Phi-Agree, A-movement, and Complementizer-Tense Relations in Chinese.

Abstract

This dissertation reveals an apparent paradox presented by Chinese which confronts current theories of Universal Grammar, parametric variation, and typology of human languages. Specifically, Chinese presents a problem for the feature inheritance hypothesis (Richards 2007; Chomsky 2007, 2008; Miyagawa 2010) because Chinese seems to manifest neither phi-features/Agree on T nor the freedom to raise any topic phrase to spec-TP (a hallmark feature of discourse-configurational languages like Finnish). That is, the UG-typology advanced under the feature inheritance hypotheses seems to exclude Chinese. In view of this apparent paradox, I investigate the distribution and motivation of A-movement in Chinese in chapter 2 and argue that Chinese is in fact compatible with Miyagawa’s feature inheritance approach. I contend that Chinese displays A-movement motivated by two distinct forces: the Case feature (see Epstein and Seely 2006, Bošković 2002) and the Topic feature (as in Miyagawa 2010). Chapter 3 investigates the question of whether Chinese lacks phi-features/Agree altogether by examining the blocking effects observed in the long-distance construal of the reflexive ziji (see Huang and Liu 2001) and the formation of Chinese wh-the-hell questions (see Huang and Ochi 2004 and Chou 2012). I contend that these two types of blocking effects receive a unified analysis if we assume phi-Agree exists at the CP level in Chinese, and involves [Speaker] and [Participant] features. Chapter 4 examines the derivation of locative inversion in English and Chinese, particularly focusing on why T-to-C inversion is not allowed in English locative inversion, whereas the counterpart operation is allowed in Chinese. I argue that (i) locative inversion in both English and Chinese is topic A-movement, and (ii) the possible presence of φ-features on T and the categorial status of the locative phrase jointly determine whether a language can implement T-to-C inversion in locative inversion. Chapter 5 discusses two foundational theoretical implications, including (i) how to express the A/A'-distinction in languages without φ-features on T, and (ii) the postulation of featurally crash-proof grammar in which uninterpretable features present at the CI interface do not cause crash (see Frampton and Guttman 2002; Carstens 2011; Epstein, Kitahara and Seely 2010; Putnam 2010).