Title

On the Absence of Island Effects

Author

Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai

Genre

Article  

Pages

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Key words

Chinese syntax, syntactic theory, island effects, Subjacency discoures-linking, wh-question, topicalization, relativization

Abstract

      This paper explores an alternative to Tsai’s (1994) analysis of Chinese wh-in-situ construals. Its is claimed that there is a correlat in between the lack of island iffects in Chinese topicalization and relativization on the on e hand, and that in Chinese wh- questions on the other. We present facts from so-called sloppy relatives and parasitic gap constructions to show that D(isourse)-linking in Pesetsky’s (1987) sense could play a part in construing wh’-in-situ, given that, in the vein of Huang (1984), a null operator is base-generated in [Spec, CP] for Chinese/Japanese-type languages. If the null operator in question is [+Q], then unselective binding applies to form a wh-question. On the other hand, if the null operator is [－Q], then predication applies to form a topic-comment structure or a relative construction.