Chinese relative clauses: restrictive, descriptive or appositive? - Lear

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FRANCESCA DEL GOBBO (29) [RC Wo zuotian kanjian de] [RC cong Yidali huilai de] ren shi Lisi. I yesterday meet DE from Italy come-back DE person be Lisi ‘The person who I met yesterday who came back from Italy is Lisi.’ Interestingly, when the two types of relatives combine, i-level ones need to occur closer to the ‘head’ noun than s-level ones: i-level + s-level RCs (30) [RC Wo zuotian kanjian de] [RC xihuan qu yinyuehui de] ren shi I yesterday meet DE like go concerts DE person is Zhangsan. Zhangsan ‘The person I met yesterday who likes to go to concerts is Zhangsan.’ (31) * [RC Xihuan qu yinyuehui de] [RC wo zuotian kanjian de] ren shi Lisi. like go concerts DE I yesterday meet DE person is Lisi ‘The person who likes to go to concerts who I met yesterday is Lisi.’ Also, if a demonstrative is present, only s-level relatives can precede it, while between the demonstrative and the ‘head’ noun, the only possible order is again s-level preceding i-level: s-level + i-level RCs + demonstrative (32) [RC Zuotian meiyou lai de] na-ge [RC hen xihuan shang ke de] yesterday not come DE that-CL very like go class DE xuesheng jiao Zhangsan. student call Zhangsan ‘The student who didn’t come yesterday who likes to come to class very much is called Zhangsan.’ (33) * [RC Hen xihuan shang ke de] na-ge [RC zuotian meiyou lai de] very like go class DE that-CL yesterday not come DE xuesheng jiao Zhangsan. student call Zhangsan 298
CHINESE RELATIVE CLAUSES (34) Na-ge [RC zuotian meiyou lai de] [RC hen xihuan shang ke de] that-CL yesterday not come DE very like go class DE xuesheng jiao Zhangsan. student call Zhangsan ‘The student who didn’t come yesterday who likes to come to class very much is called Zhangsan.’ (35) * Na-ge [RC hen xihuan shang ke de] [RC zuotian meiyou lai de] that-CL very like go class DE yesterday not come DE xuesheng jiao Zhangsan. student call Zhangsan Summarizing, Chinese relative clauses show the same ordering restrictions that we find in English prenominal adjectives and in Japanese and Korean relative clauses. Following Larson and Takahashi (2002), these ordering restrictions can be explained in terms of two layers of modification: the DPlayer, dedicated to s-level or deictic modification, and the NP-layer, for ilevel or generic modification. I claim that this exact structure is responsible for the difference in Chinese between the so-called ‘descriptive’ relative clauses and the restrictive ones. This proposal should finally clarify the confusion in the literature regarding the meaning of term ‘descriptive’ as referred to Chinese relative clauses: these are generic or i-level modifiers, and not appositive relative clauses. 4. Chinese relatives modifying Proper Names and Pronouns Even though we have established that the so-called ‘descriptive’ relative clauses of Chinese are not real appositive relative clauses, the question of the existence of appositives in Chinese remains, as relative clauses in this language are still able to modify pronouns and proper names. In Del Gobbo (2003) and Del Gobbo (2004), I show that in Chinese prenominal relatives modifying proper names and/or pronouns consistently behave like restrictives. I repeat some of the relevant tests here. We know that these relatives are restrictives because, even though they modify pronouns or proper names, it is possible to bind inside them: (36) [Mei-ge xuesheng]i dou xihuan [RC shi tai daoshi de] Huang laoshi. every-CL student all like be he advisor DE Huang professor lit. ‘Every student likes Prof. Huang who is his advisor.’ 299
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Chinese relative clauses: restrictive, descriptive or appositive? - Lear

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