Pronoun Anaphor and Cataphor in Chinese

Abstract

： Chinese pronoun anaphora and cataphora are different from those in English. The co-indexing judgment tests implemented by the present study indicate that for anaphora, only when the focus is on the head DP of the possessive phrase, the co-indexing between DP at possessive position and anaphor is possible. This can be explained by c-commanding instead of parameterized DP hypothesis since DP at possessive position c-commands pronoun anaphor but the focus shift will lead to the implicit raise of the head DP of the possessive phrase and change the structure. For cataphora, the pronoun cataphor at possessive position fails to co-index with DP and pronoun cataphor in sentences with C head can co-index with DP. It is argued that phase condition and visibility condition can explain cataphora in Chinese instead of the phase commanding theory since both phase condition and visibility condition can ensure the temporary location of cataphor for checking semantic match.