Abstract
This paper re-examines two types of donkey conditional sentences in Mandarin Chinese, first identified by Cheng and Huang (1996), who argue that there is a strict correspondence between types of conditional sentences and interpretational strategies for the anaphoric elements, i.e., bare conditionals use the unselective binding mechanism of classic DRT, while ruguo/dou-conditionals need the E-type strategy. This claim has been challenged by Pan and Jiang (2015), who provide ample evidence against Cheng and Huang’s paradigm. In their recent reply, Cheng and Huang (2020) attempt to further explain the counter-examples given by Pan and Jiang (2015), and maintain that their original proposal can be defended. We will examine Cheng and Huang’s (2020) responses in detail, and argue that their defense does not stand up to scrutiny. We conclude that there is no correspondence between conditional types and interpretative mechanisms in Chinese donkey sentences. We also provide additional data concerning sentences with pairs of identical NPs, and point out that bare conditionals are one special example of a general strategy of expressing co-variation in Mandarin.
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Notes
- 1.
Other approaches to Chinese donkey sentences, which target specifically bare conditionals, include the question-based approach (e.g., Liu 2018, Xiang 2020, Li 2021) and the relative-clause-based approach (e.g., Wen 1997, 1998, Huang 2010, Luo and Crain 2011, Chen 2019). The former takes the wh-phrase-containing clause in a bare conditional as a genuine wh-question, while the latter analyzes it as a relative clause. Due to space limit, we focus only on the debate between C&H and P&J here, and discuss the problems of other alternative approaches in another paper.
- 2.
We regard E-type pronouns as pronouns that semantically stand for definite descriptions whose descriptive content can be recovered from linguistic or non-linguistic contexts, without taking a stand on the long-debated issue of whether definite NPs (and E-type pronouns) are referential or quantificational.
- 3.
Some other authors also reported a wh-pronoun contrast. For instance, Wang (2006) claims that a wh…wh conditional has a different meaning from a wh…pronoun conditional: the former expresses universal quantification, i.e., the set of individuals denoted by the first wh-expression is a subset of the set denoted by the second wh-expression, while the latter states that the situation described by the second clause is a necessary consequence of the situation expressed by the first clause. It is not clear whether these two readings are really different. For us, the use of a pronoun in the consequent clause is compatible with a universal reading, too.
- 4.
Huang A. (2003) argues that there is only one type of Chinese conditionals based on the assumption that a wh-phrase and a pronoun are freely interchangeable in the consequent clause of all conditionals, which is not the case.
- 5.
A reviewer asks why the default pattern should be the default pattern, but not the other way round. We suspect that this has something to do with the function of the conditional morpheme ruguo and the universal quantifier dou. In the absence of such elements, a wh-phrase in the antecedent clause takes on its default interpretation, i.e., a free variable, and the anaphoric wh-phrase has to be a variable too. The conditional morpheme ruguo and the universal quantifier dou have the preferred option to license the wh-phrase in the antecedent clause as an existential quantifier, and the anaphoric element has to be an E-type pronoun then. In this light, ruguo seems to differ from English if. The semantic contribution of an if-clause can be analyzed as providing the restriction for a (overt or covert) quantifier (Lewis 1975, Kratzer 1986), and the morpheme if is semantically vacuous. But ruguo has an obvious role to play for determining the interpretation of the wh-phrase in the antecedent clause.
- 6.
Lin (1996) also observes that Chinese donkey conditionals have a multi-case or one-case interpretation, but he differs from P&J (and this paper) in that he claims that pronouns are incompatible with multi-case bare conditionals.
- 7.
For multi-case conditionals, Heim (1990) argues that a DRT-style unselective binding analysis and the alternative situation-based E-type analysis is semantically equivalent. (38a) thus can also be analyzed as quantification over minimal situations: each minimal situation s that contains a person who wants this broken factory can be extended to a situation s’ in which I will give the factory to that person in s. To the extent that the unselective binding analysis and the E-type analysis handle multi-case conditionals equally well, there is no ground to exclude either one, and this provides further support to our null hypothesis that both unselective binding and the E-type strategies are possible.
- 8.
We remain neutral as to the nature of the implicit operator in donkey conditional sentences (e.g., whether it is an implicit modal or adverb of quantification), and simply follow Heim (1982) to posit a necessity operator binding both the world variable and the individual variable.
- 9.
As the hierarchy makes it clear, wh-phrases in Mandarin are able to function as variables. A reviewer raises a question concerning the status of wh-phrases as variables: what excludes the wh-phrase from being bound by the subject quantifier in (i) if it can be a variable? Previous works (e.g., Huang 1982, Cheng 1991, Li 1992, Lin 1996) have shown that the non-interrogative use of wh-phrases, especially their use as indefinite NPs, is subject to certain licensing requirements. Wh-indefinites are like polarity items and typically occur in downward entailing environments. Therefore, it is not the case that they can freely occur. The reviewer also wonders why the bound variable reading of wh-phrases only appears in the conditional type of donkey sentences instead of the relative clause type such as (ii). In a similar vein, the indefinite wh-phrase cannot be licensed in this case. In fact, if one follows Tsai’s (1994, 1999) proposal of wh-contruals, even the interrogative wh-phrase is semantically a variable subject to binding from the question operator directly merged in CP. In general, it seems that wh-phrases as variables must be bound by A’-operators instead of nominal quantifiers.
- 10.
A reviewer notes that Mandarin wh-phrases do not behave like pronouns outside bare conditionals, as shown in (iii) and (iv), and doubts whether they have E-type interpretations. This is in fact a welcome result for the bound variable hierarchy, since it dictates that wh-phrases are less suitable and thus quite restricted for being used as E-type pronouns. A question worth pursuing is how E-type wh-phrases are restricted. One may resort to a competition mechanism and say that whenever a pronoun is available, a wh-phrase cannot be used as an E-type pronoun.
- 11.
We thank a reviewer for raising a question about the nature and status of this hierarchy in natural languages. Indeed, the precise nature of this proposed hierarchy and its empirical consequences remain to be further investigated, but it seems necessary to restrict its application to languages in which wh-phrases have the option to be used as indefinites; otherwise, languages like English in which wh-phrases are more operator-like would be predicted to have bare conditionals as well.
- 12.
Native speaker’s judgments on whether Chinese pronouns can function as bound variables when c-commanded by quantificational NPs seem to show some variation, though, in general, the bound variable use of Chinese pronouns do not sound as natural as their English counterparts.
- 13.
That Chinese is more logically transparent seems to be a general property of the language, and may also be reflected by another fact, namely that it obeys a Scope Isomorphism Principle (Huang 1982, Lee 1986), which states that the surface c-command relation between logical operators determines their scope relation.
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Pan, H., Kuang, H. (2023). Another Look at Chinese Donkey Sentences: A Reply to Cheng and Huang (2020). In: Deng, D., Liu, M., Westerståhl, D., Xie, K. (eds) Dynamics in Logic and Language. TLLM 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13524. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25894-7_2
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