Against the Low Periphery as Phrase Markers: Two Types of Contrastive Dislocations in Mandarin Chinese

• Yuyun Iris Wang ^[1] ; Wei-wen Roger Liao ^[2]
  1. [1] Ming Chuan University

     Ming Chuan University

     Taoyuan District, Taiwán

     
  2. [2] Academia Sinica

     Academia Sinica

     Taiwán

     
• Localización: Studia linguistica: A journal of general linguistics, ISSN 0039-3193, Vol. 75, Nº 1, 2021, págs. 97-127
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1111/stul.12151
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • We argue that the contrastive dislocation to the low peripheral position in Mandarin Chinese does not target phrase markers, like TopicP or FocusP, contra recent proposals that attempt to extend the cartographic theory to the low IP-area. We argue that such dislocations are best analyzed as PF movements, which display the total reconstruction effect and do not affect the LF interface. We show that the contrastive dislocation to the low periphery in Mandarin Chinese is subject to the same PF licensing condition found in the Object Shift construction in Scandinavian. Our analysis thus claims that the low periphery is not a part of the narrow syntax (unlike the left periphery). The templatic nature of the low periphery explains why it is more restricted across languages and is prone to linguistic variation.