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Checking out basic word order in
Cantonese
The basic word order of Cantonese
and its place within the theory of Collective and Individual Checking
proposed by Jan Koster
Doctoral thesis
by
Frank Oosterom
2007
Contents
1
Introduction
3
2
Koster’s Theory
15
3
Cantonese word order
22
4
Implications of Cantonese word order facts
41
5
Samenvatting in het Nederlands
44
Appendix I: Other sentences in Cantonese
46
References
48
1 Introduction
In the thesis I am about to present, I will investigate the theory proposed by Koster
(1999), in which he argues for a analysis that can explain basic word order differences
between English and Dutch. Not only does he give an account for the differences between
these two specific languages; he also wants to solidify the hypothesis that the word order
differences between languages across the world can be derived by the use of one simple
parameter, namely the Pied Piping Parameter.
This parameter, which will be explained later on in this thesis, is the sole responsible
trigger for the parametrical differences between languages that have the basic word
order of the verb preceding the object (VO languages), and languages that have the basic
word order of the verb following the object (OV languages).
The central question of this work is:
Can the basic word order of Cantonese be explained adequately with the theory
proposed by Koster (1999)?
I shall examine three phenomena used to support the theory proposed by Koster and
then apply it to the Cantonese situation. The results then will be either problematic or
unproblematic for the theory. This in turn shall lead me to conclude in favour of Koster’s
theory or make a proposal for improvement.
2
Before I address the question as to how this investigation has been undertaken, I will
discuss the theoretical background on which Koster’s theory is based.
There are two major theories that are the basis of Koster’s theory: Antisymmetry (Kayne,
1994) and Minimalism (Chomsky, 1995). We also have to take a look at two other major
influential publication in the field of comparative syntax, namely Pollock (1989) and
Cinque (1999). All these shall be discussed in the following sections.
1.1
Antisymmetry
The principal idea behind the Antisymmetry Theory is the Linear Correspondence Axiom
(LCA):
Linear Correspondence Axiom
X asymmetrically c-commands Y iff X c-commands Y and Y does not c-command X.
This asymmetrical c-command relationship provides a parallel between linear and
hierarchical order of phrases, which are said to be corresponding. Thus, when phrases
have a different linear order they must have a different hierarchical order.
Beside this axiom, Antisymmetry Theory assumes a differentiation between segment and
category. See for instance (1).
(1)
P
/
\
M
P
|
/
\
Q
R
S
|
|
|
q
r
T
|
t
In this tree structure M and P symmetrically c-command each other, giving the ordered
pairs <q,r> and <r,q>, which would violate Antisymmetry. To make a structure like (1)
convergent with Antisymmetry, Kayne opts to keep segments from c-commanding. This
is done according to the following rule:
(2)
X c-commands Y iff X and Y are categories and X excludes Y and
every category that dominates X also dominates Y.
3
Now M c-commands P, but P does not c-command M, resulting in only one order, namely
<q,r>. This derives from the fact that P is no longer a category, but a segment of the
higher P.
Thus we see that specifiers are in fact examples of adjunction. Is it possible to get
multiple adjunction in Antisymmetry? To answer this, see (3).
(3)
P
/
\
L
P
|
/
\
K
M
P
|
|
k
Q
R
S
|
|
|
q
r
T
/
\
|
t
While L is asymmetrically c-commanding Q in (3), Q is also a-symmetrically ccommanding K. The result is two orders of k and q, <k,q> and <q,k>m, which is a
violation of the LCA. Therefore we can assume that to have multiple adjuncts is not
possible in Antisymmetry. Kayne also comes to this conclusion, and states that in a
structure like (3) P can have only one specifier.
The consequences of this “linear order” theory are quite fundamental, as according to
Kayne, the notion of precedence is at the basis of a number of phenomena. One of which
concerns the universal word order. In Kayne’s view, all natural languages are VO at their
deepest level, and therefore also head-initial. The way head-final structures can be
derived is by assuming leftward movement of post-head material. Such movement would
4
then have to be overt. This goes against accounts that take OV as the core of all
languages (cf. Haider 1997, 2004, 2005 among others).
What part of Antisymmetry is adopted by Koster in his account of the word order
differences between VO and OV languages will be examined in chapter 2.
1.2
Minimalism
Starting with Chomsky’s publication “The Minimalist Program” (1994), there is a new
approach to the problems a generative linguist is faced with every day. Not so much a
theory, it claims to be a tool in the process that should be unravelling the mysterious
components of language.
Basically, Minimalism proposes only two levels of representation: Logic Form (LF)
and Phonetic Form (PF), eliminating Deep and Surface Structure. This leaves the familiar
representations
that
were
previously
associated
with
the
semantic
and
phonological/phonetic part of the computational system.
Next to these two representations, i.e. LF and PF, there are two components that give a
language what it needs to construct sentences: a lexicon and a computational system.
The lexicon is seen as a numeration of lexical items, with all their relevant properties
(phonological, semantic and formal). The task of the computational system is to select
items out of this lexicon and putting them into a derivation. Hereby we encounter the
first two operations of the computational system: Select and Merge. The operation Merge
is what we get when the system takes a pair of syntactic objects and replaces them by a
single combined object. It is important to notice that the moment lexical items enter the
derivation they become syntactic objects.
Take for example the verb “give” and the noun “presents”. In the lexicon they are two
distinct lexical items. The operation Select takes them out of the lexicon and places them
in a derivational structure by connecting the verb and the noun together. The result is a
new category, VP, and this VP becomes a new syntactic object, which can be connected
to another item out of the lexicon by the same operation Merge.
The crucial proposal in the Minimalist Program is the way sentences are composed by the
computational
system.
The
key
word
throughout
5
the
computational
process
is
“economy”1; economy of derivation and economy of representation. No longer do we
have to start with tree structures and try to fit in the words we encounter in a sentence.
Instead, all the words in a sentence are in the aforementioned lexicon, out of which we
construct a structure bottom up, starting with the verb.
Let us see how this would work for an actual sentence. Take sentence (5): Each verb has
a number of features to be checked and in order to do so other words out of the lexicon
need to be added to the structure. So the first step of deriving the structure of sentence
(5) would be (6) and (7).
(5)
Pete gives presents to Lucy.
(6)
{Pete, give, presents, to, Lucy} -> lexicon;
take out “give” and put it in a structure:
V
|
give
(7)
the verb “give” needs a theme:
{Pete, presents, to, Lucy} -> lexicon;
Take out “presents” and put it in the structure:
VP
/
\
V
NP
|
|
give
presents
By adding the NP “presents” to the structure the verb “give” has one of its features
checked, namely the one that demands that is has a theme. The computational system
must find a way to check all the features an element may have. If it doesn’t, the
derivation crashes. Hence ungrammatical sentences are ruled out by the system. As one
can see for sentence (5), the verb “gives” has more features to be checked than the
requirement of having a theme. Furthermore, every element out of the enumeration that
1
Economy is also seen in other aspects of the Minimalistic approach. These aspects, such as length of
derivation, length of links and procrastinate will not be pursued further here. For a detailed account
see Chomsky (1994).
6
is added to the structure presents new features to be checked until all elements have
their features checked. Again, anytime during the process when features fail to be
checked, a crash is inevitable.
At some point in the derivation a third operation is carried out: Spell Out. During this
operation information will be filtered out which is no longer relevant for the eventual
logical form of the sentence. What is left will be sent to the component governing the
phonetic form of the sentence (PF). An important consequence of Spell Out is that after
this operation is carried out, no more lexical items can be added to the derivation. This
counts for both LF and PF.
At Spell Out the formal features of every lexical item must be eliminated. These features
are the ones that need to be checked during the computational process. Unless every
feature is checked accordingly, the derivation cannot converge and therefore will crash.
This feature checking process will be at the core of Koster’s explanation for the difference
between VO and OV languages.
1.3
Koster’s theory
Without going in-depth into the theory of Koster (this will be done in chapter 2), we need
to have a general understanding of what the theory explains and how.
Crucially, it takes one characteristic of languages, namely the feature checking of internal
arguments. Internal arguments are those within the lowest verb phrase (VP). This
essentially follows Chomsky’s Minimalism (1995 and subsequent publications).
In order to explain why English and Dutch differ in a number of respects, he uses a
parameter, dubbed the Pied Piping Parameter.
Pied Piping Parameter
- In Dutch, the internal arguments check their corresponding case features
individually.
- In English the internal arguments check their corresponding case collectively,
after percolating them to the VP.
The essence of the analysis is as follows. In Dutch, the internal arguments don’t have to
stay inside the VP. This allows for more flexibility in word order than in English. English
7
has VPs that act as recipients of features, percolated to them by their internal arguments.
The features then are checked collectively through movement to the relevant positions of
the whole VP.
According to Koster the Pied Piping Parameter predicts not just the differences found
between English and Dutch, but between VO and OV languages in general.
Three of the discussed differences in Koster’s article will be treated in this thesis and will
be tested for Cantonese, which is not closely related to English or Dutch. Taking
Cantonese as the test language shows the effectiveness of Koster’s theory, since it needs
to be accurate for all world languages if it is placed in a “restrictive theory of Universal
Grammar” (Koster, 1999, p. 39). In short, it needs to be able to predict the right features
of every language since all languages should be derived in the same manner. The only
possible differences reside in parametrical choices.
I have chosen to focus on three differences addressed in Koster’s article, because
they deal with the most basic word order characteristics of the languages discussed. This
makes the results of an investigation into the Cantonese word order facts more
informative when it comes to evaluating them in a comparative framework. It enables us
to see the fundamental characteristics of a language, which are to be explained by a
theory placed in the tradition of the Universal Base Hypothesis (Greenberg, 1963).
Now I will discuss two other recent theories that can give an explanation for the word
order differences found between VO and OV languages. After that, I will continue with a
discussion of two influential publications, that can shed some light on the issue of this
thesis.
1.4
Advanced Antisymmetry
Barbiers (2000), like Koster, takes Antisymmetry (Kaynes, 1994) and Minimalism
(Chomsky, 1995) as a starting point. The difference between Koster and Barbiers lies in
the way they feel that verb movement triggers derivation.
Essentially, verb movement is said to be short verb movement in Barbiers’ view. The
main factor determining the parametrical differences in word order is the difference in the
moment of spell out. VO languages like English have short verb movement before spell
out. The second type has short verb movement after spell out, resulting in an OV
language like Dutch.
8
Koster, on the other hand, takes the feature checking of the internal arguments as a
starting point. These features percolate to the VP in one type of language and the
movement of the whole VP results in a specific and word order. The second type of
language show the internal arguments move separately out of the VP to check their
features. This results in a word order that is freer.
1.5
Directionality
Finally, a theory proposed by Haider (2004, 2005) shows another way of analyzing basic
word order differences in languages.
Directionality Theory is based on the following three constraints:
1
projections are endocentric
2
heads license their complements directionally (left or right)
3
projections are universally right branching
Together, these constraints result in the two options of argument structure projection in
languages.
In VO languages, where you have head-initial structures, the direction of licensing
(constraint 2) is rightward. Nothing strange happens when the first complement is
merged with the verbal head, only that the complement directly follows the head, where
in head-final structures it precedes the head. Complications arise when the second
complement needs to be merged (as in double object constructions). Now, we cannot
simply merge the V’, resulting from the first merger, with the second complement, for
that would yield a left-branching structure, like is evident from (10)a.
(10)
...
V'
/
V' ->
/
\
Δ
\
V -> Δ
0
9
In contrast, in head-final structures this would not lead to any problems, as can be seen
in (10)b ((12)b in Haider 2005). There, the direction of licensing is left, and because the
head is to the absolute right in the structure, all the merging of any number of
complements results in a right branching structure.
To overcome this violation, Haider claims a VP shell structure (as proposed by Chomsky,
1995) leads to a well-formed structure. The extra VP, merged with the head as the first
complement, generates an additional complement position, as can be seen in (11) ((12)a
in Haider 2005).
(11)
...
V'
/
\
V -> VP
0
/
\
Δ
V'
/
v
0
\
->
Δ
Now, the first and the second complement are directionally licensed in a right branching
structure (complying with constraint 2 and 3).
The last constraint (projections are endocentric) is another way of saying: the licensing
relation between the head and its complement(s) must be local. This means that any
arguments that need to be licensed can only be licensed if they are in the local domain of
the head, where the local domain refers to the adjacency of the argument to both the
licensing head and the projection head.
Looking at the structure in (11) we see that both arguments that need to be licensed can
be licensed locally, because either the licensing head or the projection of the head can
directionally do so; there are no intervening elements to block such a licensing. The only
position where a local licensing fails is the specifier position of the VP. This highest
position of the VP is outside the local licensing domain of the head, thereby in need of
external licensing (this position is not represented in (11), but is a sister to the highest V’
in that structure)2.
For the derivation of OV structures, we already saw that the right branching constraint
does not put us into trouble when adding more than one complement to the structure.
2
Another way in which this locality constraint is instantiated is mutual c-command. See Haider (2005)
for more details.
10
Also, the directionality of licensing is not in danger of failing, since it is leftward and
always able to comply (either by its head or its subsequent projections). Finally, the
locality constraint is satisfied, since the arguments are always adjacent to their licensing
heads or projections of these licensing heads.
The two directions of licensing and the three constraints provide us with the tools to
distinguish between VO and OV languages. There are two fundamental differences
between them:
1
head-initial projections are compact, meaning that there can be no
intervening elements in argument structure projections; head-final projections
do not have to be compact;
2
head-initial projections have one and only one argument position which has to
be licensed externally, because it is outside the local domain of the verbal
head; head-final projections do not have such an external argument position
To summarize: for head-initial languages, the direction of licensing is rightward, thereby
exemplifying the English situation in which the arguments generate to the right of the
verb. In contrast, head-final languages, like Dutch and German, show the internal
arguments left of the verb before any movement takes place.
Now let's turn to two very influential publications in the field of comparitive
syntax, namely Pollock (1989) and Cinque (1999).
1.6
Pollock (1989)
In Pollock (1989) it is discussed how a number of differences between English and French
can be explained with breaking down IP into several projections. The result is a skeletal
projection along the way of (12).
(12a)
CP
(12b)
/ \
CP
/
IP
/
\
TP
\
/
VP
\
NegP
/
\
AgrP
/
11
\
VP
Instead of the more simple structure of (12a), Pollock proposes that IP actually exists of
three separate projections like in (12b), each with their own features. The central idea of
his article is that in English AgrP is not transparent to Θ-role assignment which allows for
verb movement in situations where it isn't allowed in French.
The reason why Pollock's article is interesting for our evaluation of Koster's theory
is that it tells us something important about word order, especially when it comes to
adverbs. As we shall see, Cantonese behaves the same like English in a lot of basic ways.
So if Koster is on the right track, we should find that the same characteristics for English
presented by Pollock hold up for Cantonese.
With respect to word order Pollock tells us that lexical verbs in English can and
therefore must move first to AgrP and then to TP. The movement from AgrP to TP is
mandatory because in AgrP there can be no Θ-role assignment. In French, on the other
hand, AgrP can assign Θ-roles in certain constructions, namely finite constructions, and
therefore does not need verb movement from AgrP to TP in those kind of constructions.
In order to see whether Cantonese works the same way as English in this respect,
we can observe if lexical verbs in Cantonese can and must move to TP. To determine this
we need to look at the order of lexical verbs in relation to NegP. Do they appear to the
left of negative elements or do they have a mixed distribution in word order? The same
can be asked about the relative order of adverbs and negative elements. Both questions
are relevant, as they are presented as exemplifying Koster's theory.
There are some that raise certain doubts to Pollock's findings, like Iatridou (1990)
who finds that the existence of the AgrP is not so compelling, and Ouhalla (1990) who
argues for a different approach to NegP. I will not divert into the intricacies of these
articles, since they are not directly relevant to the central topic of this thesis, but it
suffices to say that although Pollock (1989) is a widely respected article, the views in it
are not shared by everyone in the field.
Still, the breaking down of IP into separate projections enables us to look at
differences in languages and determine where these differences can be located and
explained.
1.6
Cinque (1999)
When one enters the world of adverbs, Cinque's “Adverbs and Functional Heads, A CrossLinguistic Perspective” from 1999 can not be left out of the discussion. In this book, he
convincingly shows the rigid hierarchy between adverbs, which he groups in 30 types.
12
Though his core data comes from Roman languages, he also includes several other
languages of the world to support his idea that adverbs have their own projections and
that they have a tight order between them. These languages include Norwegian, Hebrew,
Malagasy (an Austronesian language) and even Mandarin Chinese. It's important to note
that the adverb hierarchy is universal. The same can be said about
the order of the
morphemes that encode the different types of functional notions of the clause like mood,
tense and aspect; it is both fixed and universal. Cinque's main achievement is to
correlate these two tendencies in languages. In other words, they match consistently.
The strict hierarchy provides an interesting showcase for Koster's theory. Since
Koster argues that adverb placement is determined by the feature checking of NPs, he
predicts that in English certain adverbs will always follow the verb where others can be
either following or preceding the verb. Although he does not clearly define the class of
adverbs that have different placements in languages, we can take a couple of adverbs,
and see whether they behave like Koster predicts they do.
In the final section of this chapter, I will lay down the set up of my research.
1.7
Research set up
All these theories have a way of dealing with the parametrical deviations between
languages when it comes to basic word orders. Still, not one is compatible with another,
although Koster and Barbiers both draw from the same theoretical background, namely
Antisymmetry and Minimalism.
The main focus of the present investigation will be the testing of Koster’s theory in a
language outside of its closely language family, namely Cantonese.
The reason why Cantonese has been chosen as the language with which to check the
discussed theory is that this language shows remarkable resemblance with English as to
its rigidity in word order. This is especially noticeable in the reason behind the rigid word
order. In both languages, the lack of overt case marking necessitates the use of word
orders to determine the grammatical relations in a sentence.
As will be shown, when investigating the phenomena, under discussion in Koster’s paper,
for the Cantonese situation, the linguistic set up of both languages seems to throw some
shadows on the generalizing analysis, which generalizing character makes the theory of
Koster so attractive in the first place.
13
There are several ways to deal with the found discrepancies. The most obvious one is to
dismiss the theory altogether, and try to find a new way to explain the discussed word
order differences. Reasons why this is not the desirable thing to do will be presented in
the chapter Implications of Cantonese word order facts.
The path that will be taken here is to come up with an advanced version of Koster’s
proposal. That way, the benefits of the theory will, hopefully, be preserved while the
pitfalls will be dealt with in a convincing and well-grounded manner. To get to this point,
chapter two will go into the intricacies of Koster’s theory of collective and individual
feature checking. This will be the basis for the advanced version of the proposal Koster
makes.
This is followed by a chapter in which I investigate the way Cantonese behaves in the
case of the phenomena discussed in Koster’s theory. Then, a chapter on the implications
of the results in Cantonese will be presented. The thesis ends with a conclusion and
recommendations for further research.
2 Koster’s theory
Abstract
In this chapter the theory that Koster proposes in “The word orders of English and Dutch
– Collective vs. Individual Checking” will be examined more closely. Goal is to get a clear
understanding of what the theory explains, how this is done and how I choose to test the
validity of this theory about word order differences.
2.1 Koster’s account
There are four main differences in word order between English and Dutch that are
discussed in Koster (1999). They can be summarized as follows:
1
English is a VO language, while Dutch is an OV language
2
Dutch has (leftward) scrambling; English does not
3
In Dutch, all adverbs are positioned to the left of VP, in English only a subclass
4
The order of English adverbs shows paradoxes of scope
In what follows, I will give a short presentation of the first three phenomena and how
Koster analyzes them, which will later be examined in Cantonese.
14
2.1.1 English VO, Dutch OV
One of the most fundamental phenomena studied in comparative linguistics is the
difference between VO and OV languages. Essentially, it’s about the relative order in
which the verb and object in a language are found. This difference is most evident in
subordinate clauses, as can be seen from (1) and (2).
(1)a
Pete paints the fence.
(1)b
Pete has painted the fence.
(2)a
Piet schildert de schuur.
Pete paints the fence.
(2)b
Piet heeft de schuur geschilderd.
Pete has the fence painted.
While sentences (1)a and (2)a are exactly the same in relative word order, a difference
surfaces if we compare (1)b and (2)b. Not only does this variation say something about
the order of verb and object, there is a whole range of phenomena that can be linked to
this VO/OV-difference (see Greenberg (1963) for an extensive list of characteristics in the
word order of languages which can be traced back to the VO/OV-setting of languages),
which makes it all the more intriguing as to why languages, that seem so closely related
as English and Dutch, can differ so fundamentally in their syntactic composition. Koster
(1999) asks himself the same thing, and finds that by using refined version of the
Kayne’s Antisymmetry Theory and Chomsky’s Minimalist Program, he can come up with
an effective way of explaining the word order differences between English and Dutch. But
before I get into this explanation, let us look at two other phenomena that can be
described with one single device.
2.1.2 Scrambling or not?
A well-known, though not totally uncontroversial, operation in certain languages has been
called scrambling. A number of related facts are actually meant when talking about
scrambling3. These facts are:
1
double object scrambling
2
scrambling across adverbs
3
Koster (1999) only talks about scrambling across adverbs.
15
3
focus scrambling
The first type of scrambling (double object scrambling) is found in German. In this
language, it is possible to have different orders of internal arguments while keeping the
meaning of the sentences. The reason why this is possible is because of the case system,
which is very rich in German, compared to a number of other Indo-European languages
like English and Dutch. This rich case system enables the scrambled orders of double
objects.
Scrambling across adverbs can be seen in Dutch sentences (from Koster, 1999) like (4).
(4)a
Jan heeft gisteren het boek gelezen.
John has yesterday the book read
“John read the book yesterday”
(4)b
Jan heeft het boek gisteren gelezen.
John has the book yesterday read
(meaning the same as (4)a)
Here, the object moves across the adverb “gisteren” (yesterday) to a higher
focalized/topicalized position. This particular kind of scrambling is the kind of scrambling
Koster argues can be analyzed with ease using the aforementioned device, which will be
laid out later on in this article.
For a treatment of focus scrambling see Neeleman (1994). Barbiers (1995) opts for even
a fourth kind of scrambling (scrambling involving movement of a constituent to the
specifier of an adverbial)
2.1.3 Adverb placement
As we saw in the scrambling examples, the position of the adverb is not fixed in Dutch.
Another variation from English is that all adverbs that must follow the verb in English, are
on the left of the verb in Dutch, as can be shown by (5) and (6)4:
(5)a
Ze heeft waarschijnlijk Wim gezien.
She has probably Bill seen
“She probably saw Bill.”
(5)b
4
Ze heeft Wim gezien, waarschijnlijk.
Adjusted from Koster (1999).
16
She has Bill seen, probably
“She probably saw Bill.”
(6)a
Hij heeft Marie overal gezien.
He has Mary everywhere seen
“He has seen Mary everywhere.”
(6)b* Hij heeft Marie gezien overal.
He has Mary seen everywhere
“He has seen Mary everywhere.”
Though (5)a can be grammatically changed into (5)b by placing “waarschijnlijk” in
sentence-final position, (6)b is totally out. Comparing the Dutch sentences with English
equivalents (7),
(7)a
She probably saw Bill.
(7)b* She everywhere saw Bill.
(7)c
She saw Bill everywhere.
we can observe that in English it is not possible for all adverbs to be at the left of the
verb. It has to be the case that Dutch and English have the following distribution of
adverbs, where ADV1 are to be associated with modal adverbs like “probably” and
“certainly”, whereas ADV2 are time adverbs and manner adverbs, like “yesterday” and
“well” respectively.
Adverb placement in Dutch and English
Dutch
ADV1 ADV2 V
English ADV1
V ADV2
The question arises how this distribution can be accounted for in a universal structure
theory, where every language has to have the same underlying structure, following
Kayne (1994). We will now look at the solution Koster brings forward. For a more
elaborate treatment, I refer to Koster (1999).
2.1.4 Collective vs. Individual checking
In order to account for the three phenomena just discussed, Koster combines the
minimalist view of feature checking (Chomsky (1995) and subsequent publications) and
17
the concept of Pied Piping (as described in Koopman & Szabolcsi (1998); for more on
Pied Piping see also Ross (1967)).
The crux of Koster’s analysis concerns the checking of features of arguments inside the
VP, namely direct and indirect object. This can be done in two ways: either the
arguments move out of the VP and check their relevant features in corresponding Spec
positions higher up the tree (SpecAccP for accusative case in Koster’s account), or the
arguments “pass” their features on to the VP, and the VP as a whole moves upwards, to
check the percolated features. The first kind of checking is dubbed Individual Checking,
where the second one is called Collective Checking. Consequently, VO languages, like
English, apply Collective Checking, while OV languages, like Dutch, apply Individual
Checking.
The contrast in feature checking shows a number of phenomena, of which we will
examine the ones that are of concern for the present issue.
Observe that Koster adopts the universal base structure hypothesis laid out by Kayne
(1994), which says that every language has the same underlying structure, and argues
for VO to be one of the fundamental aspects of that structure. Now, the arguments in
both languages, starting all on the right of the verb, have the option of either moving out
of the VP for feature checking, or percolating their features to the VP, and moving
collectively.
When the arguments can move individually out of the VP, scrambling orders are predicted
as desired for OV languages, while in the case of collective checking the close relationship
of verb and object is predicted, which is to be found in VO languages. The different
orders can surface in OV languages, because of the individual checking process. In
contrast, VO languages can’t have the different word orders. This is due to the “cage”-like
behavior of the VP, combined with the fact that the verb in these languages originate left
of its internal arguments. Since it is impossible for constituents to cross the verb in the
structure with the whole VP moving to check the relevant case features, there is no way
these constituents end up left of the verb before any focus or topic effects may set in.
For adverb placement, one can say that, for both kinds of languages, the first class of
adverbs (modal adverbs) is base-generated in Spec position between CP and TP. The
second class (manner and time adverbs) will follow the verb in VO languages, because
the VP moves to Spec TP (checking the percolated feature along the way), whereas they
18
precede the verb in OV languages, since arguments check their features individually,
leaving the verb in its place. Thus, the contrast between VO and OV languages is
accounted for.
Now, let’s take a look again at the parameter which the feature checking story is based
upon.
(8)
Pied Piping Parameter
In Dutch and German the complements of V check their corresponding functional
heads individually; in English, the complement features are percolated to VP,
which checks the functional heads collectively
To generalize the parameter for it to be applicable in the universal base structure
hypothesis, I’ll assume (9).
(9)
Pied Piping Parameter (generalized)
In OV languages, the complements of V check their corresponding functional
heads individually.
In VO languages, the complement features are percolated to VP, which checks the
functional heads collectively.
Now we have the tool to see whether Koster’s account of the word order differences
between VO and OV languages is really explaining all it says to explain. How this is done
will be laid out in the final section of this chapter.
2.2
Testing Koster’s Theory
To test the theory of Collective and Individual Checking, I will take the Generalized Pied
Piping Parameter and the three word order facts that exemplify fundamental differences
between VO and OV languages. These word order facts are the ones that lead Koster to
assume they can be explained by one simple “device”, i.e. the Pied Piping Parameter. By
generalizing the parameter proposed by Koster, we can take the theory to the next level,
namely to see whether this theory really does explain word order features of VO and OV
languages around the world.
19
Although this may seem trivial it is crucial for a theory based on the Universal Base
Hypothesis. If one is to come up with a theory that explains word order facts of VO and
OV languages, it is inevitable that such a theory will explain word order facts as distant
related from English, Dutch or German, as one can imagine. The only practical restriction
may be the access to the most remotely situated languages, for which we have no
grammar or native speaker available.
So in order to examine the validity of Koster’s theory, I have taken the generalized Pied
Piping Parameter and the three word order facts mentioned earlier. Together they will be
investigated for a language that has on the one hand a close resemblance to English,
namely the rigidity in word order, and at the same time is very distinct from English,
which is seen in the topic-prominence character of the language. The language in
question is the aforementioned Cantonese.
After this investigation, which will be the topic of the next chapter, a chapter will follow
that goes into the implications of the word order facts, described in chapter 3. In that
chapter I will explain why Koster’s theory is not fully applicable to account for word order
facts in Cantonese. As mentioned in chapter 1, I will not argue for the dismissal of the
theory of Collective and Individual Checking, rather I will make recommendations that
shall improve the strength of the theory.
20
3 Cantonese word order
Abstract
In this chapter, I will examine the basic word order facts of Cantonese, a language
spoken by approximately 52 million people in mainland China and some 3 million more
outside of China (predominantly Vietnam and Malaysia) 5. Cantonese, otherwise known as
Yue or Guangzhou, is increasingly spoken by Chinese people outside its original context,
which is the province of Guangzhou or Canton. This growth is due to the economic
developments of the Southern provinces, where Canton is the biggest contributor to that
development. As a result, people who want to do business with Canton and its
neighboring provinces, including students from the major universities of China, are
encouraged to learn Cantonese.
One needs to keep in mind that this type of language learning essentially involves second
language learning, but by motivating people to learn the language and the resulting
everyday use of the language it is maintained in being an active language. This also
means that there will be regional or dialectical differences, which is not surprising
considering the large population of Cantonese speakers. In this thesis, when I talk about
5
Ethnologue (2005).
21
Cantonese, I shall be talking about the Hong Kong dialect of Cantonese, which is also the
dialect of Cantonese that is most commonly known in the rest of the world.
By far the largest of the Chinese language family, Mandarin is the first language for most
Chinese, which can account for the attention for and multitude publications about
Mandarin Chinese. It is not to say that this attention for Mandarin is wrong in any way,
since Mandarin does have a lot of interesting features to be explored in a generative
framework. However, in order to broaden the language pool from which we are to extract
a generative picture of world languages, it is important to take into examination
languages that we have not so much information on as Mandarin, English, Spanish, etc.
Therefore, I have chosen to investigate the basic word order facts of Cantonese. After all,
the basic word order of a language is such a fundamental characteristic of a language and
has also so much effects on other properties of the language, it is crucial that we have a
good understanding of the basic word order before we can address other properties of
that language.
That’s why I will give an account of the basic word order of Cantonese in this chapter.
The chapter is divided into three main parts: the first part (section 3.1) will be about the
relative order between the verb and the object, one of the fundamental characteristics of
a language that we have discussed in chapter 1 and 2. For the second part (section 3.2),
I will examine whether it is possible to have scrambling in Cantonese, as Soh (1998)
proposes, essentially defending the views of Kung (1993) and Lin (1994). In the third
part I discuss the position of adverbs. The position of adverbs proofs to be the most
problematic category of word order facts for the theory of Koster. The problems and their
consequences will be laid out in section 3.3 and subsequently in chapter 4.
3.1
Cantonese is VO
To state that Cantonese is a VO language would not be controversial, but a little needs to
be said about the general behavior of the language.
First of all, just like the other languages in the Chinese language family, Cantonese is
topic-prominent, where most Indo-European languages are subject-prominent. This
means that in topic-prominent languages, the sentence structure is built around the
relation topic-comment, whereas subject-prominent languages typically base their
structure around the relation subject-predicate. This is a fundamental different approach,
although they have similar results in most unmarked cases. Since the topic of a sentence
need not necessarily be the subject of the sentence, there are a number of so-called
22
topicalization processes possible in topic-prominent language, such as Cantonese, which
give it the appearance of a free word order language.
And so it is with Cantonese, where the object can be topicalized in first position (see (1) 6)
or second position (see (2)).
(1)
Gāmyaht ge sung
today
CL food
ngóh yíhgīng máaih-jó
I
la.
already buy-PFV PRT
“I’ve already bought food for today.”
(CL = classifier; PFV = perfective; PRT = particle)
(2)
Ngóh Yīnggwok
I
meih
England not-yet
heui-gwo.
go-EXP
“I haven’t been to England.”
(EXP = experience)
We can counterfeit this appearance of free word order by first observing that Cantonese
(as most other Chinese languages) does not have morphological case marking. This
makes the constituent order very important for understanding the grammatical relations
in a sentence. Aside from that, the order VOS or any order in which the subject follows
the verb is strongly out.
Another thing must be said about topic prominence, namely that it's existence is not so
uncontroversial as it may seem from the many uses of it in the analysis of especially
Sino-Tibetan languages (see for instance Matthews & Yip 1994). A different way of
looking at the word order variations is to say that they are caused by scrambling
operations, like we will examine in section 3.2 for Cantonese. This kind of reasoning will
put Koster's theory in problematic territory, because as we will see Cantonese should be
placed in the category of VO languages, and therefore cannot have scrambling in Koster's
view. I will go deeper into the matter of scrambling later on, but it's important to see that
the dichotomy of topic vs. subject prominence may not be so convincing to base
differences between languages on it.
Apart from the dependency on word order for its grammatical relations, Cantonese has
another characteristic in common with English: the closeness of verb and object. This is
seen in the fact that no element can intervene between verb and object, except for
6
There are several ways to write Cantonese, I have attempted to use only one writing system, namely the
Yale Romanization, but there are some places where the same words seem to differ in their literal
translations. These are only due to regional differences and have no impact on the word order
discussion presented here.
23
durational and frequency adverbs, just like in French. This exceptional or unusual
behavior will be discussed more explicit in section 3.3.
Matthews & Yip (1994) observe that there are two other kinds of elements that can
intervene between the verb and object, namely aspect markers (like PFV and EXP in (1)
and (2)) and verbal particles (not to be confused with sentence-final particles, like in (1)
at the end of the clause). However, if these elements can be analyzed as being as closely
related to the verb then they can be considered constituting the verb, next to the lexical
root.
To see the exact nature of aspect markers and verbal particles consider Matthews & Yip
(1994) which state with respect to aspect markers that:
'Aspect markers are bound forms, behaving essentially as suffixes: in their functions as
aspect markers, they may not be separated from the verb, which distinguishes them from
verbal particles.' (p. 200)
For sake of clarity, aspect markers and verbal particles have been differentiated from
each other. The point is that aspect markers need not be seen as separate elements from
the verb when examining the relative order of arguments.
As to verbal particles, Matthews & Yip give the following definition:
'There is a rich range of verbal particles indicating notions such as result (effect on an
object) and phase of action (beginning, continuing or ending). These particles are
comparable in form and function to the particles of English phrasal verbs such as up,
which denotes direction in pick up but completion in eat up.' (p.210-211)
'These particles are closely related to aspect in function, and are treated as aspect
markers in some descriptive works such as Kwok (1972)' (p. 211)
Here, it is very clear why verbal particles are also strongly related to the verb.
If we look at subordinate clauses, where the main difference between English and Dutch
is seen, we stumble upon a peculiar aspect of Cantonese. Since in Cantonese
24
subordination is realized by using a conjunction structure, like in (3) 7, where we see no
fundamental differences between main and subordinate clause structure.
(3a)
Dōng, ngóhdeih jouh hohksāang gójahnsí, sáu-tàih
dihnwá
jung meih
while
phone
still
we
do
students
that-time hand-carry
not
làuhhàhng
popular
“While we were students, mobile phones were not popular yet.”
(3b)
Lèih Táai yānwaih taai guih sóyíh
Lee
Mrs because too tired
so
móuh
làih
did-not come
“Mrs Lee didn't come because she was too tired.”
(3c)
Dáng léih fāan
dou
làih
until you back V-PRT come
gójahnsí dī sung yíhgīng dung saai
that-time CL food already cold
all
la
PRT
“By the time you get back the food will all be cold.”
In (3a) and (3c) we observe a conjunction both at the start and at the end of the
subordinate clause, in (3b) main clause and subordinate clause are next to each other,
without there being a hierarchical higher position for the main clause. This typical
behavior of Cantonese can be traced back to an intuition about topic-prominent
languages. Since it is more important for sentence structure to know what the topic of
the sentence is, and what is said about that topic, it is of lesser importance what the
main clause is and what the embedded clause. This intuition is backed up by the
constraint on subordinate clause that they must be topicalized, unless they are used as
an afterthought.
We can conclude that subordinate clauses are not marked by a subordinate
structure. Still there is the question whether the relative order between verb and object is
changed in any type of sentence in Cantonese. As can be observed in the examples in
(3), but also in (4) and (5), this is not the case, the VO order stays in tact in Cantonese.
(4)
Keoi pee
He
tjoh
poen su
Mary
has given the book Mary
“He has given Mary the book.”
(5)
John yiwai
John think
keoi hoo chong ming
he
be very smart
“John thinks he is smart.”
7
(3a) en (3b) are taken From Matthews & Yip (1994), p. 293, (3c) from the same work p. 295.
25
Remember that the notion of topic prominence is not uncontroversial. The other way to
explain this behavior is to call it a result of scrambling operations. This, however, as
mentioned before, will lead Koster to problems. In the next section I will discuss
scrambling in more detail.
3.2
Scrambling in Cantonese
Despite the possibility of object movement (triggered by topicalization as I mentioned in
the last section), there is no way scrambling can be applied in Cantonese, neither for
objects across other arguments (double object scrambling) nor objects scrambling across
adverbs.
An interesting case seems to be the behavior of durational and frequency adverbs in
Chinese, as presented by Soh (1998). In her master thesis she argues for object
scrambling in (Mandarin) Chinese, for which she gives the following evidence8:
(4a)
(4b)
(5a)
(5b)
I have invited that person twice.
wo
qing-guo
[OBJ na-ge ren]
[DFP liang ci]
I
invite-PFV
[OBJ that-CL person] [DFP two time]
Twice, I have invited that person.
Wo
qing-guo
[DFP liang ci]
[OBJ na-ge ren]
I
invite-PFV
[DFP two time]
[OBJ that-CL person]
I have visited USA twice.
wo
qu-guo
[OBJ Meiguo]
[DFP liang ci]
I
visit-PFV
[OBJ USA]
[DFP two time]
Twice, I have visited USA
wo
qu-guo
[DFP liang ci]
[OBJ Meiguo]
I
visit-PFV
[DFP two time]
[OBJ USA]
Soh observes that the order of the object and the frequency adverb seem to be under the
influence of scrambling. However, there is something to be said against such an analysis.
Take for example the Cantonese counterparts of (4)-(5):
8
(1) and (2) in Soh (1998).
26
(6a)
I have invited that person twice.
ngo
ceng-gwo [OBJ go-go-jan]
[DFP loeng-ci]
1SG
invite-EXP [OBJ that-CL-person]
[DFP two-time]
(EXP = experiential aspect)
(6b)
Twice, I have invited that person.
[DFP loeng-ci (la)],
ngo
ceng-gwo
[OBJ go-go-jan]
[DFP two-time PRT], 1SG
invite-EXP
[OBJ that-CL-person]
(PRT = utterance particle)
(7a)
(7b)
I have visited USA twice.
ngo
heoi-gwo
[OBJ MeiGwok] [DFP loeng-ci]
1SG
go-EXP
[OBJ USA]
[DFP two-time]
Twice, I have visited USA.
[DFP loeng-ci (la)],
ngo heoi-gwo [OBJ MeiGwok]
[DFP two-time (PRT)],
1SG go-EXP
[OBJ USA]
For Cantonese, the order in which the frequency adverb is before the object seems odd at
best. Moreover, the subject and the verb are intervening, indicating a topicalizing
operation, instead of being an example of a scrambling operation. It is striking, however,
that albeit no instance of scrambling, it is possible for Mandarin to have two orders of the
object and the frequency adverb (more generally the DFP, Durational and Frequency
Adverb, as used by Soh). Mandarin is just as VO as Cantonese, so it just shows that
Mandarin and Cantonese have underlying differences in their syntactic set up. This is
regularly (see Matthews & Yip (1994) for instance) seen as superficial or subtle
differences, but as will be apparent by above distinction between the two languages, it is
quite fundamental in its occurence.
Other examples that indicate there is no scrambling in Cantonese are (8) and (9).
(8a)
John sek guo [Mary] [leung ci].
“John kissed Mary often twice.”
(8b)
John sek guo [Mary] [chiew guo] [leung ci]
“John kissed Mary twice often.”
(9)
Peter fan sam chi sik leung guo ping guo.
“Peter eats three apples twice.”
“Peter eats twice three apples.”
In (8) we see that although “chiew guo” can intervene between “Mary” and “leung ci”, the
order of the object and the DFP stays in tact. In (9) one and the same sentence is used to
convey the meaning of the two English orders.
27
Another point of concern is the notion of object shift. It would be wrong to consider
object topicalization as an instance of object shift, since it does not meet the basic
requirements Haider (2005) gives in his treatment of the Scandinavian languages. Object
shift is correlated with verb movement; in Cantonese the verb stays in situ. Also, the
relative order of the arguments stays intact in the case of object shift, which is obviously
not the case with the topicalization of objects in Cantonese.
An interesting feature of the Cantonese double object structure is the meaning correlation
with the order of the indirect and direct object. Typically, the direct object must be placed
directly following the verb (as can be derived from the basic word order). Hence, we get
(8)a and not (8)b.
(8)a
keoi
bei-zo
go-bun-syo
3sg
give-PFV
that-CL-book Mary
bei-zo
Mary
go-bun-zo
give-PFV
Mary
that-CL-book
(8)b* keoi
3sg
Mary
“He has given the book to Mary.”
The only way this order of indirect and direct object can be altered is when the direct
object is particularly long (or heavy), like in (9).
(9)
Ngóh béi
I
léih
géi
chīn
give you a-few thousand
mān tùhngmàaih yāt jēung
gēipiu.
dollar
air-ticket
plus
one
CL
“I’ll give you a few thousand dollars plus an air ticket.”
Surprisingly, it is also possible for a number of verbs, to have two orders relating to two
meanings of the verb. Among them are “lend”, “teach” and “punish”. See for example
(10).
(10)a
Ngóh
I
je-jó
yāt chīn mān
kéuih.
lend-PFV one thousand dollar
him
“I lent one thousand dollars to him.”
(10)b Ngóh
I
je-jó
kéuih
yāt chīn mān.
lend-PFV him one thousand dollar
“I lent one thousand dollars from him.”
28
The question is whether the prepositions belonging to the verb have been incorporated
into the verb. This would then explain the need for different ordering of the argument to
distinguish between the two meanings of the verb.
We can conclude, however, that we do not find any operation that resembles scrambling,
like we do in Dutch or German.
3.3
Adverb placement in Cantonese
As for the case of adverb placement, I already mentioned that durational and frequency
adverbs are the only elements (putting aside the aspect markers and verbal particles
issue) that can intervene between the otherwise rigidly connected verb and object. Now,
we need to look more explicitly at the nature of those kinds of adverbs.
First of all, let’s see how auxiliaries affect the word order in Cantonese. Auxiliaries
typically precede the main verb but they behave like other verbs (serializing is also
possible), with the exception of aspect markers or verbal particles, which they do not
take. Functionally, auxiliaries like “have”,“can”, “will” and “would” act as modal verbs,
preceding the verb. See for example (11).
(11)
Bīngo wúih
who
jūngyi nī
would like
júng yàhn
ge
jēk?
this kind person PRT PRT
“Who would like a person like that?”
(12)
Ngóh yìhgā
I
now
yiu
hąōi-wúi.
need
hold-meeting
“I have to attend a meeting now.”
Mostly, adverbs precede the main verb, and in case of an auxiliary, they precede the
auxiliary, which is a striking difference with most Indo-European languages. It is
however, also possible to have an adverb intervening between auxiliary and main verb,
as in (13).
(13)
Dī
syū yīnggōi
CL book should
jīkhāak
wàahn.
immediately return
“We should return those books immediately.”
Before we get to the analysis of these kinds of structures, we first need to say something
general about adverbs in Cantonese.
29
As we have seen in English and Dutch, a simplified division can be made in the classes of
adverbs, which show different distribution in VO and OV languages. In Cantonese we
have a more detailed division of adverbs and behavior with respect to the order with the
verb.
Adverbs in Cantonese can be divided in predicate adverbs, which describe the manner of
action and apply to the verb phrase. These adverbs typically follow the verb (see for
details about the gam-construction Matthews & Yip (1994) p. 181). The second class of
adverbs is sentential adverbs, which describe the circumstances of events and states,
such as time and probability, and apply to the whole sentence or clause. These adverbs
normally precede the verb in Cantonese.
Observing the contrast with English, is that time adverbs and modal adverbs seem to fall
in the same category in Cantonese, where in English there is a clear distinction in
distribution of the two adverbs.
Next to this discrepancy, there also seems to be a problematic characteristic of the
aforementioned durational and frequency adverbs. These adverbs behave exceptional,
because they must follow the verb in Cantonese, which makes Cantonese resembling
French rather than English (see Pollock (1989) for a discussion about English and French
word order).
The problem resides in these two points: how can it be that in some cases, adverbs seem
to be quite clearly divided (predicate adverb vs. sentential adverbs), while at the same
time it is possible for certain adverbs to intervene between auxiliary and main verb (like
“immediately” in (13)), but also for durational and frequency adverbs to follow the verb
(essentially resembling the French situation) like in (14) and (15)?
(14)
Ngóh hohk-jó
I
baat
lìhn
learn-PFV eight years
Yīngmán.
English
“I’ve been learning English for eight years.” (durational)
(15)
Ngóhdeih gin-gwo
we
géi
chi
see-EXP a-few times
mihn.
face
“We’ve met a few times.” (frequency)
30
It seems that we need to get a closer look at the adverbs in Cantonese to determine the
exact nature as to whether Cantonese can be considered a VO language like English, on
the basis of the Pied Piping Parameter.
As we have seen in the discussion about object scrambling and in the case mentioned
above, durational and frequency adverbs seem to pose problems to the unified account of
Koster’s theory. Though it is very marginal to have a DFP precede an object in Cantonese
(6(b) and 7(b)), the fact that there is some option between the order of object and DFP
in Mandarin poses serious problems to the theory proposed by Koster. In chapter 4 I will
address this problem.
Before I continue to chapter 4, where I will sum up the implications of the word order
facts in Cantonese for the theory of Collective and Individual Checking, let’s see how
Cantonese behaves with respect to the adverbs Koster uses to distinguish English and
Dutch (and consequently VO and OV languages).
3.4
A closer look at adverbs in Cantonese
(16)9
He probably worked, yesterday.
Hij heeft [ADV1 waarschijnlijk] [ADV2 gisteren]
[V gewerkt]
he has
[V worked]
ADV1
(17a)
10
[ADV1 probably]
ADV2
[ADV2 yesterday]
V
He has [ADV1 probably] [V worked], [ADV2 yesterday]
ADV1
V
(18a)
ADV2
English
ADV2
(17b)11*He has [ADV1 probably] [ADV2 yesterday]
ADV1
Dutch
[V worked]
V
He probably read a book.
keoi
[ADV1 honang]
[V tai-zo]
jat-bun-syu
3sg
[ADV1 probably]
[V read-PFV]
one-CL-book
ADV1
V
Cantonese
(18b) He read a book yesterday.
[ADV2 camjat]
keoi
[V tai-zo]
jat-bun-syu
[ADV2 yesterday]
3sg
[V read-PFV]
one-CL-book
ADV2
9
10
11
V
(91)a in Koster (1999).
(91)c in Koster (1999).
(91)b in Koster (1999).
31
Cantonese
(18c)
He read a book yesterday.
keoi
[ADV2 camjat]
[V tai-zo]
jat-bun-syu
3sg
[ADV2 yesterday]
[V read-PFV] one-CL-book
ADV2
V
Cantonese
The Cantonese sentences ((18a)-(18c)) show that both “probably” and “yesterday”
precede the verb, unlike in English. It is self-evident, although these adverbs are not in
the same sentence, that there is no way these adverbs can move to the right of the verb
by some extraposition operation, because although leftward effects like topicalization are
abundant in Cantonese, rightward extraposition is prohibited 12.
Let's see how other kinds of adverbs behave in Cantonese, using the hierarchy Cinque
(1999) proposes to determine categories of adverbs that precede and follow the verb. In
order of high to low adverb, following Cinque's order and labeling of the adverbs, I shall
examine the following adverbs:
loosatgong
“frankly”
speech act mood adverb
hoochoi
“fortunately”
evaluative mood adverb
honang
“probably”
epistemic modal adverb
camjat
“yesterday”
past tense adverb
pingsi
“usually”
habitual aspect adverb
hoodohsi
“often”
frequentative aspect adverb
faai
“fast”/“quickly”
celerative aspect adverb
yiking
“no longer”
terminative aspect adverb
moeici/sengyat
“always”
perfective aspect adverb
taandi
“almost”
prospective aspect adverb
dunsi
“briefly”
durative aspect adverb
ming/lo
“well”
voice adverb
What I've done is put each adverb (I have also put in “probably” an “yesterday” for
completeness) in all possible positions relative to the subject, verb, object and negation.
Then I checked whether these orders can occur in Cantonese. These are the results of
that investigation.
19a. Frankly we cannot see the birds.
loosatgong
12
ngodei tai-mdoo
dizheuk
Also excluded in Kayne's Antisymmetry Theory.
32
frankly
we
see-NEG
the birds
19b. We frankly cannot see the birds.
Ngodei
loosatgong
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
we
frankly
see-NEG
the birds
19c.* We can frankly not see the birds.
19d.* We cannot frankly see the birds.
19e.* We cannot see frankly the birds.
19f.* We cannot see the birds frankly.
20a. Fortunately, we cannot see the birds.
Hoochoi,
ngodei
Fortunately, we
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
see-NEG
the birds.
20b. We fortunately cannot see the birds.
Ngodei hoochoi
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
We
see-NEG
the birds
fortunately
20c.* We can fortunately not see the birds.
20d.* We cannot fortunately see the birds.
20e.* We cannot see fortunately the birds.
20f.* We cannot see the birds fortunately.
21a.
Probably he read a book.
honang
keoi
tai-zo
probably
he
read-PFV
jat-bun-syu
one-CL-book
21b. He probably read a book.
keoi
honang
tai-zo
jat-bun-syu
he
probably
read-PFV
one-CL-book
21c.* He read probably a book.
21d.* He read a book probably.
22a. Probably the girl wrote a letter.
honang
go-neoi-zai
se-zo
jat-fung-seon
probably
that-CL-girl
write-PFV
one-CL-letter
22b. The girl probably wrote a letter.
go-neoi-zai
honang
se-zo
jat-fung-seon
that-CL-girl
probably
write-PFV
one-CL-letter
22c.* The girl wrote probably a letter.
22d.* The girl wrote a letter probably.
33
23a. Probably mother made pancakes.
Honang
mama
zyu-zo
baangik
probably mother make-PFV pancakes.
23b. Mother probably made pancakes.
mama
honang
zyu-zo
baangik
mother
probably
make-PFV
pancakes
23c.* Mother made probably pancakes.
23d.* Mother made pancakes probably.
24a. Probably we cannot see the birds.
Honang, ngodei
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
probably, we
see-NEG
the birds
24b. We probably cannot see the birds.
Ngodei honang
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
We
see-NEG
the birds
probably
24c.* We can probably not see the birds.
24d.* We cannot probably see the birds.
24e.* We cannot see probably the birds.
24f.* We cannot see the birds probably.
25a. Yesterday he read a book.
camjat
keoi
tai-zo
jat-bun-syu
yesterday
he
read-PFV
one-CL-book
25b. He yesterday read a book.
keoi
camjat
tai-zo
jat-bun-syu
he
yesterday
read-PFV
one-CL-book
25c. He read yesterday a book. [interpretation: “he read yesterday's book.”]
keoi
he
tai-zo
camjat
read-PFV yesterday
jat-bun-syu
one-CL-book
25d.* He read a book yesterday.
26a. Yesterday the girl wrote a letter.
camjat
go-neoi-zai
se-zo
jat-fung-seon
yesterday
that-CL-girl
write-PFV
one-CL-letter
26b. The girl yesterday wrote a letter.
go-neoi-zai
camjat
se-zo
jat-fung-seon
that-CL-girl
yesterday
write-PFV
one-CL-letter
34
26c. The girl wrote yesterday a letter.
[interpretation: “The girl wrote a letter from yesterday”]
go-neoi-zai
se-zo
camjat
jat-fung-seon
that-CL-girl
write-PFV
yesterday
one-CL-letter
26d.* The girl wrote a letter yesterday.
27a. Yesterday mother made pancakes.
camjat
mama
zyu-zo
baangik
yesterday
mother
make-PFV
pancakes
27b. Mother yesterday made pancakes.
mama
camjat
zyu-zo
baangik
mother
yesterday
make-PFV
pancakes
27c.* Mother made yesterday pancakes.
27d.* Mother made pancakes yesterday.
28a. Yesterday he has given the book to Mary.
camjat
keoi
bei-zo
go-bun-syo
Mary
yesterday
he
give-PFV
the-CL-book
Mary
28b. He yesterday has given the book to Mary.
keoi
camjat
bei-zo
go-bun-syo
Mary
he
yesterday
give-PFV
the-CL-book
Mary
28c. He has given yesterday the book to Mary.
keoi
bei-zo
camjat
Mary
go-bun-syo
he
give-PFV
yesterday
Mary
the-CL-book
28d.* He has given the book to Mary yesterday.
29a. Usually we cannot see the birds.
pingsi13,
ngodei
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
usually,
we
see-NEG
the birds
29b. We usually cannot see the birds.
ngodei
pingsi
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
we
usually
see-NEG
the birds
29c.* We can usually not see the birds.
29d.* We cannot usually see the birds.
29e.* We cannot see usually the birds.
13
“pingsi” can also be substituted by “kingseung”, “patlou”, “tongseung”.
35
29f.* We cannot see the birds usually.
30a. Often we cannot see the birds.
hoodohsi
ngodei tai-mdoo
dizheuk
often
we
the birds
see-NEG
30b. We often cannot see the birds.
ngodei
hoodohsi
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
we
often
see-NEG
the birds
30c.* We can often not see the birds.
30d.* We cannot often see the birds.
30e.* We cannot see often the birds.
30f.* We cannot see the birds often.
31a. Fast he read the book.
hou-faai
tai-zo-bun-syu
very-fast
read-PFV-CL-book
31b. He read the book very/quite fast.
tai-syu-tai-dak
hou/gei-faai
read-book-read-DAK very/quite-fast
V-OBJ-V-DAK
intensifier-ADJ
31c. He read the book very fast.
*tai-syu-(hou)-faai
read-book-(very)-fast
32a.* No longer we can(not) see the birds.
32b. We no longer can(not) see the birds.
Ngodei
yiking
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
We
no longer
see-NEG
the birds
32c.* We can no longer (not) see the birds.
32d.* We can(not) no longer see the birds.
32e.* We can(not) see no longer the birds.
32f.* We can(not) see the birds no longer.
33a.* Always we cannot see the birds.
33b. We always cannot see the birds.
ngodei
moei-ci
do-tai-mdoo
dizheuk
we
each-time
NEG-see-NEG
the birds
ngodei
seng-yat
do-tai-mdoo
dizheuk
we
all-day
NEG-see-NEG
the birds
36
33c.* We can always not see the birds.
33d.* We cannot always see the birds.
33e.* We cannot see always the birds.
33f.* We cannot see the birds always.
34a.* Almost we cannot see the birds.
34b. We almost cannot see the birds.
ngodei
taandi14
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
we
almost
see-NEG
the birds
34c.* We can almost not see the birds.
34d.* We cannot almost see the birds.
34e.* We cannot see almost the birds.
34f.* We cannot see the birds almost.
35a.* Briefly we cannot see the birds.
35b. We briefly cannot see the birds.
Ngodei
dunsi
tai-mdoo
dizheuk
We
briefly
see-NEG
the birds
35c.* We can briefly not see the birds.
35d.* We cannot briefly see the birds.
35e.* We cannot see briefly the birds.
35f.* We cannot see the birds briefly.
36a.* Well he read the book.
36b.* He well read the book.
36c. He read well the book.
keoi
tai-ming-zo
jat-bun-syu
he
read-understand-PFV
one-CL-book
36d. He read the book well.
keoi
he
tai-zo
read-PFV
jat-bun-syu
lo
one-CL-book well
37a.* Well the girl wrote a letter.
37b.* The girl well wrote a letter.
37c. The girl wrote well a letter.
14
go-neoi-zai
se-hou-zo
jat-fung-seon
that-CL-girl
write-well-PFV
one-CL-letter
“keefoe” is more formal.
37
37d. The girl wrote a letter well.
go-neoi-zai
se-zo
jat-fung-seon lo
that-CL-girl
write-PFV
one-CL-letter well
38a.* Well mother made pancakes.
38b.* Mother well made pancakes.
38c. Mother made well pancakes.
mama
zyu-hou-zo
baangik
mother
make-well-PFV
pancakes
38d. Mother made pancakes well.
mama
zyu-zo
baangik
lo
mother
make-PFV
pancakes
well
From the above results the following generalization can be made: all adverbs down to
“dunsi” (briefly – the 21st in Cinque's hierarchy of 30 types of adverbs) can only occur in
preverbal position; only “ming/lo” (well – the 26th in Cinque's hierarchy) can and must
occur postverbally.
Some remarks have to be made though about sentence (25) and (26). For
example, “camjat” (yesterday) seems to follow the verb in (25c) and (26c), but here the
adverb does not act as modifier of the whole clause or sentence. Instead it modifies only
the noun “book” and “letter” respectively, which is shown in the interpretation. This
explains the postverbal occurrence.
In (28) this line of reasoning cannot explain the postverbal occurrence of
“camjat”, since it clearly refers to the whole sentence. This is the only counterexample
that I have found to the hierarchical order from Cinque (1999), and I therefore conclude
this as exceptional, rather than to dismiss the hierarchical ordering of adverbs, and it
remains to be adequately dealt with.
Another explanation needs to be sought for the postverbal position of “faai” in
(31b). The unmarked position of this adverb is preverbal, as (31a) shows. At the same
time, (31c) indicates that the postverbal occurrence of “faai” is very restricted. The
adverb can only occur postverbally in a clause with a duplicated verb compound. This
leads us to consider that the compounding takes up a position, which is normally
reserved for adverbs, or at least makes that position inaccessible for adverbs.
From these results we can conclude that Cantonese behaves like English with
regard to adverb placement, namely most adverbs appear to the left of the verb and
some appear to the right. Recall that in Koster's example of adverb placement, here
38
repeated as (39)15, “yesterday” is used as an afterthought to the clause before the
comma.
(39)
He has probably worked, yesterday.
In Cantonese it is also possible to place adverbs as an afterthought, like in (40) 16.
(40)
Taai gwai la. Hóu leng wo, daahnhaih.
Too dear PRT very nice PRT however
“It's too expensive. Very nice, though.”
As to the problem DFPs pose for the theory, it is likely that these adverbs are in the same
category as “well” and can perhaps be considered the way I analyzed the postverbal
occurrence of “yesterday”, namely as modifying the object it precedes.
Cantonese is thus similar to English as its division in two categories of adverbs. If
one places the DFP in the object-modifier class of adverbs, just like “well”, it is possible
to state that in both languages sentential adverbs are class 1 adverbs, while objectmodifier adverbs are class 2 adverbs. The only thing left to determine is the exact
position of a class 2 adverb. In both languages it can be either left (yesterday) or right
(ming/lo, faai) of the object; for the English equivalents of the discussed Cantonese
examples, see (41)-(43).
(41a)
John read a book, yesterday.
(41b)* John read yesterday a book.
(41c)
John reads yesterday's book.
(42a)
John read a book fast.
(42b)* John read fast a book.
(42c)
John read a fast book.
(43a)
John read a book well.
(43b)* John read well a book.
(43c)
John read a good book.
If the adverb is on the right of the object, the interpretation must be sentential, whereas
if it is on the left of the object, the only possible interpretation is as in the c-sentences in
(41)-(43). The difference between English and Cantonese that in English this modifying
15
16
Koster (1999), sentence (91c) on p. 37.
From Matthews & Yip (1994), p. 294.
39
relationship between the adverb and the object has to be marked in an adjectival
morphology, whereas in Cantonese the adverb retains its adverbial morphology.
In the next chapter I will show how these observations should be turned into an
analysis that can have a place in the theory proposed by Koster.
4 Implications of Cantonese word order facts
Abstract
In the previous chapter I have unraveled some basic characteristics of Cantonese. This
language behaves like Koster would predict with his theory of Collective and Individual
Checking, although Koster's classification of adverbs needs to be made more precise. In
this chapter I will summarize my findings and point to where the classification needs to
be made.
4.1
Koster evaluated
I will start with what Koster rightfully predicts for Cantonese. Cantonese is rigidly VO.
Although topicalization is a fruitful operation, the main order is by far the one where the
40
verb precedes the object. This is also seen in subordinate clauses, like in (5) from
chapter 3, repeated here as (1):
(1)
John tells me that he is smart.
John tung ngo [V gong] [OBJ keoi hou cong-ming]
John with me
[V say]
[OBJ 3SG
very smart]
Moreover, as I have shown in chapter 3, the verb and object are very strictly bonded
together in the syntactic structure, so that they may very rarely be intervened by any
material. This characteristic is just what Koster would predict for a VO language.
Although this is quite trivial a statement, it is important to understand that a language
could well be VO, while at the same time OV order may be found in another clause type.
The only way the VO order can be changed in Cantonese is by ways of topicalization. This
can move the object to the left of the verb. Though this may seem to undermine the
rigidness of the language, one must keep in mind that topicalization is also available in
English; nonetheless English is regarded as being a VO language.
Secondly, I argue contra Kung (1993), Lin (1994) and Soh (1998) that there is no such a
thing as object scrambling in Chinese. There is something mysterious about the order of
an object and a DFP, which may seem as if we have a case of scrambling, but as I have
shown in chapter 3, this scrambling account from Mandarin should extend to the closely
related Cantonese. Since this is not the case, and since the “scrambling” cases presented
by Soh (1998) do not necessitate a scrambling analysis, I conclude that there is no object
scrambling in Cantonese or Mandarin.
What is striking is the possibility of two orders in Mandarin between the object
and the DFP. As I have argued in chapter 3, this exceptional behavior, as well as the
behavior of other adverbs in English and Cantonese can be explained in a unified account
of adverbs. This account, that will fit inside Koster's theory, will be discussed in the next
section.
4.2
Adverb placement in Koster's theory
Adverbs in the Universal Grammar are to be divided in two classes:
class 1
preverbal adverbs
class 2
postverbal adverbs
41
Class 2 adverbs can further be divided in pre- and postobject adverbs. If the adverb is on
the right of the object, the interpretation must be sentential, whereas if it is on the left of
the object, the only possible interpretation is object-modifying. All preverbal adverbs are
sentential.
This classification explains when an adverb is placed in what position, namely by
ways of possible interpretations. In preverbal position, adverbs can only have a sentential
interpretation, whereas postverbal adverbs can have either a sentential interpretation (in
post-object position) or an object-modifying interpretation (in pre-object position).
Adverbs that can have no interpretation in a certain position can never be in that
position, whereas adverbs that can, determine their interpretation on their position.
Some languages may also morphologically mark the adverb for being in object-modifying
position like English, where others do not mark their adverbs for this. Cantonese is an
example of such a language.
To come back to the mysterious word order variations in Mandarin Chinese, as
discussed by Soh (1998), she herself observes that there are differences in interpretation
between sentences (2a) and (2b)17.
(2a)
wo
qing-guo
[quanbu
de
xuesheng]
I
invite-PFV
[all
DE student]
[liang ci]
[two time]
'I have invited all students twice.'
(2b)
(i)
all students >> two times
(ii)
two times >> all students
wo
qing-guo
[liang ci]
[quanbu
de xuesheng]
I
invite-PFV
[two time]
[all
DE student]
'Twice, i have invited all students.'
(i)
?*all students >> two times
(ii)
two times >> all student
In Soh's words, 'when the object follows the DFP [like in (2b)], it can only be interpreted
as having narrow scope...[and] when the object precedes the DFP [like in (2a)]... both
group and distributive readings are available.'
It would take further investigation to determine the precise role of the quantifier
phrases in these constructions, but it stands without a doubt that the interpretation
directs whether an adverb (be it a DFP or another) can occur pre- or post-object. This is
not a question of scrambling procedures, but to what extent an interpretation is possible.
17
Soh's (7) and (8) on p. 37.
42
One problem for Koster is the supposed topicalization of adverbs like
“immediately” which strands them between the auxiliary and the main verb. This must
have some topicalization background, but I do not have the time or space to get into this
matter in more detail, so this must be reserved for future research.
4.3
Conclusion and recommendations for further research
I conclude that Cantonese behaves the way Koster (1999) predicts it does, with a more
precise classification of adverbs. I have given this amendment to Koster's classification
that will help his theory to explain the word orders of more world languages than just the
ones that are closely related to each other. Still not everything can be accounted for with
this classification.
In particular the question why “immediately” can intervene between the auxiliary
and the main verb remains a topic for future research. Another interesting question is the
role of quantifier phrases with respect to the different possible interpretations. These
possible interpretations direct the possibilities of adverbs in certain positions, and
therefore require more investigation.
As a final remark, let me point out that it would serve future case studies of
Cantonese if a unified writing system of the language is used. This facilitates the analysis
of translations by different native speakers. There tend to be regional differences in
vocabulary, but these are mainly superficial and will only matter if these regional
differences are the topic of one's study.
5 Samenvatting in het Nederlands
In deze doctoraalscriptie heb ik de theorie van Jan Koster in zijn artikel “The word orders
of English and Dutch, Collective vs. Individual Checking” uit (1999) getest op zijn
toepasbaarheid voor het Kantonees.
Het centrale idee van Koster's theorie is het verklaren van de verschillen tussen
VO en OV talen d.m.v. het aannemen van een parameter, genaamd de Pied Piping
Parameter. Deze parameter is gebaseerd op eerdere bevindingen van o.a. Vanden
Wyngaerd (1989), Zwart (1993, 1994 en 1997), Kaan (1992) en Den Dikken (1996).
Dankzij deze parameter weet Koster te verklaren waarom VO en OV talen op vier
distincte manieren van elkaar verschillen. Drie van die vier verschillen worden in deze
scriptie getest voor het Kantonees, omdat Koster tot nu toe alleen de verschillen tussen
talen wist te verklaren die dicht aan elkaar gerelateerd zijn, namelijk het Engels en het
Nederlands.
43
De drie verschillen zijn achtereenvolgens: 1. de volgorde van het werkwoord en
het object (VO vs. OV), 2. scrambling of geen scrambling mogelijk, 3. plaatsing van
adverbia (voor of na het werkwoord).
Eerder genoemde parameter ziet er als volgt uit:
Pied Piping Parameter
–
in het Nederlands checken de interne argumenten hun corresponderende features
individueel.
–
in het Engels checken de interne argumenten hun corresponderende features
colleftief, na deze te hebben doorgegeven aan de VP (verbale frase).
De analyse verloopt als volgt: In het Nederlands hoeven de interne argumenten niet
binnen de VP te blijven. Ze hebben meer bewegingsvrijheid dan in het Engels. In het
Engels ontvangen VPs de features van hun interne argumenten. Deze features worden
vervolgens gechecked door de gehele VP te verplaatsen naar de posities waar de features
gechecked kunnen worden.
Ik laat zien dat het Kantonees zich gedraagt zoals Koster (1999) dat voorspelt. De enige
kanttekening maak ik bij de classificatie van adverbia, die naar mijn mening preciezer
geformuleerd moet worden. Deze classificatie ziet er als volgt uit:
Adverbia in de Universele Grammatica kunnen worden verdeeld in 2 klassen:
klasse 1
preverbale adverbia
klasse 2
postverbale adverbia
Klasse 2 adverbia kunnen verder worden verdeeld in pre- and post-objecte adverbia. Als
het postverbale adverbium rechts van het object staat kan de interpretatie alleen
sententieel zijn, terwijl als het links van het object staat, het alleen een objectmodificerend kan zijn. Alle preverbale adverbia zijn sententieel.
Deze classificatie verklaart wanneer een adverbium in welke positie geplaatst
wordt, namelijk op grond van mogelijke interpretaties. In preverbale positie kunnen
adverbia alleen een sententiele interpretatie krijgen; postverbale adverbia hebben de
keuze tussen een sententiele interpretatie (in post-objecte positie) en een objectmodificerende interpretatie (in pre-objecte positie).
44
Sommige talen kunnen het adverbium ook morfologisch markeren voor het staan
in een object-modificerende positie, zoals het Engels en het Nederlands. Andere talen
markeren hun adverbia niet in zulke posities. Het Kantonees is een voorbeeld van zo'n
taal.
Appendix I: Other Cantonese sentences
Below you will find the sentences from my investigation that were not mentioned in the
chapters, together with their translation, but without direct glosses.
1. He has given Mary the book, yesterday.
Keoi camyat pee tjoh poen su Mary.
2. John thinks he is smart.
John yiwai keoi hoo chong ming.
3. John tells me he is smart.
John tong ngo gong, whaa keoi hoo chong ming.
4. John tells me a good story.
John gong hoo goe sie pee ngo teng.
5. I have invited that person twice.
Ngo cheng guo keoi leung ci.
45
6. Twice, I have invited that person.
Leung ci a, ngo yiking cheng guo keu leung ci.
7. I have visited China twice.
Ngo heu guo tong kok leung ci.
8. Twice, I have visited China.
Leung ci a, wo yiking heu guo tong kok leung ci.
9. I think that John likes to read a book.
Ngo lam John seung tai yat poen su.
10. When you listen carefully, you can hear the birds sing in the garden.
Yu guo lee sai sam die teng, lee tjouw woei teng dow tjeuk tjak kieuw.
11. Without saying anything, Peter ran to the station to catch the last train.
Keoi yat geu waa do mow kong. Peter tjouw pauw heu fo ce tjaam zhui zui hou koh fo ce.
12. Not being interested in biology, Peter studies history.
Keoi dui san mat hok mow hing cheu, Peter hai dok lik sie kaa.
13. Being not interested in biology, Peter studies history .
Yanwai keoi dui san mat hok mow hing cheu, tjouw dok lik sie.
14. Working not much, Peter flunked. [to flunk = zakken voor een toets/tentamen.]
Yan wai keoi m kan lik, soh yie sat paai.
15. Not working much, Peter flunked.
Yan wai keoi m kan lik, soh yie sat paai.
16. John was not arrested.
John mow peei kaw law.
17. John not being arrested, he drove home to eat dinner.
John mow peei kaw law, keoi tjaa che faan ok kee sik maan chaan.
18. John is not happy.
John m hoi sam.
19. John is not happy about his grades.
John yan wai keoi die fan sow m hoi sam.
20. John likes not Mary.
John m tjong yi mary.
21. I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep in this room.
I lam ngo mow ho nang hee li kaan fong fan dak tjeuk.
22. He had thought it unnecessary to take action concerning my letter.
Keoi lam m seu yiew kwan yu ngo fong sun tjoo yam ho choo si.
23. He has said he did not wish to take action concerning my letter.
Keoi waa keoi m hee mong kwan yu ngo fong sun tjoo yam ho choo si.
24. I believe that Tom very smart bought a book for his son.
Ngo kok tak Tom hoo chong ming, sik maai poen su pee keoi tjai.
[interpretation: “It is very smart that Tom bought a book for his son.”]
46
25. I believe that Tom bought a book very smart for his son.
Ngo kok tak Tom yong hoo chong ming ko fong faat mai poen su pee keoi tjai.
[interpretation: “Tom bought a book for his son in a very smart way.”]
26. He succeeds in stopping smoking.
Keoi sing gong lieuw kaai yien.
27. He does not succeed in stopping smoking.
Keoi m sing kong kaai yien.
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