An experimental approach to the reconstruction of the head quantifier phrase in Chinese relative clauses

Abstract

Aoun and Li (2003) argued that whether the head of Chinese relative clauses can reconstruct at Logical Form is determined by its phrasal category. When the head is a noun phrase, it can reconstruct; but when it is a quantifier phrase, it cannot. This paper uses a sentence-picture matching experiment to investigate this claim. The results showed that a quantifier phrase can reconstruct. Thus, we do not need to stipulate a noun phrase/quantifier phrase distinction for the reconstruction of heads in Chinese relative clauses. Both types of phrases can reconstruct, predicted by the head-raising analysis of relative clauses.