Null Objects, VP-ellipsis, and Discourse Anaphora Interpretation.doc

The 2nd International Conference on Formal Linguistics Changsha Hunan China June 22 23 2002 1 Null Object Constructions Focus VP ellipsis and Sentence Interpretation Haihua Pan Dept of Chinese Translation and Linguistics City University of Hong Kong Email cthpan cityu edu hk Home page http ctlhpan cityu edu hk haihuapan Abstract This paper discusses issues related to VP Ellipsis and null object constructions in Mandarin Chinese It consists of two parts First pace Li 1998 I argue that it is not true that no null object construction NOC sentences can be analyzed as VP ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese and I will show that the fact that the interpretation patterns of the relevant sentences deviate from those of their English counterparts is not because there is no VP ellipsis in Chinese but because Chinese pronouns and reflexives exhibit some special properties My claim in this paper is that some NOC sentences can be interpreted as VP ellipsis and others need to be interpreted as ones that contain an empty pronoun depending on whether the V to INFL raising occurs or not which I argue is regulated by the existence of a focus on the main verb only when the verb in the NOC is not in focus will there be a V to INFL movement in Chinese Hence our analysis integrates both the insights from Huang 1988a b 1991 and Xu 2001 Second pace Kehler 1993 I argue that it is not the parallel vs non parallel distinction but the semantic and discourse constraints of coordinate constructions with too and ye also in VP ellipsis that can help explain why some VP ellipsis sentences are ungrammatical in Chinese Hence the coordination construction in neither English nor Chinese is constrained by the so called syntactic condition which is based on the parallel vs non parallel distinction as proposed in Kehler 1993 and discourse factors play a crucial role in the interpretation of coordination construction in the two languages concerned Selected References Huang C T James 1988a Comments on Hasegawa s paper In Proc of Japanese Syntax Workshop Issues on Empty Categories Connecticut College New London Huang C T James 1988b Verb second in German and some AUX phenomena in Chinese In A Bramkamp et al eds Chinese Western Encounter Festschrift for Franz Giet SVD on his 85th Birthday Fu Jen University Taipei Huang C T James 1991 Remarks on the status of the null object In Freidin ed Principles and Parameters in Comparative Grammar Cambridge MIT Press pp 56 76 Kehler Andrew 1993 The effect of establishing coherence in ellipsis and anaphora resolution In Proc of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics pages 62 69 Ohio State University Columbus Ohio Association for Computational Linguistics Morristown New Jersey Li Grace 1998 Null Object and VP Ellipsis in Chinese In Proc of the 9th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics LA GSIL University of Southern California Xu Liejiong to appear Remarks on VP ellipsis in Disguise Linguistic Inquiry Null Object Constructions Focus VP ellipsis and Sentence Interpretation Haihua Pan City University of Hong Kong 2 Null Object Constructions Focus VP ellipsis and Sentence Interpretation Haihua Pan City University of Hong Kong Email cthpan cityu edu hk Homepage http ctlhpan cityu edu hk haihuapan The goals of the talk are to a argue that it is not true that no null object construction NOC sentences can be analyzed as VP ellipsis in disguise cf Huang 1988a b vs Li 1998 Xu to appear and show that the fact that the interpretation patterns of the relevant sentences deviate from those of their English counterparts is not because Chinese NOC cannot be analyzed as VP ellipsis in disguise at all but because Chinese pronouns and reflexives exhibit some special properties and Only Chinese allows pro drop b claim that some NOC sentences can be interpreted as VP ellipsis in disguise as suggested in Huang 1988a b and others need to be interpreted as containing an empty pronoun as claimed in Li 1998 and Xu to appear depending on whether the V to INFL raising occurs or not which I believe is regulated by focus namely that only when the verb is not in focus will the V to INFL raising occur in the NOC and c show that it is not the parallel vs non parallel distinction as suggested in Kehler 1993 but the semantic and discourse constraints of too and ye in the VP ellipsis construction in English and Chinese respectively that help explain why some VP ellipsis sentences are ungrammatical in the two languages 1 Arguments for and against the VP ellipsis Analysis of the Null Object Construction in Chinese It is argued that the null object construction NOC in Chinese Japanese and Korean can be analyzed on a par with VP ellipsis after V to Infl raising and VP deletion Huang 1988a b 1991 Otani and Whiteman 1991 as exemplified in 1 which has the same interpretation as 2 Hence NOC is called VP ellipsis in disguise 1 a Zhangsan kanjian le tade mama Lisi ye kanjian le see Perf his mother also see Perf Zhangsani saw hisi mother and Lisij also saw hisi j mother b Lisi ye INFL V kanjian le VP tV NP ec 2 Johni saw his mother and Billj did too Billj saw hisi j mother Arguments for the VP ellipsis Analysis of NOC i Sentences like 1 exhibit the strict sloppy ambiguity typical of VP ellipsis and ii They also show the locality effect of VP ellipsis for the sloppy reading 3 Johni saw his mother and Maryj knew that Billk did too Mayj knew that Billk saw her j hisk mother The 2nd International Conference on Formal Linguistics Changsha Hunan China June 22 23 2002 3 4 Zhangsan kanjian le tade mama Mary zhidao Lisi ye kanjian le see Perf his motherknow also see Perf Zhangsani saw hisi mother and Maryj knew that Lisik also saw her j hisk mother Arguments against the VP ellipsis Analysis of NOC However Hoji 1998 and Li 1998 argue against the VP ellipsis analogy for Japanese and Chinese NOC respectively Xu to appear also supports the claim that NOC cannot be analyzed as VP ellipsis in disguise Li s Arguments The relevant arguments from Li are given below in 5 5 a The sloppy reading is obligatory or much preferred for anaphors but is optional for pronouns However Chinese reflexive ta ziji 3s self can have a strict reading cf 7 b The so called VP ellipsis sentences involving bici each other do not have the couple internal reading like those in English cf 8 and 9 c No locality effect for the sloppy reading cf 11 d The sloppy reading in Chinese is really a sloppy like reading as suggested in Hoji 1998 and it can even occur with proper names cf 13 and e With no V to INFL raising the relevant sentences still have the sloppy identity reading cf 14 6 John criticized himself and Bill did too Bill criticized John 7 Zhangsan piping le ta ziji Lisi ye piping le criticize Perf he self also criticize Perf Possible Lisi criticized Zhangsan Li 1998 claims that she can even get a reading for 7 in which Lisi criticized someone other than Zhangsan and Lisi which is prominent in the discourse However my informants cannot get this reading 8 Every Chinese couple recommended each other s friends and every German couple did too Possible Every German couple recommended each other s friends 9 Meidui Zhongguo fufu tuijian le bicide pengyou meidui Every CL China couple recommend Perf each other s friendevery CL Deguo fufu ye tuijian le German couple also recommend Perf Not possible Every German couple recommended each other s friends 10 Mary fed her child and Susan thought that the nanny did too Not possible Susan thought that the nanny fed Susan s child 11 Mary wei guo zijide haizi le Susan yiwei Wu ma ye wei guo le feed Exp self s child Prt think nanny also feed Exp Perf Mary fed her own child and Susan thought that the nanny fed her child too Possible Susan thought that the nanny fed Susan s child Null Object Constructions Focus VP ellipsis and Sentence Interpretation Haihua Pan City University of Hong Kong 4 12 John punished John s students and Bill did too Not possibe Bill punished Bill s students 13 Zhangsan chufa le Zhangsande xuesheng Lisi ye chufa le punish Perf student also punish Perf Zhangsan punished Zhangsan s student and Lisi did too Possible Lisi punished Lisi s students 14 Zhangsan hui tujian zijide xuesheng Lisi ye hui tuijian will recommend self s student also will recommend Zhangsan will recommend his own students and Lisi will too Comments on Li 1998 For 5a Chinese reflexive ta ziji differs from English himself in allowing long distance antecedents in non contrastive contexts as exemplified in 15 Pan 1997 1998 15 Zhangsan zhidao zheben shu hai le ta ziji know this CL book hurt Perf he self Zhangsan knew that this book hurt him i Know Zhangsan x x hurt Zhangsan zheben shu ii Know Zhangsan x zheben shu hurt x iii x x knew that zheben shu hurt x Zhangsan 16 Ni wen ta ziji qu you ask he self go Go ask HIMSELF Even the first conjunct Zhangsan piping le ta ziji in 7 can have a reading that gives rise to the strict reading x x criticized Zhangsan Zhangsan Actually English does allow strict readings for anaphors as shown below see Section 3 for reasons why 17 is grammatical but 6 is not 17 Johni defended himselfi against the accusation better than hisi lawyer did Also note that only the sloppy reading is available with sentences containing the bare reflexive ziji 7 Zhangsan piping le ziji Lisi ye piping le criticize Perf self also criticize Perf Not possible Lisi criticized Zhangsan For 5b we think the relevant reading is possible It will be much clearer if we change the VP into zhidao bici de quedian knew each other s flaws as shown below 10 Meidui Zhongguo fufu zhidao bicide quedian meidui Deguo fufu Every CL China couple know each other s weakness every CL German couple ye zhidao also know Possible Every German couple knew each other s weakness For 5c we don t think it is possible to violate the locality constraint Even we accept the fact that Chinese NOC sentences do not exhibit the locality effect as shown in 11 this The 2nd International Conference on Formal Linguistics Changsha Hunan China June 22 23 2002 5 does not necessarily constitute a problem to the VP ellipsis analysis of NOC This is because bare reflexive ziji self can have long distance antecedents and always induces a sloppy reading Pan 1997 inter alia 18 Zhangsan renwei Lisi na zou le zijide fenshu Wangwu ye zheyang renwei think take away Perf self score also so think Zhangsan thinks that Lisi took away his score and Wangwu does so too One possible reading for the first conjunct in 18 is x x thinks that Lisi took away x s score Zhangsan so the second conjunct in 18 will have a similar property applying to Wangwu i e x x thinks that Lisi took away x s score Wangwu If we take the relevant property x x thinks that Lisi took away x s score as derived from x P x x s score using the higher order unification method Pulman 1997 where P thinks that Lisi took away Then for the first conjunct of 11 we have x P x x s child where P feed If we say that Chinese allows the copied part from the first conjunct to be x P x x s child rather than x P x fed x s child then by higher order unification we can get P think that Wu ma feed namely that we have x x thinks that Wu ma fed x s child applied to Susan This is a sloppy reading that does not observe the locality effect but it is compatible with the VP ellipsis analysis of NOC Hence sentences like 11 is not necessarily a counterexample to the VP ellipsis analysis of NOC For 5d Li claims that one can get a sloppy like reading It seems to me there is no way to get that reading semantically If we take the empty object as a pronominal I see no way to get the claimed reading For 5e sentences like 14 can only suggest that sloppy readings and V to INFL raising are not necessarily tied together and they cannot argue against the VP ellipsis analysis of NOC We can get the sloppy reading in 19 with the modal hui will either taking a narrow or wide scope with respect to the lambda operator 19 a x x recommend x s students Zhangsan b Zhangsan hui tujian zijide xuesheng Lisi ye hui will recommend self s student also will Zhangsan will recommend his own students and Lisi will too Chinese has modals like hui xiang want yao want When they are followed by a verb as in 19 they are real auxiliary verbs These verbs do show the interpretation patterns of VP ellipsis Xu s Arguments Xu to appear makes a distinction between NOC sentences and real VP ellipsis sentences introduced by copular shi and modals like hui will labeled as VPEC He thinks that Chinese VPEC is the same as English VPEC and Chinese NOC is not VP ellipsis in disguise He uses the following to support his claim Adverbial Ellipsis i John zixide shua le ya Peter ye shua le carefully brushed teeth also brushed ii John meitian shua san bian ya Peter ye shua Keshi Peter zhi shua yi bian every day brush three times teeth also brush but only brush one time Null Object Constructions Focus VP ellipsis and Sentence Interpretation Haihua Pan City University of Hong Kong 6 Peter can brush his teeth carelessly in i which is not possible in the corresponding English VP ellipsis sentence or the Chinese VP ellipsis Peter ye shi Deletion Anaphora iii I ve never ridden a camel but Ivan has and he says it stank horribly iv I ve never ridden a camel but Ivan has and he says it stank horribly v John conglai mei kanjian guo yige jinfa xiaohai er Bill kanjian guo Bill shuo never not see ASP one blond child but see ASP say ta tamen hen piaoliang it they very handsome Only English allows the singular pronoun it to pick up the antecedent in the deleted VP indicated by Note that it is called a deletion anaphora by Hanksmer and Sag 1976 as its antecedent is derived by deletion as distinguished from deep anaphora which corresponds to a semantic but not syntactic entity though VP ellipsis invokes the surface anaphora that has a syntactic entity as its antecedent Availability of a Third Reading vi Mike xian da le tade erzi Jeanne cai da de first hit his son then hit PARTICLE The third reading namely a person called John who is neither Mike s nor Jeanne s son is possible if it is compatible with the pragmatics involved according to Xu vii Jiu zhengce fanrong le jinrong shichang xin zhengce ye fanrong le old policy boomed money market new policy also boomed Xu further points out that vii is not possible because verbs like fanrong boast can only be used transitively and if verb ellipsis in Chinese results from verb raising the VPEC should be indiscriminate to subcategories Hence Xu suggests that maybe the so called NOC sentences in Chinese reflect a fact in Chinese namely that most of the transitive verbs have an intransitive homonym that does not take an object Comments on Xu to appear Although Xu has shown convincingly that some of the NOC sentences should not be analyzed as VP ellipsis in disguise we would like to see more evidence to support the claim that no NOC sentences in Chinese can be analyzed as VP ellipsis in disguise If NOC is analyzed as containing an empty pronominal object then the implication is the pronominal in question can have a discourse salient NP as its antecedent Although this is true for sentences like vi it is very difficult for the following sentences to have a discourse salient NP as its antecedent viii Zhangsan xihua zijide erzi Lisi ye xihuan like self s son also like Possible Lisi like Bill who is neither Zhangsan s nor Lisi s son The 2nd International Conference on Formal Linguistics Changsha Hunan China June 22 23 2002 7 ix Zhangsan song le Bill yi ben shu Lisi mei song gave one CL book not give Possible Lisi did not give Wangwu a book Lisi did not give Bill a pen or even Lisi did not give Wangwu a pen If the dropped elements after the verb are an empty pronoun or a variable according to Huang 1984 then the readings in question should be available as we don t see any pragmatic constraints that will exclude them Even one can appeal to the so called parallelism between the first and second conjuncts s he may not be willing to say that the parallelism is not pragmatic i e it is not defeasible For the verb type claim i e most of the verbs can have both a transitive and an intransitive use so in the second conjunct in viii the verb xihuan is actually intransitive according to Xu This claim faces two problems One is if xihuan is really intransitive the meaning associated with the object slot should be lexicalized into the verb that is this intransitive may not be able to mean that Lisi also like Bill a discourse salient NP just like the English verb eat when it is intransitive it cannot mean eat an apple The other problem is that the so called transitive only verbs like fanrong boast can actually allow object drop as shown below x Xin zhengce fanrong le jinrong shichang jiu zhengce ye fanrong guo new policy boomed money market old policy also boomed For the adverbial ellipsis as in i it may be the case that some other factors are at work and they are not necessarily related to VP ellipsis as we know that what is elided is not a constituent as shown below i John zixide shua le ya Peter ye zixide shua le ya carefully brushed teeth also carefully brushed teeth If we consider the movement of shua le to a position higher than VP then what is elided is a VP containing a gap vp zixide vp v ti np ya which usually prevents any syntactic operation to apply to it as the relevant operation leads to the so called recovery problem Notice that no problem occurs in English because no movement is necessary as we can simply insert a dummy do at the Infl position and thus the corresponding VP in English does not contain any gap Summary Previous Strong Claim All NOC sentences are analyzed as VP ellipsis in Chinese Our Modest Claim NOC sentences can be analyzed as VP ellipsis if V to INFL raising occurs otherwise they are analyzed as sentences with an empty pronominal object The Dividing Line It seems that focus plays a role in determining whether V toINFL raising occurs or not an