Jowang Lin - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Jowang Lin

Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 1998

This paper provides a comprehensive survey and generalization of the distribution of non-interrog... more This paper provides a comprehensive survey and generalization of the distribution of non-interrogative existential wh-phrases in Chinese that behave like polarity items. I show that such polarity wh-phrases appear in three kinds of environments, which seem to decrease in their strength for polarity licensing, and argue that they are subject to a non-existence condition to the effect that the local proposition in which they appear does not entail existence of individuals satisfying their descriptions. This approach is shown to represent an improvement over Li's (1992) analysis. I also discuss some open questions that are theoretically significant but lack a definite answer at the present stage.

Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 2003

This paper discusses how Chinese, a so-called tenseless language, determines its temporal referen... more This paper discusses how Chinese, a so-called tenseless language, determines its temporal reference. For simplex sentences without time adverb or aspectual marker, I show that temporal reference is correlated with aktionsart or grammatical viewpoint. For sentences with an aspectual marker, I discuss the temporal semantics of le and guo in detail, showing how their tense/aspectual meanings contribute to temporal reference.

The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics, 2014

Phonology, 1994

The study of the relation between syntactic structure and phonological representation has attract... more The study of the relation between syntactic structure and phonological representation has attracted the attention of many phonologists in the past few years. One important contribution to this field of study is Chen's (1987) work on Xiamen Chinese tone sandhi domains. He suggests that the syntax–phonology relation appeals to syntactic information such as category types and the edges of syntactic bracketings. This insight has been further elaborated in the general theory of the syntax—phonology relation of Selkirk (1986). In this theory, the relation between syntactic structure and prosodic structure above the foot and below the intonational phrase is defined in terms of the edges of syntactic constituents of designated types. More precisely, this theory incorporates two hypotheses. One is that there are designated category types in syntactic structure with respect to which one end (Right or Left) of the designated category is relevant in the formulation of a prosodic constituent...

Linguistics and Philosophy - LING PHIL, 1999

This paper shows that the semantics of shenme ‘what’ in Chinese bare conditionals may exhibit a p... more This paper shows that the semantics of shenme ‘what’ in Chinese bare conditionals may exhibit a phenomenon of double quantification. I argue that such double quantification can be nicely accounted for if one adopts Carlson's (1977a, b) semantics of bare plurals and verb meanings as well as the following two assumptions: (i) shenme ‘what’ can be a proform of bare NPs and hence has the same kind of denotation as bare NPs, and (ii) Chinese bare NPs are names of kinds of things. This analysis of Chinese bare conditionals lends support to Carlson's approach to bare plurals despite Wilkinson's (1991) criticisms. I also show that an extension of Heim's (1987) analysis of what as ‘something of kind x’ to Chinese shenme ‘what’ encounters problems when shenme ‘what’ is a shared constituent of a predicate which applies to kinds and another predicate which applies to objects.

Linguistics and Philosophy, 2004

Linguistic Inquiry, 2010

Sybesma (2007) argues for the existence of a syntactic T node in Chinese on the basis of general ... more Sybesma (2007) argues for the existence of a syntactic T node in Chinese on the basis of general theoretical considerations and parallel empirical data from Dutch and Chinese. This reply shows that a tenseless analysis of Chinese is an equally viable alternative or even a better one, given some empirical problems that the tensed analysis has to face. The tenseless analysis is backed up not only by its ability to explain the data in a more elegant way but also by syntactic facts that seem to be unrelated coincidences under a tensed analysis but are natural consequences under a tenseless alternative.

Journal of Semantics, 2007

Journal of Semantics, 2005

Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 1992

Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 2007

Language and Linguistics, 2006

This paper discusses the syntax of the Chinese non-referential ta 'it' as it occurs after the ver... more This paper discusses the syntax of the Chinese non-referential ta 'it' as it occurs after the verb in haohao-de he ta liang-bei 'Drink two cups' or shui ta yi huir 'Sleep for a while'. After presenting the problems of three previous analyses (the ditransitive, AgrOP, and VP proform analyses), we argue that the non-referential ta is an indefinite determiner clitic which is the head of DP and is adjoined to its preceding verb. Such an analysis not only better accounts for the Chinese data but also has an important implication with respect to Uriagereka's (1995) observation about the specificity of clitics in general and their relation to Diesing's (1992) Mapping Hypothesis.

Language and Linguistics, 2000

Natural Language Semantics, 2008