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Specifier-to-head reanalysis: evidence from mandarin and Cantonese

  • Shuyan Wang EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 15, 2024
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Abstract

Mandarin numeral phrases display two characteristics. First, the numeral yi ‘one’ differs from other numerals in many respects. Second, classifiers can appear without any overt numerals, resulting in Cl-N phrases (e.g., ben shu ‘one book’): Cl-N phrases, like numeral phrases with yi ‘one’ (e.g., yi-ben shu ‘one book’), always denote singularity, but also contrast with numeral phrases with yi ‘one’ in various respects like scope. Although some of these patterns have been discussed before (e.g., Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen & Rint Sybesma. 1998. Yi-wan tang, yi-ge tang: Classifiers and massifiers. Tsing-Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 28(3). 385–412; Chen, Ping. 2003. Indefinite determiner introducing definite referent: A special use of ‘yi ‘one’ + classifier’ in Chinese. Lingua 113. 1169–1184; Huang, C.-T. James. 2015. On syntactic analyticity and parametric theory. In A. Li, A. Simpson & W.-T. Dylan Tsai (eds.), Chinese Syntax in a cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford University Press; Li, Y. H. Audrey & Shengli Feng. 2015. ‘yi’ zi shenglüe de yunlü tiaojian [The prosodic conditions on yi-deletion]. Yuyan Kexue [Linguistic Sciences] 14(1). 1–12; Zhang, Niina Ning. 2019. Complex indefinites and the projection of DP in Mandarin Chinese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics), previous analyses could cover some but not all these observations. This paper provides a unified account for these two puzzles and a number of related issues. It will be argued that due to an ongoing grammaticalization process, Mandarin yi is ambiguous between a numeral and an indefinite article. The grammaticalization of yi is an instantiation of a well-known phenomenon: specifier-to-head reanalysis (e.g., van Gelderen, Elly. 2004. Grammaticalization as economy. John Benjamins Publishing Company; van Gelderen, Elly. 2019. Cyclical changes and problems of projection. In Anne Breitbarth, Miriam Bouzouita, Lieven Danckaert & Elisabeth Witzenhausen (eds.), Cycles in language change. Oxford University Press; Roberts, Ian. 1993. Verbs and diachronic syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer; Roberts, Ian & Anna Roussou. 2003. Syntactic change: A minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Furthermore, with cross-linguistic evidence from Cantonese, I argue for an intermediate stage of specifier-to-head reanalysis: a functional category starts as a specifier of a phrase; it then adjoins to another head before being reanalyzed as an independent head projecting a separate phrase.


Corresponding author: Shuyan Wang, Department of Linguistics, University of Connecticut, Herbst Hall, Room 368, 365 Fairfield Way, Unit 1145, Storrs, CT 06269-1145, Connecticut, USA, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

I started this project at the syntax seminar taught by Željko Bošković at the University of Connecticut. I would like to thank Željko Bošković for offering insightful, inspiring comments and guidance for this work. Great thanks to the students in the seminar for their valuable comments. I would also like to express my great gratitude to Magdalena Kaufmann, Ian Roberts, Mamoru Saito, Guglielmo Cinque, and Ming Xiang for providing thoughtful comments and suggestions. I would like to thank the audiences at GLOW in Asia 12 & SICOGG 21 for their inspiring questions and comments. Also, many thanks to Muyi Yang, Shengyun Gu, Xuetong Yuan, Kangzheng Gao, Linghui Gan, Margaret Chuiyi Lee, Wei Lin, Jiahui Huang, Adrian Stegovec, Ivana Bošković, Yoshiki Fujiwara, Hiromune Oda, and Yuta Tatsumi for being my language consultants. Finally, I really appreciate the comments and suggestions from the anonymous reviewers and Editor Harry van der Hulst.

  1. Competing interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare.

  2. Correction note: Correction added on Nov 18, 2024 after online publication on Nov 15, 2024: Mistakenly this article was published ahead of print without the acknowledgment.

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Published Online: 2024-11-15
Published in Print: 2024-11-26

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