Open AccessInformation structure constraints and complex NP islands in Chinese
Author(s) -
Dawei Jin
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
proceedings of the international conference on head-driven phrase structure grammar
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1535-1793
DOI - 10.21248/hpsg.2013.6
Subject(s) - head (geology) , feature (linguistics) , contradiction , computer science , percolation (cognitive psychology) , linguistics , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , psychology , philosophy , geology , geomorphology , neuroscience
This paper presents an analysis of the complex NP island effects inChinese. I follow Ginzburg & Sag (2000)'s analysis of in situwh-interrogativeconstruction and propose that feature percolation from the non-head clausedaughter to the head daughter is required for a proper treatment of insitu wh-relative. A semantic analysis of the idiosyncrasy ofweishenme 'why' reveals that a definite reading is forced for awh-relative when weishenme stays in situ. This requirement causesfeature percolation into relative head to fail. In this way I show thatisland effects in Chinese can be independently ruled out in the grammar asa case of contradiction.