Date of Award
June 2019
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics
Advisor(s)
Jaklin Kornfilt
Keywords
Chinese, sloppy identity, sluicing, topicalization
Subject Categories
Arts and Humanities
Abstract
Concerning the nature of sluicing-like constructions in Chinese, this thesis examines two competing analyses proposed in the literature: the pseudo-sluicing analysis and the PF-deletion (sluicing) analysis. It shows that both analyses fail to reconcile with the presence of the copula shi as well as the sloppy reading found in Chinese sluicing-like constructions. It also observes that the sloppy reading and the copula shi are in complementary distribution—constructions with the copular shi are unable to be associated with sloppy readings. With respect to such facts, this thesis suggests to divide Chinese sluicing-like constructions into two distinct syntactic structures, namely pseudo-sluicing (for those with the copula shi) and sluicing (for those without the copula shi). Further, this thesis manages to fix the difficulty in creating the environment for PF-deletion in sluicing by suggesting that the wh-phrase moves to the left periphery through topicalization. Discussions on problems proposed in the literature are also included.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Gong, Ying, "Sloppy Identity in Chinese Sluicing-like Constructions" (2019). Theses - ALL. 361.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/361
