Year: 1994
Type: article
Abstract: This paper examines different readings of Wh-words (i.e.question-words) in Mandarin Chinese.Following Heim's (1982) proposal on indefinites and Nishigauchi's (1986Nishigauchi's ( , 1990) work on wh-words in Japanese, it is proposed that whwords in Mandarin are indefinite NPs which lack inherent quantificational force.In addition, it is claimed that wh-words in Mandarin are polarity items and thus require the presence of polarity licensers.This analysis leads to an explanation to the lack of indefinite subjects in Mandarin, assuming Diesing's (1990) theory of indefinite NPs and the VP-domain of existential closure.
Author: Lisa Lai‐Shen Cheng
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1544883939