Right node raising in Mandarin Chinese: are we moving right?

This article discusses the right node raising construction in Chinese (henceforth the RNR). It aims to provide a novel analysis that can deal with two new observations made in the Chinese RNR construction, including the tone sandhi phenomenon, which provides clues to the syntax of RNR from syntax-pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLinguistics Vol. 62; no. 2; pp. 261 - 294
Main Author Wang, Yuyun
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published De Gruyter 25.03.2024
Subjects
empty noun
focus dislocation
prosodic boundary
right node raising
subcategorization
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Summary:This article discusses the right node raising construction in Chinese (henceforth the RNR). It aims to provide a novel analysis that can deal with two new observations made in the Chinese RNR construction, including the tone sandhi phenomenon, which provides clues to the syntax of RNR from syntax-prosody mapping, and a syntactic constraint that only arguments, but not adjuncts, may qualify as an RNR target. Based on these new observations, I show that none of the previous analyses of the RNR (mainly in English) are fully adequate in accounting for the RNR in Chinese. An alternative analysis is pursued here. Given the syntactic and syntax-prosodic properties, I propose to analyze the gaps within the coordinated structure in Chinese Right-Node Raising (RNR) by exploring the notion of an empty noun, along with the concept of the True Empty Category. In the RNR construction, the coordinated structure undergoes leftward movement over the RNR target, which is driven by considerations of information structure. As a result, this induces an illusion of rightward movement on the surface.
ISSN:0024-3949
1613-396X
DOI:10.1515/ling-2020-0163