A New Perspective On Chinese ZIJI

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(16) Woi zhidao Zhangsanj gaosu nik Lisil hen ziji i= j= k=l. I know Zhangsan tell you Lisi hate self `I know Zhangsani told you Lisi hates *me/*himi/*you/himself.' (17) Zhangsani dui woj shuo Lisik chang piping ziji i= j=k. Zhangsan to me say Lisi often criticize self `Zhangsani told me that Lisi often criticized *himi/*me/himself.' (18) Zhangsani Zhangsan ziji i= j=k. self `Zhangsani heard from you that Lisi often criticized him i/*you/himself.' cong nij nar tingshuo Lisik chang piping from you there hear-say Lisi often criticize Facts such as these also pose a serious problem for analyses based on successive I-to-I relations and Spec-In agreement, which, as noted above, predict that only c-commanding subjects should exhibit the blocking e ect. A further di culty for Huang and Tang's account (and for any Agrbased analyses) is presented by examples like (19) and (20): (19) Zhangsani zhidao woj de xin biaoming Lisik hai-le Zhangsan know ziji i= j=k. self I DE letter show-clear Lisi harm-ASP `Zhangsani knows that my letter makes it clear that Lisi harmed *himi/*me/himself.' (20) Zhangsani tingshuo nij de wenzhang jielu Lisik hen Zhangsan hear-say you DE article ziji i= j=k de taitai. reveal Lisi hate self DE wife `Zhangsan i heard that your article revealed that Lisi k hated *your/his i=k wife.' Here, as expected on the basis of examples like (11), repeated below, the LD subcommander ni or wo is not a potential antecedent. Pretheoretically, this is because the local animate c-commanding subject Lisi intervenes, just as it does in (11) we will refer to this phenomenon as the animate blocking e ect (for potential subcommanding antecedents). (11) [Zhangsani de xin] j biaoming [Lisik hai-le Zhangsan DE letter indicate Lisi harm-ASP `Zhangsan's letter indicates that Lisi harmed himself.' ziji i= j=k]. self
What is completely unexpected from the point of view of Huang and Tang's account, however, is the fact that the LD subcommanders wo and ni in (19) and (20) respectively themselves block the superordinate c-commanding animate subject Zhangsan from functioning as the antecedent. Note that it is indeed the unlike-person LD subcommanding NP that triggers the blocking, not the inanimate NP containing it, for inanimate NPs are not blockers. Thus examples like (19) and (20) further counterexemplify Huang and Tang's claim that blockers of LD binding must themselves be potential ziji-binders. <strong>On</strong> the basis of all the facts cited so far in this section, we reject any claim that unlikeperson blocking is related either to Spec-In agreement ortothenotion of potential binder. Indeed, given the fact (noted above in footnote 3) that only distinctness of person { but not of gender or number { appears to play a role in blocking, we consider it rather implausible that any syntactic basis for this e ect exists. 4. ProblematicFacts about subcommand and Animate Blocking As noted above in (11) and (12), the antecedent ofziji can be a subcommanding NP, subject to the animate blocking e ect. In particular, the intervention of a c-commanding inanimate subject degrades acceptability only slightly, even if it contains a subcommanding animate NP (though in this case the closer animate subcommander is the preferred antecedent, other things being equal). These facts were illustrated in (12), repeated here, and (21): (12) [Zhangsani de xin] j biaoming [[neiben shu] k hai-le Zhangsan DE letter indicate ziji ?i= j= k]. self that-CL book harm-ASP `Zhangsan'si letter indicates that that book harmed him?i.' (21) [Zhangshani de hua] j anshi [Lisik de xin] l zai yingshe Zhangsan DE speech imply Lisi ziji ?i= j=k= l. self DE letter ASP allude-to `Zhangsan'si words implied that Lisi'sk letter was alluding to him?i/himselfk.' As with the unlike-person blocking e ect, we consider animate blocking to be a pragmatic or discourse processing e ect. To begin with, we are not awareofany independent evidence to suggest that the animate/inanimate distinction in <strong>Chinese</strong> is in any sense a syntactic one.
Page 1 and 2: A New Perspective On Chinese ZIJI 1
Page 3 and 4: (4) Zhangsani zhidao Zhangsan know
Page 5: only by intervening c-commanding su
Page 9 and 10: `[Zhangsan's i father's] j money wa
Page 11 and 12: However, it is interesting to note
Page 13 and 14: As Pollard and Sag argue, this form
Page 15 and 16: ziji from being discourse bound. Th

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