Evidential raising in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

Abstract In this article, we develop the first syntax-and-semantics analysis of the evidential raising construction of Chinese as in [ Akiu ( haoxiang ) xihuan he pijiu ] de yangzi ‘Akiu seems to like drinking beer’ ( not the DP reading that this string has, too: ‘the appearance of Akiu liking to drink beer’). PF reordering preposes the embedded clausal constituent, which starts out as a sister of yangzi ‘appearance’ and also gets interpreted there. The preposed string fulfills the D head de ’s encliticization needs, much as in relative clause formation. However, de in the evidential raising construction is shown to have more of a true definiteness-marking function than in relative clause formation. Yangzi ‘appearance’ contributes the not-at-issue evidential semantics of this construction, limiting its use to cases in which the speaker has perceptual evidence to the effect that the embedded proposition is likely true. The matrix predication is projected by existential cunzai ‘exist’, which surfaces under dialectal Neg-raising. A phonetically empty strictly deictic situation pronoun is the subject of the root clause thereby partly accounting for the fact that the evidential raising construction of Chinese cannot be embedded and constitutes a root phenomenon. More than half a dozen other superficially head-final subordination constructions are argued to be amenable to similar treatments involving clause-string preposings.