A CP analysis of Mandarin Chinese
Ding Xu · Linguistics in the Netherlands · 1993
IntroductionAccording to Chomsky (1986), sentences in English are to be analyzed as CPs (Complementizer Phrases). 1 The question that one may ask is if this analysis can be applied to Mandarin Chinese as well.The answer however, seems to be negative at first sight, since Mandarin Chinese lacks Complementizers in those positions where they do occur in European languages.This is illustrated in (1) where the subordinate clause immediately follows the main clause without being preceded by a Complementizer:(1) Zhangsan renwei Lisi dong Zhongwen.Zhangsan assume Lisi understand Chinese 'Zhangsan assumes that Lisi understands Chinese.'In this paper however, I intend to argue the opposite.I will claim that there is a Cposition in Mandarin Chinese and that sentences in Mandarin Chinese can in fact be analyzed as CPs; a position which follows directly from the Null-Hypothesis, assuming that sentences in Mandarin Chinese should be analyzed in the same way as those of English and Dutch.Given such a claim, the question that follows is whether there are elements in Mandarin Chinese which can serve as potential Complementizers, and I will argue that this is exactly the case.Two domains will be examined in this paper, the domain of relative clauses and the domain of root clauses.I will argue that in both domains we can find elements which can be analyzed as potential heads of the CP.In the case of the relative clause it is the pre-nominal modifier DE and in the case of the root clause it is the sentence-final particle LE.The structure of the Chinese CP which I will be arguing for is presented in (2)