Polylinguist

The informal talk series known as 'Polylinguist' were created in 1995 by a group of linguists in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University as a platform to exchange research experiences with colleagues who are interested at language and linguistics.  The free discussion which often led to heated debate quickly became its trademark and made it very popular.

The Polylinguist series phased out in 1998 since more and more academic departments were organizing formal talks or seminars and there was a shortage of time slots.  After several years of staying in the sideline, however, we feel that there is a compelling need for an informal forum so that local linguists can share their works with each other and discuss or even debate issues of common interest.  We are therefore re-introducing the Polylinguist forum in the format of a linguistic salon.  The idea is to keep the informal atmosphere of Polylinguist but make it more concentrated by discussing one paper each time.

All are welcome!  

[NB: If you need a parking coupon or have any questions, please contact Sze-Wing Tang at sw.tang@polyu.edu.hk.]

The 10th Polylinguist Salon

On True Empty Categories

Audrey Li

University of Southern California

Paul Law

City University of Hong Kong

Dingxu Shi

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Sze-Wing Tang

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

 
Date:     May 17, 2008 (Saturday)
Time:     2pm - 6:30pm
Venue:   AG 710, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Audrey Li recently argues that the null head noun and VP ellipsis in Chinese are 'True Empty Categories' (TECs), which are phonetically empty elements that are devoid of features. The 10th Polylinguist Salon is devoted to the theme on TECs. In this salon, the rationale behind the theory of TECs will be introduced and some empirical and conceptual issues regarding the interpretation of null nominals and VP-ellipsis in Chinese will be discussed. The discussion will be informal and interactive, which intends to offer a good opportunity for those who are interested in the theoretical analyses of empty elements in Chinese syntax to share views from different perspectives.

Tentative schedule:
 
2:00-2:45pm  Audrey Li --- Hearing through Grammar [abstract]

2:45-3:00pm  break

3:00-3:40pm  Dingxu Shi --- Chinese Headless Relatives Do Have Head [abstract]

3:40-4:20pm  Sze-Wing Tang --- Notes on N-Ellipsis and V-Ellipsis in Chinese [abstract]

4:20-5:00pm  Paul Law --- Some Thoughts on the Interpretation of Null Arguments [abstract]

5:00-5:15pm  tea break

5:15-6:00pm  Audrey Li --- Issues on Emptiness [abstract]

6:00-6:30pm  Open discussion
 
　

The 9th Polylinguist Salon

(co-sponsored by Language Acquisition Lab, Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Linguistic Society of Hong Kong)

The Syntax of Proposition Formation

Tor A. Åfarli

Norwegian University of Science and Technology
 
Date:     March 12, 2007 (Monday)
Time:     10:00am-12:00pm
Venue:   AG 507, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
 
Abstract
 
I shall argue that predication is the key to explaining the Extended Projection Principle (EPP), contrary to recent theories of "EPP-denial". Invoking the notion of predication to explain EPP effects has always been problematic because of the existence of expletive subjects, which is the reason why a primitive notion of syntactic predication has sometimes been proposed. However, I will show that this problem is overcome once the idea that predication is proposition formation is properly understood. Construing predication as proposition formation paves the way to an explanation of the EPP as an effect of genuine semantic predication, and thus the EPP gets a natural explanation in terms of conditions set by the Conceptual-Intentional interface, an appeal to a separate primitive notion of syntactic predication becoming obsolete. Some syntactic implications of my proposal are discussed.
 
About the speaker
 
Tor A. Åfarli, Professor in Scandinavian linguistics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim since 1997. Current areas of interest: syntax and semantics, interfaces, comparative syntax, dialect syntax, language contact and change, SLA.

The 8th Polylinguist Salon

(co-sponsored by Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Linguistic Society of Hong Kong)

Number and Countability

Rint Sybesma

Leiden University
 
Date:     May 9, 2005 (Monday)
Time:     4:00-6:00pm
Venue:   AG 507, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
 
Abstract
 
This talk focuses on issues related to the syntactic representation of number and the difference between count nouns and mass nouns. Recent proposals by Doetjes (1997), Cheng and Sybesma (1999) and Borer (2005) will be evaluated, taking into account a broad set of data from languages such as English, Dutch, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Zhuang. A crucial role will be played by the diminutive suffix in Dutch, the zĭ suffix in Mandarin, and the absence of it in Cantonese.
 
About the speaker
 
Rint Sybesma (Ph. D. from Leiden University, 1992) is affiliated to the Center of Chinese Studies and the Center of Linguistics at Leiden University; he is also a Research fellow of the Center of Chinese Linguistics of Peking University. Sybesma investigates the syntax of Mandarin and Cantonese as well as other Sinitic and non-Sinitic languages spoken in China, especially Zhuang. His publications include The Mandarin VP (1999, Kluwer) and “Classifiers in four varieties of Chinese”, in Guglielmo Cinque and Richard Kayne, The Oxford handbook of comparative syntax, 259-292. New York: OUP USA (with Lisa Cheng).
 
 
Second talk by the speaker

Zhuang as Tai with Chinese Characteristics:

Postverbal ‘can’ in Zhuang, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Lao
 
Linguistic Seminar organized by Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, CUHK, and co-sponsored by Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, PolyU, and Linguistic Society of Hong Kong
 
Date:     May 10, 2005 (Tuesday)
Time:     4:30-6:30pm
Venue:   Swire Hall 1, Fung King Hei Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
 
Abstract
 
In this paper I present an overview of the many different functions performed by a single element meaning 'acquire' in languages all over Southeast Asia, with a focus on its modal functions in postverbal position. Interestingly, in some languages it can express an ability reading while in others this is not possible.  I try to correlate this difference with other differences that exist between the languages under consideration.
 
　

The 7th Polylinguist Salon

(co-sponsored by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong)

 
「副＋名」組合的語義特徵和語義指向
邵敬敏
暨南大學中文系、香港浸會大學中文系

Department of Chinese, Jinan University, Guangzhou

Department of Chinese, Hong Kong Baptist University

Date: March 23, 2004 (Tuesday)

Venue: AG 507, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Time: 4pm - 6pm

Abstract

近年來，「程度副詞＋名詞」這種用法以異乎尋常的速度增長，對此，語言學家有三種解釋：（一）「詞性轉變論」；（二）「功能游移論」；（三）「語義量度論」。最終都歸結為名詞的語法功能發生了改變，或者是名詞向形容詞功能靠攏，或者臨時活用為形容詞，或者乾脆看作名詞和形容詞的兼類。我們試圖根據語義的雙向選擇性原則重新解釋這一有趣的語言現象。

第一，提出「語義特徵的喚醒機制」。第二，對這些能夠組合的形態名詞進行重新分類。第三，提出語義指向的三種方法：語義偏指法，語義深指法，語義外指法。從而擴大了語義指向的內涵。第四，討論了這類組合的可能性與現實性。第五，指出這種組合中的社會、文化因素以及所表達語義的模糊性。

About the speaker

邵敬敏，1966年畢業於北京大學中文系語言專業，1981年獲杭州大學（現浙江大學）文學碩士學位，現為暨南大學中文系特聘一級教授，博士生導師。兼任廣東省中國語言學會副會長、中國語言學會理事、現代漢語語法國際研討會總召集人；兼任華東師範大學、福建師範大學、華中師範大學、浙江師範大學、浙江教育學院、黑龍江大學、延邊大學、廣州大學等兼職教授，香港商務印書館、香港教育圖書公司顧問。曾任香港城市大學客座研究員，現任香港浸會大學中文系訪問教授。

研究主攻方向為現代漢語語法，語法學史和語言學評論等。主要著作有《漢語語法學史稿》、《中國理論語言學史》、《現代漢語疑問句研究》、《上海方言語法研究》、《漢語語法的立體研究》、《著名中年語言學家自選集-邵敬敏卷》、《漢語語言學評論集》、《漢語語法專題研究》等。並發表語言學論文200多篇。

《漢語語法學史稿》1995年獲國家教委第一屆優秀文科著作二等獎，《漢語語法的立體研究》2003年獲國家教育部第三屆優秀文科著作三等獎。

The 6th Polylinguist Salon

Relativization and the Sentence Boundary
XU Liejiong
University of Toronto/Hunan University

Date: December 1, 2003 (Monday)

Venue: AG 507, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Time: 4pm - 6pm

Abstract:

Authors: Xu Liejiong and Yang Caimei

How to define a sentence structurally has long been a serious challenge to Chinese grammarians. They can tell a sentence from a phrase, but it is hard to distinguish a sentence containing a number of clauses from a sentence group (ju qun) on the discourse level. We propose to use relativization as a diagnostic test. Given a string of words a, grammatical and meaningful, we add the relative marker de and an appropriate head noun phrase to its left to form a complex noun phrase. The noun phrase so formed is grammatical only if the structure underlying a is a sentential construction. Relativization is blocked where a contains more than one sentence. However, there are syntactic, semantic and pragmatic conditions that preclude a sentence from it capacity of being made a relative clause. We address these conditions. With a better understanding of the properties, characteristic of relative clauses in Chinese, we try to solve the technical problems of the diagnostic test and report the results.

About the speaker:

Xu Liejiong was educated at Peking University and taught at Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute and Fudan University. He was Professor of Linguistics at the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong from 1993 and retired in 2002. Now he does research at the Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto and works as Academic Advisor at the Department of Linguistics, Hunan University. (Yang Caimei is a PhD student of Hunan University under his supervision.)

The 5th Polylinguist

Issues in Language Contact and Bilingual Studies
Huang Guowen
Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou

Date: February 27, 2003

Venue: AG 507, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Time: 4pm - 6pm

Abstract:

The discussion will focus on the operational definitions and the general issues related to language contact and bilingual studies. It is conjectured that the field of bilingual studies include all the studies of language contact phenomena such as translation, bilingual education, code-mixing and code-switching, and intercultural communication, etc. in which two (or more) codes are involved in the process. Observation on the present development of bilingual studies in Hong Kong versus inland China will also be presented. Participants are expected to give their opinions and proposals.
 
The discussion will be started by Professor Huang Guowen of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou.

About the speaker:

Professor Huang Guowen, Dean of the School of Foreign Languages, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, received his first PhD in Applied Linguistics (Edinburgh, UK) in 1992 and his second PhD in Functional Linguistics (Wales, UK) in 1996.  His main research areas are Systemic Functional Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, and Translation Studies.  His papers are in journals such as Language Sciences, World Englishes, Interface (Journal of Applied Linguistics).  He has published/edited a number of monographs/collections, including Meaning and Form: Systemic Functional Interpretations (Studies for M.A.K. Halliday), Norwood: Ablex, 1996.  He is a member of editorial/advisory boards of several journals, including Social Semiotics (Harfax, England).

The 4th Polylinguist

Compiling Chinese Spoken Corpus of Situated Discourse --- principles and practice
GU Yueguo
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Date: December 18, 2002

Venue: QT502, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Time: 3pm - 5pm

Language: English

Abstract
 
The talk consists of three parts. Part 1 presents the state of the art about the Chinese spoken corpus of situated discourse under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which is made up of 650 hours of audio recordings and 150 hours of video recordings, the largest of the kind to date in the world. Part 2 spells out the principles that underline the compiling of the corpus. Part 3 discusses the technical aspects of processing the corpus, including the software developed or used, issues of segmentation and annotation. If time permits, demos will be made on annotating sound and video streams.

About the speaker

顧曰國，現任中國社會科學院語言研究所研究員，博士生導師，當代語言學研究室主任，《當代語言學》雜誌主編之一；同時兼任北京外國語大學校長助理、網絡教育學院副院長。1985年獲英國蘭開斯特大學語言學系語言研究優等碩士學位，1987年獲該系語用學與修辭學博士學位，師從英國學術院院士Leech院士。 在國際刊物上發表論文20篇，國內雜誌上發表文章15篇，國際雜誌特邀專號主編2期，合編著學術著作1部，英語和語言學教材32部。社會兼職有：1994年起任國際《語用學》雜誌諮詢編審，2000年當選為國際語用學協會常務理事。中國功能語言學協會常務理事。教育部遠程教育專家組成員，教育部自學考試委員會委員兼英語學科組組長。先後獲霍英東教育基金1993 年第四屆青年教師科研類一等獎，1994年北京市哲學社會科學優秀論文一等獎，1995年中國「國氏」博士後獎，1997年英國學術院王寬城基金會獎。國家「百千萬工程」千名學術帶頭人之一。

The 3rd Polylinguist

從動詞和謂賓的共變關係看漢語的限定和非限定問題
王東梅

中國社會科學院語言研究所
　

Date: December 12, 2002 (Thu)
Place: QT 502, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Time: 3:00pm - 5:00 pm

Language of Presentation: Putonghua

Abstract

英語中限定句和非限定句的界限比較明確。漢語由于缺乏形態標誌，這種區別不太明確。黃正德（Huang 1982）、湯廷池（2000）等都研究過漢語中限定句與非限定句的標準，然而這樣的界定標準是否真的管用值得懷疑。徐烈炯（1995）就對黃的標準提出過異議。

本文從動詞和謂賓的語義聯繫出發，證明謂賓的獨立性是個程度問題，形成一個連續統。而謂賓的獨立性和限定非限定是緊密相連的。這就意味著，從限定到非限定也是逐漸過渡的而不是截然分開的，也是一個連續統。黃正德等人提到的那些標準不應該看作是區分限定和非限定動詞的充分必要條件，而應視為限定和非限定這兩個範疇的「典型特徵」。

About the speaker

王冬梅，1989-1996年就讀於徐州師範大學，獲文學碩士學位，留校任教。1998-2001年就讀于中國社會科學院研究生院，獲文學博士學位。現在中國社會科學院語言所《中國語文》編輯部任助理研究員。

The 2nd Polylinguist

Descriptive Complement Constructions in Mandarin Chinese

Paul Law
Freie University of Berlin & City University of Hong Kong
 
Date: June 17, 2002 (Monday)
Place: QT 502, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Time: 10am - 12:30pm

Abstract

Huang (1988) claims that the syntactic structure for the descriptive complement construction, e.g. wo pao de hen kuai 'I run very fast', is that the first verb is the main predicate while the second predicate is an adjunct. While Huang's conclusion is correct, his account for the co-occurrence restrictions on the negation bu, the A-not-A form of questions and the perfective marker le is mostly incorrect. I argue that the restrictions are due to the aspectual property of bu and to a prosodic constraint on the occurrence of the particle de. 
 
Huang claims that since negation and the A-not-A form of question need not appear in main clause (cf. ni renwei [ tamen hui-bu-hui lai ]? 'Do you think they will come or do you think they won't?'), there is no reason to take the occurrence of the negation bu and the A-not-A form of question in the descriptive complement construction (cf. tamen pao de [ kuai-bu-kuai ]? 'do they run fast?' vs *tamen pao-bu-pao de kuai?) to be evidence that the second predicate is the main predicate. Moreover, as a verb prefixed with le, even as a main verb, cannot be negated by bu or A-not-A-questioned (cf. *tamen bu pian-le Lisi 'they didn't cheat Lisi') the distribution of bu and A-not-A questions is independent of the identification of the main verb; thus, the appearance of the perfective marker le on the second verb (cf. tamen ku-(*le) de yanlei lui-(le) chulai 'They cried so much that tears came out') does not show that the second verb is the main predicate. Huang proposes a principle P according to which the negation bu forms an immediate constituent with the following V, and the structure [bu+V]-le is excluded on semantic grounds, since it yields a semantically absurd reading, asserting the completion of some non-existing event.
 
Huang's account is problematic in several respects. First, the fact that the negation bu and the A-not-A question may be embedded is irrelevant since the embedded clause contains only one predicate, while the descriptive complement construction contains two. Second, the fact that a verb prefixed with the perfective marker le cannot be negated by bu or A-not-A questioned does not bear on the issue why le itself cannot appear on the first verb. Third, Huang suggests that the principle P may be derived from the verb moving out of VP to INFL where the negation bu is base-generated. But evidence from adverb placement argues against this view. Chinese is like English, rather than French, in that the (finite) verb never appears to the left of an adverb (cf. John (often) reads (*often) books vs Zhangsan (jingchang) kan (*jingchang) shu vs Jean (*souvent) lit (souvent) des livres). Thus, there is no justification for Huang's claim that Mandarin Chinese has VP-ellipsis of the English type (cf. Zhangsan kanjian-le ta de mama, Lisi ye kanjian-le 'Zhangsan saw his mother, and Lisi did too') where the repetition of the verb in the second conjunct serves the same function as English do-support.
 
As is well-known from the traditional literature (cf. Chao 1948), the aspectual property of the negation bu is that it can only negate non-past events (cf. Zhangsan mingtian/*zuotian bu lai 'Zhangsan won't come tomorrow/*yesterday'). In fact, bu may not co-occur with an inherently perfective predicate like wangji 'forget' (cf. *Lisi bu wangji Zhangsan 'Lisi doesn't forget Zhangsan'). The distribution of bu is thus clearly independently of the presence of the perfective marker le. There is therefore no need to appeal to the principle P or to the assumption that the verb in Chinese moves to INFL to account for the non-occurrence of the perfective marker le and the negation bu.
 
The descriptive complement construction is impossible if the first verb is transitive (cf. *ta nian shu de hen kuai 'he reads books fast'). Huang attributes it to the same general constraint barring double complements, but does not explain why the construction is possible when the particle de is missing (cf. ta nian shu hen kuai 'he reads books fast'). I claim that the particle de is subject to a prosodic constraint barring it from appearing after a non-monosyllabic predicate. Not only does the grammatical contrast between these two cases now follow, so does the exclusion of the co-occurrence of the particle de and the aspectual marker le (cf. *Zhangsan pao-le de hen kuai 'Zhangsan ran fast').
 
A clear piece of evidence showing that the first verb in the descriptive complement construction is the main predicate comes from extraction. Extraction of the object of the first verb (in relativization) is possible (cf. (zhe jiu shi) Zhangsan xie de hen kuai de wenzhang '(these are) the essays that Zhangsan quickly wrote'), a fact that cannot be explained if the first verb is not the main predicate but is contained in an adjunct. Extraction out of adjuncts is systematically barred by Huang's (1982) Condition on Extraction Domain (cf. *Zhangsan yinwei xie bei kaichu de shu 'the book that Zhangsan was fired because he wrote').

About the speaker

Paul Law received his undergraduate training in linguistics from UCLA and obtained his doctoral degree from MIT with a thesis on the effects of head movement on theories of subjacency and proper government. His interests are primarily syntactic theory, comparative syntax of Germanic and Romance languages, and syntax/morphology/phonology interfaces. He is a researcher at the Institute of English Philology, Freie Universitaet, Berlin, and is currently a Research Fellow in the Language Information Sciences Research Centre at the City University of Hong Kong.

The 1st Polylinguist

The Syntax of Word Formation
Tim Dingxu Shi

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Date: June 8, 2002 (Saturday)
Place: QT 502, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Time: 10am - 12:30pm

Abstract

There are two issues with regard to the status of Chinese compounds. One is whether they should be listed in the lexicon or be generated under certain rules. If they are to be generated, the other issue is where and how they should be generated.  

The arguments for generating Chinese compounds are that their internal structures are syntactically regulated and that new words can be created freely by rules. It is impossible to list all compounds, since compounds can have recursive structures and are therefore infinite in number (Gu and Shen 2001, Shi 2001)

The main reason for listing all compounds in the lexicon is that there are many exceptional cases that cannot be accounted for by syntactic rules (Huang 1997).  A compromise between the two lines of analyses is to have all compounds generated but then have them listed in the lexicon (Packard 2000).

It will be argued in this paper that there is strong evidence to support the generalization that Chinese compounds are constructed via syntactic rules while there is no credible evidence to falsify it. The exceptional cases can be classified into two types.  Words of the first type have undergone meaning shift and the relationship between their structure and meaning are thus obscured. Words of the second type are actually constructed according to syntactic rules but the facts have been distorted by misinterpretation.

Given this generalization and the principle of economy, it is reasonable to assume that Chinese compounds are generated somewhere in the derivation process. The exact location of word formation is mostly a theory internal consideration.  Many analyses (e.g. Li 1995, Packard 2000) assign it to lexicon and others to the morphology-syntax interface (Gu and Shen 2001). However, under the current framework of derivation by phase and the generalization about the syntactic nature of Chinese word formation, it is more preferable to push word formation to the actual derivation, as the first step of external merge in each phase.

If this is correct, word formation in Chinese should not be a pure morphological process, which follows morphological rules but not syntactic rules (Packard 2000). An alternative is to generate compounds with phrase structure rules or a modified version of phrase rules. A typical case is to derive nominal compounds with verbal modifier via a VP structure (Gu and Shen 2001, cf. Roeper 1987) as shown in (1). In the derivation process, the head V is adjoined to the external argument and the internal argument adjoined to the moved V. The upper part of the structure is then wiped out and what is left is the compound structure (2).

(1) [VP [N gong (worker)][V’[V xiuli (repair)][N qiche (car)]]]
(2) [N [V [N qiche (car)] [V xiuli (repair)]]  [N gong (worker)]]

A theoretic difficulty for this analysis is the status of the internal and external arguments, which have stipulated to be X0 instead of Xmax. Another is that the movement seems to be not constrained by any known syntactic rules. The most serious challenge is an empirical one. In order for the analysis to go through, it is stipulated that the internal order of all nominal compounds is object-verb-subject. This stipulation is counterfactual, since there are so many words that are not in this internal order, such as subject-verb-object zifang-guyong-renyuan “employer-hire-personnel, employee” and subject-verb-object-location guanzhong-gou-piao-chuangkou “audience-buy-ticket-window, box-office”.

The proposal of this paper is to generate compounds with word structure rules, which are based on principles of phrase rules but operate on X0 only.  The derivation involves merge only but not movement. The structure and the internal order of the compounds are regulated by thematic relations. 

References

Gu, Yang and Yang Shen. (2001) “Hanyu Fuheci de gouzao Guocheng (Word Formation in Chinese)”. Zhongguo Yuwen 2.122-133
Huang, Shuanfan. (1997) “Chinese as a Headless Language in Compounding Morphology”. In New Approaches to Chinese Word Formation, ed. Jerome Packard. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Li, Yafei. (1995) “The Thematic Hierarchy and  Causativity”. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 13.255-282.
Packard, Jerome. (2000) The Morphology of Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roeper, T. (1987) “Implicit Arguments and the Head-complement Relation”. Linguistic Inquiry 18.267-310.