Explicating wh-fronting in Mandarin: A scrambling approach
Abstract
This paper proposes an alternative approach to wh-fronting in Mandarin by analyzing it as a type of regional scrambling. Three main arguments are presented, including the semantic vacuousness of Mandarin wh-fronting, its mixed syntactic properties, and the theoretical plausibility of scrambling in a non-scrambling language. This approach departs from previous treatments in dispensing with stipulation of an explicit uniform driving force for the movement and permits structural alternation without significant meaning changes.
Keywords
wh-fronting; scrambling; optionality; wh-in-situ languages
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PDFDOI: https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v4i1.4553
Copyright (c) 2019 Yaobin Liu

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