Panova Olga

RGGU, May 2008

REFLEXIVES IN CHINESE

The main topic of this paper is the reflexive pronoun ziji in Chinese (standard Spoken Chinese).

There are two kinds of reflexive pronouns in Chinese:1) the simplex reflexive - ziji, which has no person like Russian reflexives sebja, svoj; and 2) the complex reflexives, which can be represented as X-ziji, where ‘X’ is a pronoun (for example, wo-ziji ‘myself’, ta-ziji ‘himself’, nimen-ziji ‘yourselves’, etc.).

As in English the complex reflexives can only be locally bound (see the requirement of monomorphemicity in Y.-H. Huang (1984); Tang[1989]). They also agree with their antecedents in number and person:

(1) a.Zhangsan xihuan ta ziji.

Zhangsan like himself

‘Zhangsan likes himself.’

  1. Zhangsan shuo wo xihuan woziji/*taziji.

Zhangsan say I like myself/himself

‘Zhangsan says that I like myself/*himself.’

In comparison with complex reflexives, the simplex one can be both locally (a) and long-distance bound (b):

(2) a. Pide bu xiangxin ziji

Peter not believe self

‘Peter doesn’t believe himself‘

b. Zhangsanirenwei [Lisij hen zijii/j]

Zhangsan think Lisi hate self

‘Zhangsani thinks that Lisijhates himselfj/ himi

As for the long-distance binding there are, however, two following restrictions.

First, non-third person NPs cannot serve as long-distance binders:

(3) Wo/Nii juede [Lisij dui ziji*i/j mei xinxin]

I/you think Lisi to self no confidence

‘I/You think that Lisi had no confidence in himself’

Second, so called «BLOCKING EFFECT», according to which the intervening non-third person NPs, subject or object,block long-distance binding (Tang [1989], p.108-109). Look at the following sentences:

(4) a. Zhangsani renwei [nijhen ziji*i/j]

Zhangsan thinks you hate self

‘Zhangsani thinks that youj hates yourselfj’

b. Zhangsani zhidao [wo/nij juede [Lisik dui ziji*i*/j/kmei xinxin]]

Zhangsan know I/you think Lisi towards self no confidence

‘Zhangsani knows I/you think that Lisi has no confidence in himself*i*/j/k’

Unlike 2(b), in 4(a) zijicannot be bound by the matrix subject – Zhangsan, because the last one is non-third person NP. It is also right for the sentence 4(b), where the reflexive ziji can be bound only by local subject.[1]

There are also some important problems which should be noted in this paper.

Firstly, it is the distribution and reference of reflexive ziji within Binding Theory.

A lot of Chinese and foreign linguists who did research on the subject of Chinese reflexives argue that the c-command condition required in Binding Theory is both too weak and too strong, and needs some modifications. According to them Binding Theory can be modified by including two additional parameters: the SUBJECT-ORIENTATION and SUB-COMMAND conditions.

  • The SUBJECT-ORIENTATION condition prescribes reflexive pronoun to take only subject antecedent, and not an object one as in (5):

(5) a. Zhangsan song Lisi yizhang ziji de xiangpian

Zhangsan give Lisi one-CL self DE picture

‘Zhangsani give Lisij a picture of himselfi/*j

b. Ta shuo ziji shi xuesheng.

he say self is student

‘He says that he is a student.’

  • According to the SUB-COMMAND condition, only animate subject can be a binder. Compare the following sentences:

(6 ) [[ Zhangsanide] baba]jdui ziji*i/j mei xinxin.

Zhangsan DE father to self no confidence

‘Zhangsan’si fatherj has no confidence in himself*i/j’

(7) [[Zhangsani de] jiaoao]j hai le zijii/*j

Zhangsan DE arrogance hurt-ASP self

‘Zhangsani’s arrogance harmed himi’

Comparing (6) and (7), we can find that in (6) Zhangsanis contained in animate NP, whereas in (7) it is contained in an inanimate NP. Thus in (7) reflexive ziji takes as antecedent a non c-commanding subject, but not a c-command subject as in (6).

This can be illustrated by picture b [Tang (1987), p. 103]:

Pic.b

LONG- DISTANCE binding

As it was mentioned above, the distribution of complex reflexives as ta-ziji(‘himself’) can be explained by Principle A of Binding Theory, according to which the anaphor should be bound in its governing domain [see 1(a-b)]. However, we find a lot of violation when we try to apply Principle A to simplex reflexive ziji.

We can find various theories dealing with the phenomenon of Chinese reflexive.

But the most influential among them are the following ones:

  • LF Movement approach (Battistella, 1989; and Cole, Hermon, and Sung, 1990),
  • Logophoricity analysis of long-distance reflexives (Tang(1987), Huang and Liu, 2000).

Logical Form Movement approach

According to LF approach the relationship between ziji and its antecedents is covertlylocal in nature.It argues that at LF, reflexives, from an argument position, move to the position X where their potential binder is located. However, there are some disagreements concerning the question what position should reflexives move to. a) For Battistella (1989) ziji moves to INFL;b) for Cole ziji adjoins to a head position at LF; c) for Huangand Tang (1991),ziji adjoins to IP, a non-argument position (A’).

For comparing these three theories look at the following example (Chen, p.34):

(8) Fangfangi renwei [Linglingj zhidao [Yuanyuank piping le ziji i/j/k]]

Fangfang think Lingling know Yuanyuan criticize LE self

‘Fangfang thinks that Lingling knows that Yuanyuan criticized self’

a)Fangfangi ziji INFL renwei [Linglingj t’’ INFL zhidao [Yuanyuank t’ INFL piping le t ]]

b)Fangfangi ziji renwei [ t’’’’ Linglingj t’’’ zhidao [ t’’ Yuanyuank t’ piping le t ]]

c)Fangfangi renwei [ziji Linglingj zhidao [t’ Yuanyuank piping le t ]]

Logophoricity analysis

In comparison with movement approach, the followers of logophoricity analysis(Huang and Liu [2000]) separate locally bound reflexives and long-distance bound reflexives. They call the former anaphors, obeying Principle A; and the latter logophors that are more like pronouns.“The blocking effects of the logophors are accounted for from perceptual effects resulting from conflicting ‘anchors’ of discourse-sensitive NPs that include first- and second- person pronouns”.[2]

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Barbara Partee for tutoring me and giving a lot of important references. Besides I would also like to thank my Chinese friend Zhi Wei for answering some questions about references of reflexives in Chinese.

References

  1. Tang, Chin-Chen Jane (1989) Chinese Reflexives: 93-121
  2. Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon, and C.-T. Huang (2000) Long Distance Reflexives – The State of the Art, Long Distance Reflexives, Syntax and Semantics;
  3. Huang, C.-T. and C.-S. Luther Liu (2000) Logophorcity, Attitudes and Ziji at the Interface, Syntax and Semantics;
  4. PeterCole, Gabriella Hermon, and Cher Leng Lee(2001) Grammatical and Discourse conditions on long distance reflexives in two Chinese dialects, Long Distance Reflexives, Syntax and Semantics;
  5. Haiyong, Liu,The Acquisition of Mandarin Reflexives by English Speakers.
  6. Chen, Chinese Reflexive Ziji in Second Language Acquisition, Dongdong Chen

McGill University.

1

[1]It should be noted that «the Binding effect» is not universal for all speakers. Some speakers will treat 4 (a)

and 4 (b) ambiguous.

[2] Haiyong Liu, The Acquisition of Mandarin Reflexives by English Speakers