The cartography of spatial adpositional phrases in Mandarin and Cantonese

Abstract

In this dissertation I investigate some issues on Spatial Preposition Phrases in Mandarin and Cantonese from the cartographic approach. In Chinese and some other languages Circumpositions instead of only Prepositions are used.

First of all, I justify the existence of the category Pr(eposition) in Mandarin by several diagnostic tests, and discover, by considering relativization, the microparametric variation on the Stative V/Locative Pr: zai in various varieties of Mandarin, hai in Cantonese, lAʔ (lAʔ) in Shanghai dialect, and niangb dit in Eastern Guizhou Miao (a language from Miao-Yao/Hmong-Mien group). The microparametric variation is then accounted for by the hypothesis that the transitive stative verb is actually a fushion of the intransitive stative verb and a locative preposition, the failure to permit relativization (or preposition stranding) is always due to the existence of a locative preposition, no matter it is an independent morpheme or one fused in the transitive stative verb.

Second, the richer Postpositions in Cantonese are studied. The most prominent discovery is the PLACE classifier dou, which may support the assertion that each Spatial PP embeds a DPPLACE which is selected by an Adposition of Locative, an idea advocated in Cinque (2010). Another Postposition discussed is Axial Part. It is shown that in Chinese Axial Part has more complex structure, that consists of the element conveying directional sense and another noun-like element min (mian in Mandarin) that behaves slightly similar to dou but not exactly. Different from traditional views on Chinese, where ‘Preposition’ Stranding is always prohibited, I show that some Circumposition Stranding is possible.

Third, some languages from Tibeto-Burman and Tai-Kadai provide evidence to support my claim that PLACE element like dou is actually a Classifier. These languages have the canonical word order of Noun > Demonstrative > Classifier, or Classifier > Demonstrative > Noun, and therefore are suitable candidates for my diagnostic tests. In short, the study in this thesis relies primarily on Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Contributions from other languages include Shanghai and (Sin-on) Hakka, which are Chinese varieties; (Eastern Guizhou) Miao from Hmong-Mien group, Naxi and Bai from Tibeto-Burman group, Chadong from Tai-Kadai group. The cartography of spatial adpositional phrases thus obtained can be demonstrated by the following functional sequence and the Cantonese example.

The functional sequence: PrLOC>Deictic>(Nume)>CL>…Deg…>…AxPart>RefGround>NPLACE

An example of derivation with Cantonese data [PrPPrLoc [DP[ZP[YP[RefPDPGrd[NPplace]]iY0[XPAxPtPti]j Z0 [DegPMeasP tj]k[DeicPDeic[ClPCLtk]

喺 下面 嗰條橋 上面 三米 嗰 度 hai haa min go tiu kiu soeng min saam -mai go dou at bottom face DIST CL bridge top face three metres DIST CLPLACE ‘at down there, three metres above that bridge’