The processing of the Null Object in Mandarin Chinese Embedded Clause
LIU Zhaojing (Ph.D. candidate)

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

liu.zhaojing@polyu.edu.hk

It is difficult for foreign students to understand the reference of the null objects while learning Chinese. For example, the embedded object in (1) could not be bound by the matrix subject (Huang, 1982):

(1) *Zhangsan_i shuo [Lisi bu renshi e_i]

Zhangsan say Lisi not know

‘Zhangsan said that Lisi did not know (him).’

But the embedded null objects in (2) and (3) may take matrix subjects as the antecedents (Xu, 1986):

(2) xiaotou_i yiwei mei ren kanjian e_i.

thief think no man see

‘The thief_i thought nobody saw (him_i).’

(3) haizi_i yiwei mama yao zeguai e_i le.

child think mother will blame LE

‘The child_i thinks (his_i) mother is going to blame (him_i).’

It is necessary for us to find out some rules of the reference of the null objects. It is found that there are some differences between the two groups of sentences: First, it is a stative verb in embedded clause in (1) and a resultative verb and an action verb in embedded clauses in (2) and (3) respectively. Second, The matrix subject in (1) is referential expression with neutral pragmatic meaning. The matrix subjects in (2) and (3) are easy to be ‘seen’ or ‘blamed’, which is regarded as having pragmatic bias here.

According to the following examples, it seems that the type of the embedded verb, but not the pragmatic type of the matrix subject, affects the co-index between the null object and the antecedent.

If it is a stative verb in the embedded clause, the null object inclines not to co-index with the matrix subject:

(4) a. ?Zhangsan_i renwei Lisi renshi e_i.

Zhangsan think Lisi know

‘Zhangsan_i thought that Lisi knew (him_i).’

b. ?yanyuan_i renwei daoyan renshi e_i.

actress think stage director know

‘The actress_i thought that the stage director knew (him_i).’

If it is a resultative verb in the embedded clause, the null object could be co-indexed with the matrix subject. But VV compound could not license the co-index:

(5) a. Zhangsan_i juede Lisi kanjian e_i le.

Zhangsan think Lisi see LE

‘Zhangsan_i thought Lisi saw (him_i).’

b. xiaotou_i juede jingcha kanjian e_i le.

thief think policeman see LE

‘The thief_i thought that the policeman saw (him_i).’

(6) a. *Zhangsan_i juede Lisi zhuang-shang e_i le.

Zhangsan think Lisi bump-hurt LE

‘Zhangsan_i thinks that Lisi contused (him_i).’

b. *xingren_i renwei siji zhuang-shang e_i le.

passerby think driver bump-hurt LE

‘The passerby_i thinks that the driver contused (him_i).’

If it is an action verb in the embedded clause, the null object inclines to co-index with the matrix subject, no matter the matrix subject has pragmatic bias or not:

(7) a. Zhangsan_i renwei Lisi hui zeguai e_i.

Zhangsan think Lisi will blame

‘Zhangsan_i thought that Lisi would blame (him_i).’

b. haizi_i renwei mama hui zeguai e_i.

child think mother will blame

‘The child_i thinks (his_i) mother will blame (him_i).’

Then the empirical method will be used in this study to examine the reference inclination of the null object in the embedded clause, which will also test the language intuition to the understanding of the null objects.