Abstract
This paper argues (a) that the bı̌ comparative construction in Mandarin Chinese is a form of clausal comparative and (b) that Mandarin Chinese lacks abstraction over degree variables. Beck et al. (2004) propose that languages may vary in whether or not they allow for abstraction over degree variables through movement. In previous work, comparatives with clausal standards have been uniformly analyzed cross-linguistically as involving \(\overline {\text{A}}\)-movement of a degree operator, and are thereby predicted to not occur in languages without degree abstraction. The paper shows that clausal comparison without degree abstraction is not only theoretically possible but attested, contributing to the cross-linguistic typology of degree constructions. Along the way, I detail the syntactic derivation of bı̌ comparatives and the obligatory ellipsis operation (comparative deletion) in their derivation.
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Notes
An exception is the arguments for the clausal analysis from the binding of the reflexive zìjı̌ and its so-called “blocking effect” presented in Erlewine (2010) and independently in Hsieh (2015). Liu (2011) proposes a “hybrid analysis,” where both clausal and phrasal bı̌ comparatives exist, but it too lacks sufficient specificity in the description of the deletion operation in clausal comparatives.
Most of this previous literature includes no discussion of compositional semantics and refer to the two-place vs three-place approaches as clausal vs phrasal or deletion vs non-deletion, respectively, referring to the clausal standard and the deletion operation necessary for the adoption of the two-place approach for bı̌ comparatives.
Among previous two-place/clausal analyses, I concentrate on Liu (1996) here because more recent clausal analyses do not give sufficiently explicit descriptions for the comparative deletion process. For example, comparative deletion in the clausal analysis of Liu (2011) “obligatorily deletes all the subelements of the clause introduced by the marker bi except those in a contrastive relation to their corresponding correlates” (1769), without limitation to the size or position of deleted material(s), which is too unconstrained. Hsieh (2015) says he follows the clausal analysis of Liu (1996) and does not formulate a more explicit comparative deletion requirement.
Derivations will be given here with (a) no extended projections for VP or AP and (b) base-generation of subjects in Spec,TP, for ease of illustration. The proposal made here is also compatible with the predicate-internal subject hypothesis (Kuroda 1988; Kitagawa 1986; Koopman and Sportiche 1991: a.o.), which Huang (1993) has argued to apply to Mandarin. Movement of the subject from predicate-internal position to Spec,TP is compatible with my analysis, in the same way as other movements from predicate-internal position, as discussed in Sect. 5.
Two other properties of comparative deletion in the bı̌ comparative make it notable: first, that the deletion is backwards, in the sense that the elided “gap” position linearly precedes its antecedent; and second, that the elided gap cannot be in an embedded clause in the target clause, and its antecedent cannot be in an embedded clause in the standard clause.
Deletion with these properties is also observed in other languages, in particular in processes targeting coordinate structures. Right Node Raising has been argued to be a form of backwards deletion in this sense (Wexler and Culicover 1980; Kayne 1994; Bošković 2004; Chalcraft 2006). Gap** also exhibits a requirement that the deleted constituent and its antecedent cannot be embedded (Hankamer 1979: a.o.), as illustrated through the minimal pair in (i–ii) from Johnson (2009: 293).
The comparative deletion in bı̌ comparatives, analyzed here as a coordinate structure, is thus a case of ellipsis which exhibits these two properties which are each separately observable in other coordinate structures.
One might wonder whether the predicates in question—here, ‘tall’ and ‘wide’—are actually commensurable; that is, whether degrees of ‘tall’ and degrees of ‘wide’ can be ordered in Mandarin. We see that this is not a concern through the following examples, which offers a grammatical way to express the comparison intended in (23) above. Here we have nominalized each gradable predicate using -dù ‘degree’ and compare them using the transitive verb chāoguò ‘exceed,’ rather than using a bı̌ comparative.
Other languages with clausal comparatives which nonetheless disallow subcomparatives are attested. See Hsieh (2015: 99–100) for discussion.
A reviewer asks whether the bı̌ comparative could be thought of as an “implicit” comparative in the terms of Kennedy (2009), akin to the English expression John is tall compared to Mary. Erlewine (2007: Sect. 3.3) uses a number of diagnostics from Kennedy (2009) to argue that the bı̌ comparative is indeed an “explicit” comparative which expresses an ordering between degrees, as the comparative operators reviewed in Sect. 2 do.
The bı̌ comparative in Mandarin can optionally take a differential, with the differential following the gradable predicate. Semantically, the differential would be an argument of the comparative operator, bı̌, with a modified comparative semantics which specifies the differential as equal to the difference
. I will leave an extension of the proposal here to bı̌ comparatives with differentials for future work. See **ang (2005) for extensive discussion of differentials in Mandarin comparatives.My discussion here is also compatible with degree predicates all being universally Degree Last, though here I will simply assume that Degree Last denotations are available.
An alternative approach would be to make all gradable predicates “measure functions” that return their maximal degree after saturating all their arguments (Heim 1985; Kennedy 1997: a.o.). For example, ‘tall’ would have a type signature of
under such a system. For the purposes of this paper, this measure function approach is completely equivalent to the Degree Last proposal made here and could be adopted for the Mandarin Chinese facts. Here I choose the technical variant which does not require varying the definition of the two-place comparative operator in (34), albeit only notationally.The morpheme de is obligatory when postverbal adverbs are introduced. It is orthographically distinct from the genitive marker de glossed here as gen and the relative clause marker glossed here as rc (in Sect. 6.2). See Huang (1988); Cheng (2007); Huang et al. (2009) for discussion of this de which appears with manner adverbials.
The denotation in (40) must be suitably formalized, for example by the use of event semantics. For example, assuming the predicate-internal subject hypothesis (fn. 4), kuài ‘fast’ could take an event description and return the corresponding degree of degree description for the speed of that event; its type could then be
where v is the type of events. See e.g. Davidson (1967) and Eckardt (1998). See also fn. 16 below.This criticism extends to Lin’s (2009) unique phrasal analysis as well. Recall that Lin (2009) allows for the introduction of n constituents which will form the standard together with n constituents which will form the target. The target and standard here cannot be thought of as two constituents each (e.g. Zhāng Sān and pǎo de): the particle de forms a constituent with the following manner adverb, not the preceding verb (Huang 1988; Huang et al. 2009). We also cannot think of the de particles as additional arguments introduced by Lin’s bı̌, as there are not arguments of the gradable predicate. See also the discussion of example (46) later in this section for another, even more striking argument against the Lin (2009) phrasal analysis.
Note that, to the extent that (45b) is grammatical, the second instance of runs must be destressed. The same is true of the second instance of pǎo de in (44) above, for those speakers who do not find the example completely ungrammatical. On similarities between ellipsis and destressing, see Tancredi (1992).
I thank an anonymous reviewer for requesting discussion of examples of this form.
Semantically, I propose that kuài ‘fast’ has a type-flexible denotation. With the adoption of the predicate-internal subject hypothesis, the denotations for ‘fast’ can be unified as
for arbitrary type τ. In its adverbial guise, τ may be of event (v) or event description (
) type, as in fn. 12; in its adjectival guise, τ could simply be type e. This allows for the deletion of the adverbial use of ‘fast’ in the target clause under semantic identity with the predicative use of ‘fast’ in the standard clause in (47).Tsao (1989) credits Tsao (1979) with the original observation of the animacy condition on the felicity of object preposing. Paul (2002: fn. 7) cites Hou (1979) as first documenting this animacy condition, and also notes that a similar observation is made in C.-T. James Huang’s unpublished MA thesis. Examples and judgments here are from Tsao (1989).
There seems to be variation regarding these restrictions. As noted by an anonymous reviewer, Liu (2011) gives example (i) below which has one interpretation (ib) which compares contrasting animate objects in the target and standard. (Interpretation (a) is a case of object topicalization, with contrasting subjects as the target and standard.)
What is predicted by my analysis, borrowing from Tsao’s observation, is a correlation between the conditions on object preposing and the comparative form in (ib). Therefore, speakers who accept examples such as (ib) and therefore do not have a strong animacy constraint on contrasting objects in comparatives should also accept animate object preposing constructions. This anonymous reviewer is such a speaker, judging (ib) as grammatical and also allowing animate object preposing sentences.
In order to satisfy semantic identity of the elided VP1 and its antecedent VP2, the indices on traces and their corresponding binders must match. See e.g. Heim and Kratzer (1998).
I take the projections corresponding to “father scold t severely” and “mother scold t severely” in (61) to be vPs with predicate-internal subjects, although Ting (1998) and Huang (1999) describe them as IPs, corresponding to TPs in the terms used here. This difference is important for the analysis of example (60) here: If they were labeled TPs, VP“scold t severely” would not count as a local predicate of TPin (61), so we would not be able to satisfy the CDR. See Huang (1999: fn. 6) and Her (2009) for evidence that these embeddings are indeed not full TPs.
Krasikova (2008) has previously claimed that Mandarin Chinese lacks degree abstraction, but her evidence is unfortunately inconclusive. First, Krasikova points to the lack of subcomparatives as evidence for the lack of degree abstraction. But subcomparatives can be independently ruled out on syntactic grounds, as discussed in Sect. 4. Second, she presents an argument from a special type of comparative known as the Differential Verbal Comparative (DVC; Li 2009. See also fn. 27). The DVC has been shown by Li (2009) to have many different properties from regular bı̌ comparatives described here, and its structure has been less studied overall, making it a poor foundation for testing these questions of degree abstraction. The coauthored Beck et al. (2009) repeats these claims and additionally discusses degree questions as a testing ground for degree abstraction in the language. But Mandarin Chinese is a wh-in-situ language and its degree questions are not subject to syntactic islands (Tsai 1994; Liao 2013), suggesting that movement is not involved.
Implicit in the discussion here is that we do not have a rich inventory of free type-shifting rules such as Geach’s rule (Geach 1970; see e.g. Jacobson 2014). If such arbitrary type-shifting procedures exist, we will be unable to account for the effects attributed to the lack of degree abstraction in Mandarin, which I present in the subsequent sections. Alternatively, the variant of the negative setting of the DAP in such a variable-free framework may be to say that such type-shifters cannot be used for certain types in some languages. A full discussion of what we predict if such type-shifters are made a part of grammar is beyond the scope of this paper.
A reviewer raises the concern that the relevant modifier ‘long’—cháng de in (79b)—may be a relative clause and hence a relative clause island, not just a left branch extraction from a modifier. First, following Kennedy and Merchant (2000; cf. fn. 25), comparative deletion can rescue island violations, if the construction were otherwise available. As the structure of English (78) shows, deletion of the offending violation in just the ellipsis site is sufficient to rescue the entire structure. Second, relative clause islands are notoriously porous in Mandarin Chinese, as has been noted by work such as Huang (1984, 1989); Tsai (1997). These authors have adopted a Generalized Control Rule (GCR) which allows for an exceptional abstraction dependency to be formed across islands, subject to a form of relativized minimality. The GCR predicts that the degree variable saturating cháng ‘long’ could be bound by the degree binder (λ-binder of degree type), across the relative clause island.
In addition to the nominalization strategy in (80c), Mandarin also has a distinct construction for comparing the quantity and identity of postverbal constituents, dubbed the “Differential Verbal Comparative” (DVC) by Li (2009), which could be used here as well.
. I will leave an extension of the proposal here to bı̌ comparatives with differentials for future work. See **ang (
under such a system. For the purposes of this paper, this measure function approach is completely equivalent to the Degree Last proposal made here and could be adopted for the Mandarin Chinese facts. Here I choose the technical variant which does not require varying the definition of the two-place comparative operator in (34), albeit only notationally.
where v is the type of events. See e.g. Davidson (
for arbitrary type τ. In its adverbial guise, τ may be of event (v) or event description (
) type, as in fn. 
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Acknowledgements
For helpful discussion and comments, I thank Sigrid Beck, Patrick Grosz, Jeremy Hartman, Irene Heim, James Huang, Sabine Iatridou, Hadas Kotek, Jo-wang Lin, Chen-Sheng Luther Liu, Jason Merchant, Waltraud Paul, David Pesetsky, Omer Preminger, Norvin Richards, Yasutada Sudo, Maziar Toosarvandani, and audiences at the 2010 MIT Workshop on Comparatives and WCCFL 29 at the University of Arizona, as well as NLLT editors Louise McNally and Julie Anne Legate and many anonymous reviewers. I especially thank Chris Kennedy for putting me on this path and Athulya Aravind for detailed written comments on a recent draft. For extensive discussion of judgments I thank Celia Jia Cui, Julie Li Jiang, Chi-Ming Louis Liu, Pamela Pan, Cheng-Yu Edwin Tsai, Wei Wang, Yuncheng Zhou, and especially Tingchun Chen and Yimei **ang. Parts of the data in Sect. 5 and a substantially different analysis appeared in the Proceedings of WCCFL 29 as Erlewine (2012). All errors are mine.
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Erlewine, M.Y. Clausal comparison without degree abstraction in Mandarin Chinese. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 36, 445–482 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-017-9383-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-017-9383-y