Abstract
The main goal of this paper is to account for the ungrammaticality of adjuncts likeyiding ‘definitely’ orluan ‘chaotically’ in Chinese A-not-A questions. This restriction can be accounted for via the Isomorphic Principle, by which S-structure scope relationships must be preserved at LF. In A-not-A questions the question operator [+Qu] raises at LF; any adjunct which c-commands [+Qu] at SS must therefore also raise to c-command it at LF, in order to respect the Isomorphic Principle. Butyielding andluan, like most adjuncts, cannot modify [+Qu], so such sentences are semantically anomalous.
Certain other adjuncts, such as time and locative expressions, do not show this effect, though they also cannot modify [+Qu]. It is argued that adjuncts of this class are argument-like and thus that their trace may count for scope at LF, following a version of Aoun and Li's (1989) Scope Principle making reference to chains. Thus they are not forced to modify the question operator and may co-occur with A-not-A questions.
To the extent that this analysis is successful, it supports the validity of the Isomorphic Principle and the Scope Principle as important mechanisms for mapping S-structure to LF.
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This paper began life as Ernst (1992a), but is very different from the latter and thus is a separate paper. I am grateful to James Huang, Jane Tang, Shizhe Huang, Chengchi Wang, Audrey Li, Istvan Kenesei, Norbert Hornstein, Bob Frank, Paul Law, and two JEAL reviewers for useful suggestions and discussion. I am also deeply indebted to Shizhe Huang and Chengchi Wang for their help in providing data and also to Jenny Wang, Hao Li, and others at the University of Delaware for supplying their judgments. All errors are my own.
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Ernst, T. Conditions on Chinese A-not-A questions. J East Asian Linguis 3, 241–264 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01733065
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01733065