Universal Concord and Two Types of Universal Constructions in Chinese

1. Universal Concord and Two Types of Universal Constructions in Chinese Hongyuan Dong Chinese Linguistics Workshop of the DC Metro Area March 16, 2014 @ The George Washington University

2. Outline • Two universal structures :“mei…dou…” and “wh…dou…” • Their syntactic and semantic properties. • A new interpretation based on “universal concord” H. Dong: Universal Concord

3. Two Universal Constructions 1. mei … dou… meibenshui, wodouxihuanti 2. wh…dou… shenmeshui, wodouxihuanti H. Dong: Universal Concord

4. Mei..dou… [conditions] Leftness Condition • *wodouxihuanmeibenshu Co-occurrence Condition • *woxihuanmeibenshu • *meibenshuwoxihuan H. Dong: Universal Concord

5. Mei…dou… [exceptions] Complex NPs improve acceptability (Cheng 1991) • Woxihuan ta xiedemeibenshu Ditransitives improve acceptability (Cheng 1991) • Zhangsangei le meigerenyibenshu Indefinite NPs improve acceptability (Huang 1995) • Meigerenkeyinaliangbenshu Reflexives also improve acceptability (Huang 1996) • Meigehouxuanren tan-le-tan ziji H. Dong: Universal Concord

6. Mei…dou… [exceptions] Constrastive focus stress improves acceptability (see also Cheng 1991) • A: nihaoxiangzhixihuanzhebenshu! • B: sheishuo de? WoxihuanMEIbenshu H. Dong: Universal Concord

7. Mei…dou… [summary] • Generally speaking, the mei-phrase should occur to the left of the adverb “dou”. • In certain cases, mei-phrase can stay in situ without “dou” H. Dong: Universal Concord

8. Mei…dou… [issues] • Syntactically, the leftward movement needs to be accounted for • Semantically, the co-occurrence condition needs to be accounted for • Semantically “mei” is usually translated as “every”; “dou” as “all/both” H. Dong: Universal Concord

9. Mei…dou… [issues cont’d] • “every” is a universal quantifier • “all” is a distributive adverb, similar in its quantification force as a universal quantifier. • Compositionally, they cannot be in the same sentence. H. Dong: Universal Concord

10. Mei…dou…[issues cont’d] • In terms of SLA, students of Chinese as L2 always leave out the “dou”. • This suggests that the follow might be false conceptually: • “mei”=“every” & “dou”=“all/both” H. Dong: Universal Concord

11. Mei…dou… [previous solutions] • Huang (1996) : “mei”involves subsets relations; “dou” is a sum operator on events. • Meigerendoumai-le yibenshu • The set of people is a subset of book buyers • There is an individual event for each book buying. “Dou” sums up these individual events into a plural book buying event. H. Dong: Universal Concord

12. Mei…dou… [previous solutions] • Lin (1998): “meigeren” denotes a set of individuals. (i.e. more or less like a plural noun, e.g. renmen, zhexieren, etc.) • “dou” is the usual distributive quantifier • Meigerendou you yibenshu • For each of the individuals among the set of individuals denoted by “meigeren”, the individual has a book. H. Dong: Universal Concord

13. Mei…dou… [my proposal] • Intuitively: both “mei” and “dou” have some kind of universal quantification force. • Accordingly, Huang’s (1996) theory about “dou” seems to be going further away from such a basic meaning of “dou”. • Lin’s (1998) approach about “mei” strips it of its quantification meaning H. Dong: Universal Concord

14. Mei…dou… [my proposal] • Thus I propose to combine Lin’s (1998) theory with Kratzer’s (2006) theory on concord. • The basic idea is that: both mei and dou have quantificational force. • Dou is a real quantifier • Mei only carries an agreement feature that needs to be checked off by dou H. Dong: Universal Concord

15. Mei…dou… [my proposal] Negative Concord: • I didn’t say nothin’ [English non-standard] • Ichhab’ keinem Mensch keinWortnichtgesagt. [German non-standard] • I didn’t say nothin’ to no one. H. Dong: Universal Concord

16. Mei…dou… [my proposal] Existential Concord • Du musstirgendwemirgendwasschenken. • You must someone something give • You must give something or other to somebody or other as a gift • FOR SOME […x…y…] H. Dong: Universal Concord

17. Mei…dou… [my proposal] • Universal Concord: • Kratzer (2006) didn’t have any example but only said it is a possibility. • FOR ALL […x…y…] • Note here “FOR SOME” and “FOR ALL” are propositional quantifiers H. Dong: Universal Concord

18. Mei…dou… [my proposal] • The mei-phrase carries an uninterpretable quantifier feature. • Dou carries an interpretable quantifier feature • The feature on mei needs to be checked off by Dou via a local configuration • vP and IP corresponds to propositions • Movement should preserve scope relations H. Dong: Universal Concord

19. Mei…dou… [my proposal] • Syntax: H. Dong: Universal Concord

20. Mei…dou… [my proposal] Semantics H. Dong: Universal Concord

21. Wh…dou… • As argued by Dong (2009), Chinese wh-words do not have any inherent quantification power, but instead just denotes a set of alternatives. • E.g. shei[+wh, +focus]: {x| person(x)} • [Zhangsanxihuanshei[+wh, +focus]] • No movement. [+wh] can be checked by feature movement. • [+focus] is realized as the prosodic pattern of the sentence with “shei” bears the prosodic prominence. H. Dong: Universal Concord

22. Wh…dou… • Movement is needed to check of the [+wh] feature. • [+focus] is still needed because in this structure, the WH should bear the prosodic prominence H. Dong: Universal Concord

23. Wh…dou… • sheidou hen gaoxing • [IPdou [vPshei[+wh, +focus] hen gaoxing]] • [IPshei[+wh, +focus] dou [vP t hen gaoxing]] H. Dong: Universal Concord

24. Mei…dou… vs. Wh…dou… (remaining issues) Multiple association • Meigelaoshibameibenshugeimeigexueshengdoujieshao le yixia • Sheibashenmedongxidoureng-le • *everyone threw out everything • Who threw out everything? Wh…dou… does not allow multiple associations The most adjacent one is associated with dou H. Dong: Universal Concord

25. Mei…dou… vs. Wh…dou… (remaining issues) • Hao, meigerendoudao le, women kaishiba! • Hao, *nageren/shenmerendoudao le, women kaishiba! Wh…dou… seems to have a wider domain. H. Dong: Universal Concord

26. Thank you!