5 BASIC CONSTITUENT ORDER

Mention of syntactic positions leads to issues of basic constituent order and its variations. All data cited above bear out the description of LZC as a verb medial language with basic S(ubject)

V(erb) O(bject) order. We have further observed adpositional phrases both in ‘A(djunct)1’, between subject and verb, as in (13), and in ‘A2’, following the object, as in (21). This data is repeated below in abbreviated form.

(19) ႔! ጟ! ቫ! ၆ ੷! Hf 31.34.2

sh© zh¦ng cháng guì shèn

millet seed once be.prized extreme

‘Millet seed was once extremely expensive.’

(20) ֛ Գ ᔤ ๱ व ׆ 蜾 ფ հ Ո ٍ 蜾 ფ հ ੷ ࣍ ׆

fU rén Zhèng XiU zhy wáng yuè aì zhy y¨ yì yuè aì zhy shèn yú wáng Lady PN know king pleased dote 3OPRT also pleased dote 3O extreme LP king

‘Lady Zheng Xiu knew the king doted on her (= the new girl in the harem) and she (= Zheng Xiu) too doted on the girl even more than the king (did)’. Hf 31.28.25

(21) [ ] ਜ ᖻ ࣍ ا آ Ն Me 9.6/49.10

Yì shy zé yú mín wèi ji©

PN dispense bounty LP folk AN last.long

‘(Yi) dispensed bounty to the people for not very long.’

P R E V E R B P O S T V E R B

S A1 V O A2 2nd predicate

(13) ࡱ ࣳ ՗ א ࢬ ൓ ࣍ Ꮨ հ ܎ ܂ ࣥ ᝻

Ji Wuzi with weapons got from Qi made forest bells.

(21) [ ] ਜ ᖻ ࣍ ۤ آ Ն

‘Yi dispense bounty to folk not very long.’

ఛ

آ Ն

ఛ

The LZC postverb appears to be limited to the three positions indicated, maximally occupied by two argument/adjunct/complement phrases (O, A2) and a single secondary predicate. (21) thus exemplifies one sub-type of fully saturated postverb. Discussion of the preverb below will introduce further, semantic constraints on the postverbal part of the clause.

5.1 Topicalization

A definite NP may occupy a site to the left of the subject as the topic (T) of a lower predica-tion. LZC topics are of two types, gapped and gapless. A gapped topic phrase retains a gram-matical relation (S, O, or A) to the predicator, the position associated with that relation often occupied by a pronoun co-referential with the topic phrase, such as the third person oblique հ zhi ‘it’ in the ^O position of (22).

(For the inversion of prepositional א!ԫ y§ yy ‘with one (thing)’ to postpositional ԫ א ‘with

ONESINGLE (thing)’, see below.)

A topic is ‘gapless’ if it does not bear a relation S, O, or A to the main predicator.

The topic in (23) is gapless according to the above definition as the predicator, ‘be.like’, affords no S, O, or A slot for a third NP such as ‘Zichong’. The English strategy is to treat

‘Zichong’ as possessive modifier (= demoted agent) of the verb’s two arguments, ‘the caught’

and ‘the lost’, as shown in the idiomatic translation. If we were to recognize gaps in the struc-ture of LZC NPs, then a sentence like (23) would be described as having a ‘gapped possessor topic’.

5.2 Scope-based constraints on SVO

In (23), a second phrase occurs to the left of the main predication in both LZC and English – the ‘locative’ adjunct ࣍ ਢ ݰ!yú shì yì ‘on this campaign’. In both languages, the unmarked position for such phrases is in the postverb, following the object, as shown in the predicate of (21): ਜᖻ ࣍ ا shy zé yú mín ‘dispensed bounty to the folk’. The fronting of the adjunct in (23) ensures that the entire main predication is construed within the scope of the temporal expression; that is, both the gains and the losses referred to in the SVO kernel are understood as having occurred ‘on this campaign’. (Cf. ‘Zichong’s gains did not equal his losses on this campaign’, where the scope of the adjunct can be construed as narrow, restricted to the NP

immediately preceding it.) Constituent order in both LZC and English here respects a princi-ple of ‘scope iconicity’ whereby a phrase tends to precede other phrases whose meanings fall within its scope. This principle, exemplified in both languages in (23), is adhered to much

T S A1 V O

(22) ܠ ሐ ԫ א ຃ հ Ly 4.15/8.7

wú daò yy y§ guàn zhy

my way 1 INS link 3O

‘My way, (I) link it together with a SINGLE (principle).’

T S _V O

(23) ՗ ૹ ࣍ ਢ ݰ Ո ࢬ ᛧ լ ڕ ࢬ Ջ Zz 230.2

Z§chóng yú shì yì y¨ su¦ huò bù rú su¦ wáng

PN LP DET job PRT OR bag NA be.like OR disappear (lit. Zichong on this campaign the caught did not equal the lost=)

‘On this campaign, Zichong’s gains did not equal his losses.’

more strictly in LZC than in English, accounting for a large family of LZC variations on SVO

that English lacks. In the remainder of the discussion, we will sketch the extent to which scope-iconicity determines LZC constituent order.

Analysis reveals that constituent questions (as in ‘Who did he see?’) and statements with identificational focus (as in ‘It was PAT he saw’) have inter-phrasal scope relations which differ from those of their plain declarative cousins (‘Lou saw Pat’). A constitutent question word asks for the identification of an unknown entity, and so constitutes a kind of focus. LZC reflects this difference between plain and focused O and A2 phrases by inverting the focused type to a preverbal position: default SVOA2+ Focus/Question on ^O/A2→^SO/A2 V. This is shown in the question and answer sequence (24a, b).

In (24a), ۶ hé ‘what’ is the object of the verb ᘯ weì ‘call’, but occurs to its left. ( chén is an object complement, unaffected by the syntactic operation.) In the answer, ֲ!ִ!հ!ᄎ! rì yuè zhy huì ‘the conjunction of the sun and moon’, object of the repeated verb, again precedes that verb and is marked as focused by the resumptive proform ਢ shì occurring between it and the verb. Focus is reflected in the English translation by the cleft construction, ‘It BENP that

CLAUSE’.

When the object of an adposition, such as instrumental א y§ ‘with’, is questioned or in focus, the same sort of inversion occurs. Since O, A2 and ‘object of adposition’ are all types of complement, the rule governing inversion in both the postverb and adpositional phrases can be stated: default [Head+ Complement] + Focus/Question on Complement → [Complement + Head]. This rule is further exemplified in (22), our earlier example of a gapped topic, repeated here, where the complement of א y§ is in focus.

In (25), the complement of the same instrumental adposition is questioned, the question word, like each of the focused complements in (22) and (24a, b), preceding its head.

There are numerous other sub-conditions, all related to the semantic relation ‘scope over’, that motivate the appearance of O and A2 phrases in the preverb such that SO/A2 V occurs as a regular, semantically-determined alternant to basic SVOA2 order.

Phrases with the English meanings ‘anywhere (they went)’ or ‘whatever (he says)’ are of this type, setting a generic condition on the situation described in (the rest of) the predicate.

O V O complement

(24) a. ۶ ᘯ ߭

hé wèi chén

what call

(24) b. ֲ ִ հ ᄎi ਢi ᘯ ߭ Zz 340.25–26

rì yuè zhy huì shì

sun moon PO meet PF

‘What is it (we) refer to as chen?’

‘It is the conjunction of the sun with the moon that (we) refer to as chen.’

(22) ܠ ሐ ԫ א ຃ հ Ly 4.15/8.7

my way 1 INS link 3O

‘My way, it is with a SINGLE (principle) that (I) link it together.’

(25) ۶ א ໴ ᐚ Ly 14.34/40.15

hé y§ baò dé

what INS repay kind.deed

‘With what does one repay a kindness?’

߭

‘She met with success wherever she went’ means ‘If she went somewhere/anywhere at all, then she invariably met with success’. LZC lacks words like ‘anywhere’ or ‘whatever’ that mark wide scope phrase-internally. (Recall the lack of the existentially quantified NP‘no northern scholar’ in the LZC version of (14).) The LZC strategy is to signal wide scope by position, placing underspecifiedNPs like ࢬ! ࢓! ृ su¦ wWng zh¨ ‘where (x) went’ clause-initially to mean ‘wherever (x) went’.

LZC lacks ‘free-choice’ NPs like ‘wherever’ and wide-scope determiners like ‘any’, both exploited in the alternative translations of (26). A phrase like࠸ ୪ ࢬ!ᙴ ृ ShUsUn su¦ guWn zh¨ in a postverb site can have only the narrow-scope, referential construal ‘(a/the place) where Shusun lodged’.

6 CONCLUSION

In spite of a shared basic word order,SVO, the clause structures of LZC and English differ significantly in fundamental ways. First, the number of phrases that can follow the LZC verb is strictly limited such that ‘bottom-heavy’ sentences like (27) are never attested.

We suspect that, partly for reasons related to scope, such chains of postverb phrases would be ungrammatical in LZC, as they are in modern Chinese languages.

Second, as we have seen, under certain conditions, either semantic (wide scope) or dis-course-pragmatic (identificational/interrogative focus), Oand A2 phrases must occur in the LZC preverb. This means that, as a ‘basic word order’,SVOis less entrenched in LZC than in English. Stated another way, the LZC clause has room for a greater number and variety of phrase-types in its ‘top-heavy’ preverb than does English. The left periphery accommodates gapless topics (23) and wide-scope ‘any’ phrases (26), while there are also slots for a variety of constituents between the subject and verb: adjuncts (14), object question phrases (24a), and focused elements (24b). Leaving aside the complex issue of adverbials and secondary

Wide-scope NP_i adverbial

(26) ࠸ ୪ ࢬ ᙴ ृ ឈ ԫ ֲ

ShUsUn su¦ guWn zh¨ suy yy rì

PN OR lodge DET though 1 day

S A1 adv V O A2 2nd pred

ؘ ⠢ ࠡi ᛥ ৢ

bì qì qí qiáng wU

must thatch 3PO wall roof

װ հ ڕ ࡨ 㟇

qù zhy rú sh§ zhì

leave 3O be.like 1st arrive

Wherever Shusun lodged, even for a single day, he always rethatched the walls and roof, leaving it as it had been when he first arrived. Zz 382.23 Cf. the further syntactic option afforded by phrase-internal marking of wide scope in English: ‘Shusun invariably rethatched the walls and roof of wherever/

any place where he lodged, even if only for a day, leaving it as it had been when he first arrived’.

(27) Fred buttered a scone for his Labrador methodically with a putty knife in the pantry at 3:27a.m. last Monday.

predication, a rough representation of these major differences between LZC and English clause structure can, for mnemonic purposes, be sketched as in (28).