A Survey of Ellipsis in Chinese

Much work on ellipsis has been conducted using data from English, and many widely acknowledged types of ellipsis exist in English. The extent to which the named ellipsis mechanisms exist in other languages is, though, often not clear. This manuscript surveys ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese using a dependency-based approach to syntax. It probes to see which ellipsis mechanisms exist in Mandarin. The survey demonstrates that gapping, stripping, pseudogapping, sluicing, and comparative deletion do not exist in Mandarin (or are highly restricted) and that VP-ellipsis, answer ellipsis, and N-ellipsis are all arguably present. Furthermore, zero anaphora is frequent in Mandarin, whereas it is absent from English (or highly restricted). The catena unit is pillar of the account, since the elided material of ellipsis is a catena. 1 An inventory of ellipsis mechanisms The study of ellipsis recognizes numerous distinct types. The following mechanisms are among the most commonly acknowledged: 1. Gapping 2. Stripping 3. Pseudogapping 4. Sluicing 5. Comparative deletion 6. VP-ellipsis 7. Answer ellipsis 8. N-ellipsis 9. Null complement anaphora 10. Zero anaphora Excepting zero anaphora, these mechanisms occur in English, and most of them are present in languages related to English. The extent to which they exist in languages more distant from English is often not clear, however. This contribution surveys ellipsis in Mandarin Chinese, probing to see which ellipsis mechanisms are and are not present. The analysis of ellipsis pursued below is dependency-based, and the catena unit plays a central role in the account. A catena is a word or combination of words that are linked together by dependencies (Osborne et al. 2012). Ellipsis mechanisms in English have been shown to elide catenae. The survey seeks to determine the extent to which the catena is also the central unit for a theory of ellipsis in Mandarin. This contribution thus pursues three goals: 1) provide an initial exploration of ellipsis in Mandarin, 2) determine the extent to which the catena unit can serve as the basis for a theory of Mandarin ellipsis, and 3) consider what can be learned about ellipsis in general from a comparison of ellipsis mechanisms across English and Mandarin. A word of caution is appropriate concerning the dependency hierarchies assumed for Mandarin below. To our knowledge, many basic aspects of Mandarin sentence structure have not yet been worked out in theoretical detail from a DG perspective. Basic questions about the dependency status of sentence-final particles, coverbs, de-constructions, classifiers, etc. have not been debated from a DG perspective. Thus the validity of many of the structures posited below is taken for granted. Future explorations into the dependency structures of Mandarin may motivate corrections to the dependency hierarchies for Mandarin posited below. 2 Gapping, stripping, pseudogapping Gapping, stripping, and pseudogapping have been thoroughly explored (e.g. Jackedoff 1971, Kuno 1976, Stump 1977, Levin 1986, McCawley 1998). The following three sentences illustrate gapping, stripping, and pseudogapping in English: