10.1426, Sum: Pro-drop Phenomena & Chinese

[LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-10-1426. Thu Sep 30 1999. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 10.1426, Sum: Pro-drop Phenomena & Chinese

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>
            Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Associate Editors:  Martin Jacobsen <marty at linguistlist.org>
                    Ljuba Veselinova <ljuba at linguistlist.org>
		    Scott Fults <scott at linguistlist.org>
		    Jody Huellmantel <jody at linguistlist.org>
		    Karen Milligan <karen at linguistlist.org>

Assistant Editors:  Lydia Grebenyova <lydia at linguistlist.org>
		    Naomi Ogasawara <naomi at linguistlist.org>
		    James Yuells <james at linguistlist.org>

Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
                      Chris Brown <chris at linguistlist.org>
                      Qian Liao <qian at linguistlist.org>

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/


Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karen at linguistlist.org>

=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Tue, 28 Sep 1999 21:17:33 +0300
From:  "Abdulaziz Al-Najmi" <alnajmi at usa.net>
Subject:  Chinese & Pro-drop Phenomema

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Tue, 28 Sep 1999 21:17:33 +0300
From:  "Abdulaziz Al-Najmi" <alnajmi at usa.net>
Subject:  Chinese & Pro-drop Phenomema



Last week I sent a question to the linguist-list asking about the Chinese
and its position in the Pro-drop phenomena. Thankfully, many people
contributed to the issue. Most of the responses stated that null-subjects
can be recovered either by morphosyntactic means( verbal agreement) as in
morphologically rich languages like Arabic and Spanish(Avrutin, Henry), or
through discourse processes like Chinese (Lachini). Boaretto, gratefully,
supplied his answer with very good examples (separate sentences as well as a
piece of composition) from Chinese. Reese, for instance, states that Chinese
and Japanese are pro-drop languages, while Arabic and Spanish are non
pro-drop. He looks at the issue from a non Chomskian way of thinking as he
states. I would like also to thank many people who sent me some names of
very relevant references about the issue. Finally, I would like to say that
this is the first time I write to the linguist-list, so I'm not aware of
many rules of this wonderful list and please excuse me for any
inconvenience.
Best regards,

Abdulaziz Al-Najmi


Here are the examples of (Boaretto) from Chen'Teh James Huang 1982: 359:

i) Zuotian     lai-le          yige         xiansheng.        (e)
gao-gao-de.
   yesterday come-Asp  one           Mr.                       tall-tall

(e)dai-le        yifu         jinbian         de            jinshi
yanjing.
    wear-Asp  one        gold-rim        DE          near-sight  glasses.

Wo      wen      Lisi            ren-bu-renshi (e).     Lisi     shuo    ta
    bu     renshi (e).
I          ask                        Know-not-know                 say
 he    not    know


Zhangsan      shuo       ta        renshi (e).    Ta     shuo    Xiazhang
 gaosu    ta yihou,
                    say         he       know           he     say
principal     tell        he  after

cai    zhidao   (e)    shi    Xiaozhang   de    pengyou.   (e)     xing
     Li.
then  know             is      principal      DE   friend
surname

'Yesterday came a gentleman. (He) wore a pair of near-sighted glasses in
gold rims. I asked Lisi if he Knew (him). Lisi said he did not know (him).
Zhangsan said that he knew (him). He said after the principal told him, he
realized that (he) was the principal's friend. (He) is surnemed Li.'

Some suggested reading:

Besnier,  Niko.  1985. The local organization of zero anaphora in
Tuvaluan conversation.  TE REO 28,  119-147.

[another language without much morphology]

Li,  Charles N & Sandra A Thompson.  1981. MANDARIN CHINESE: A
FUNCTIONAL REFERENCE GRAMMAR.  University of California Press:
Berkeley.

[Chapter 24]

My own interest is thatI have discussed the same feature in SIngapore
Colloquial English, e.g.

Gupta, Anthea Fraser. 1994.  The Step-Tongue: Children's English in
Singapore.  Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

huang, C.-T. J. (1984), On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns.
Linguistic Inquiry, 15, 531-74.

Check out Jim  Huang's work 1984, 1989, 1991.

(1984) "On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns",
       _Linguistic Inquiry_ 15, 531-574.

(1989) "Pro-drop in Chinese: a generalized control theory", in _The Null
       Subject Parameter_, edited by Osvaldo Jaeggli and Ken Safir.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-10-1426