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

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FRANCESCA DEL GOBBO the noun they modify: appositive adjectives can modify pronouns and proper names, restrictive relative clauses cannot. Syntactically they are then very similar; semantically, we need to assume a different mechanism of composition. In Del Gobbo (2004), I propose that when a predicate of individuals (type ), modifies a singular term (type e), it simply intersects with the singleton set formed from the denotation of the latter. The structure is acceptable if the predicate denoted by the relative is true of the individual denoted by the DP. 6. Where do Chinese relative clauses stand? Once we establish that there is a syntactic and semantic similarity between appositive adjectives and restrictive relative clauses, we can explain the behavior of the Chinese sentences seen in section 4. Those relative clauses are predicates of individuals that modify proper names or pronouns, namely singular terms (type e). This means that, for reasons that remain to be investigated thoroughly, relative clauses in Chinese, differently from relative clauses in English, have the potential to behave like appositive adjectives of English: in other words, they are more ‘adjectival’ than English relatives. Namely, they can modify nominals that denote individuals (type e), without detaching themselves from the same nominals like real appositives do. This explains why pronouns and anaphors inside these relatives are always in the scope of elements within the matrix clause. It also explains why sentential adverbs of modification yield ungrammaticality if added to Chinese relative clauses: this is so because these adverbs need to be part of a main assertion, and not of a predicate. 8 In sum, Chinese relative clauses are either restrictive relatives or appositive adjectives. By this I mean that they always denote predicates of individuals (type ), and that they are always adjoined to the noun they modify, at all levels. What they cannot do is being real appositive relative clauses, namely propositions (type t) that detach from the matrix at some relevant level, certainly at LF, most probably also at the discourse level. 8 As for the reasons why appositives cannot modify quantified heads, I refer the reader to my dissertation, Del Gobbo (2003). 302
7. Conclusion CHINESE RELATIVE CLAUSES In this paper I address the issue of the distinction between ‘descriptive’ and restrictive relative clauses in Mandarin Chinese. In relation to this, I investigate the meaning and the structure of Chinese relative clauses. I first show that the so-called ‘descriptive’ relative clauses in Chinese are not appositive relative clauses, despite translations found in the literature that seem to indicate so. I propose to account for the restrictive vs. ‘descriptive’ contrast in terms of the s-level/deictic meaning versus i-level/generic meaning. According to Larson and Takahashi (2002), these two meanings have dedicated slots within the nominal phrase, namely the DP-layer is dedicated to s-level/deictic meaning and the NP-layer is dedicated to ilevel/generic meaning. The ordering restrictions found for Chinese relative clauses show that such structure is to be assumed for Chinese as well and that it is ultimately responsible for the restrictive versus ‘descriptive’ contrast. Even though I establish that Chinese so called ‘descriptive’ relative clauses are not appositive relative clauses, but restrictive modifiers, of the ilevel/generic type, the question remains as to why relative clauses in this language are able to modify proper names and pronouns. My proposal is to distinguish appositive adjectives from appositive relative clauses, both semantically and syntactically, and to claim that when they modify proper names or pronouns, Chinese relative clauses behave like appositive adjectives. I propose that appositive relative clauses are propositions (type t), while appositive adjectives are predicates of individuals (type ). Syntactically, the former need to detach from the noun they modify at LF (and in discourse), the latter stay adjoined to it throughout the derivation. In Del Gobbo (2003) I propose to treat appositive relative clauses as an instance of E-type anaphora (following for example work by Sells 1985 and Demirdache 1991). In order for the appositive relative pronoun to be correctly interpreted as E-type, it needs to temporally follow the ‘head’ it modifies. This is ultimately the reason why Chinese relative clauses cannot be appositive: they are prenominal, hence they always precede the ‘head’ they modify. But this doesn’t prevent them to act like appositive adjectives, namely like predicate of individuals (type ) that modify singular terms. By assuming that Chinese relative clauses have the property of behaving like appositive adjectives we explain why they can still modify proper names and pronouns while retaining the syntactic and semantic behavior of restrictive relative clauses. As a matter of fact, tests on question/answer pairs, NPdeletion and VP-deletion show that appositive adjectives are strikingly more similar to restrictive relative clauses than they are to appositive relative clauses. Appositive adjectives and restrictive relative clauses are predicates 303
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Chinese relative clauses: restrictive, descriptive or appositive? - Lear

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