Contra recent semantic-pragmatic analyses of insignificance shenmesentences (ISS) in Chinese (mei V shenme NP), this talk aims to provide asyntactic Neg Raising analysis. It is argued that the insignificance readingin ISS is not related to shenme alone, but related to mei shenme‘few/little’ as a whole. Due to high analyticity in Modern Chinese, mei inmei shenme NPs needs to raise from a postverbal object position upwardto a TP-below negation phrase, which is distinct from a TP-above negationphrase. In this vein, the puzzles in ISS can be explained naturally. Thisanalysis can also be extended to other sentences with similar meaning.The current analysis explores the interaction among negation, non-interrogative wh-words and focus from an interface perspective. Itdemonstrates how mismatches have been produced and how Chinesegrammar is constrained by linguistic interfaces as lexicon, syntax, andprosody.

Speaker:
Professor Changsong WANG, Beijing Institute of Technology
Changsong Wang, Ph.D. in Beijing Language and Culture University(2014), is currently Associate Professor of School of Foreign Languages atBeijing Institute of Technology. His main research interests mainly lie insyntax-morphology interface and syntax-prosody interface. His researchtopics include de (的), de (得), and non-interrogative uses of wh-wordslike shenme. He is also an anonymous reviewer of journals like Journal ofChinese Linguistics, Language and Linguistics, Studies in ChineseLinguistics.