clause-bound. This chapter additionally proposes an analysis of the origin of the negator fu. I argue that fu was not derived through the fusion of the negator bu and a raised third person object pronoun zhi. Rather, I suggest that fu be analyzed as the fusion of bu and the causative prefix /*s-/.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Abbreviations vii
- Control as movement 1
-
Part I. Expanding the movement analysis of control
- Movement Theory of Control and CP-infinitives in Polish 45
- Obligatory control and local reflexives 67
- No objections to Backward Control 89
- Possessor raising through thematic positions 119
-
Part II. Unexplored control phenomena
- Clitic climbing in archaic Chinese 149
- Framing the syntax of control in Japanese (and English) 183
- Split control and the Principle of Minimal Distance 211
- Towards a typology of control in DP 245
-
Part III. Beyond control
- The argument structure of evaluative adjectives 269
- Object control in Korean 299
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Abbreviations vii
- Control as movement 1
-
Part I. Expanding the movement analysis of control
- Movement Theory of Control and CP-infinitives in Polish 45
- Obligatory control and local reflexives 67
- No objections to Backward Control 89
- Possessor raising through thematic positions 119
-
Part II. Unexplored control phenomena
- Clitic climbing in archaic Chinese 149
- Framing the syntax of control in Japanese (and English) 183
- Split control and the Principle of Minimal Distance 211
- Towards a typology of control in DP 245
-
Part III. Beyond control
- The argument structure of evaluative adjectives 269
- Object control in Korean 299
