Reassessing the argument–adjunct asymmetry in wh-in-situ islands in Mandarin: An experimental investigation

This paper conducted formal judgment tasks that test the island status in Mandarin. There has been significant disagreement in the literature regarding which type of wh -phrases gives rise to island violations. The pattern of variation is theoretically significant, as it distinguishes between availa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNatural language and linguistic theory Vol. 43; no. 3; pp. 1327 - 1363
Main Authors Jin, Dawei, Yan, Hanbo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.08.2025
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Acceptability
Asymmetry
Islands
Linguistics
Mandarin
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Philosophy of Language
Social Sciences
Wh-in-situ
Why-question
Acceptability judgments
Syntax/semantics interface
Strong island constraint
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Summary:This paper conducted formal judgment tasks that test the island status in Mandarin. There has been significant disagreement in the literature regarding which type of wh -phrases gives rise to island violations. The pattern of variation is theoretically significant, as it distinguishes between available explanations of wh-in-situ islands. The current study examined three island types. Within each type, it was found that argument-in-situ differs from adjunct-in-situ. Specifically, our results pointed to a three-way distinction, with wh -arguments inducing no islands, the how -adjunct inducing mild, inconsistent island violation, and the why -adjunct inducing a robust island effect with severe degradation in acceptability. The results also found differences in the between-participant distribution among the wh -categories.
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ISSN:0167-806X
1573-0859
DOI:10.1007/s11049-024-09638-0