TY - JOUR
T1 - Unvalued interpretable features and topic A-movement in Chinese raising modal constructions
AU - Chou, Chao-Ting
PY - 2013/1/1
Y1 - 2013/1/1
N2 - The purpose of this paper is three-fold: (i) I argue that topic A-movement exists in Chinese. Specifically, I show that argument displacement in Chinese raising modal constructions (RMC) containing raising modals like yinggai 'should' and keneng 'likely' is A-movement to spec-TP, yet semantically exhibits topicality; (ii) even though Miyagawa's (2010) extension of Chomsky's (2007, 2008) feature inheritance hypothesis to the Topic feature provides a possible derivational system to capture topic A-movement in this construction, I show that object topic A-movement in this construction is underivable under Miyagawa's (2010) probe-driven system of movement based on feature inheritance. This is because of a timing problem regarding feature inheritance and Chomsky's (2001) Phase-Impenetrability Condition independently noted by Epstein et al. (2012) and Richards (2011); (iii) I propose that two major modifications are needed to maintain the basic assumptions of Miyagawa (2010) to derive object topic A-movement in RMC: (a) a more fine-grained characterization of topic A-movement on the basis of the dissociation of feature interpretability and feature valuation (see Pesetsky and Torrego, 2007; Carstens, 2010, 2011; Bošković, in press), and (b) the adoption of Bošković's (2007) moving-element-driven theory of movement.
AB - The purpose of this paper is three-fold: (i) I argue that topic A-movement exists in Chinese. Specifically, I show that argument displacement in Chinese raising modal constructions (RMC) containing raising modals like yinggai 'should' and keneng 'likely' is A-movement to spec-TP, yet semantically exhibits topicality; (ii) even though Miyagawa's (2010) extension of Chomsky's (2007, 2008) feature inheritance hypothesis to the Topic feature provides a possible derivational system to capture topic A-movement in this construction, I show that object topic A-movement in this construction is underivable under Miyagawa's (2010) probe-driven system of movement based on feature inheritance. This is because of a timing problem regarding feature inheritance and Chomsky's (2001) Phase-Impenetrability Condition independently noted by Epstein et al. (2012) and Richards (2011); (iii) I propose that two major modifications are needed to maintain the basic assumptions of Miyagawa (2010) to derive object topic A-movement in RMC: (a) a more fine-grained characterization of topic A-movement on the basis of the dissociation of feature interpretability and feature valuation (see Pesetsky and Torrego, 2007; Carstens, 2010, 2011; Bošković, in press), and (b) the adoption of Bošković's (2007) moving-element-driven theory of movement.
KW - A-movement
KW - Chinese syntax
KW - Feature inheritance
KW - Minimalism
KW - Phase-Impenetrability Condition
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84870894899&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.lingua.2012.10.014
DO - 10.1016/j.lingua.2012.10.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84870894899
VL - 123
SP - 118
EP - 147
JO - Lingua
JF - Lingua
SN - 0024-3841
IS - 1
ER -