A Study of Reflexive ‘ziji’ and Pronoun ‘ta’ in Mandarin Chinese

Xiaoxiang Chen; Ruya Li; Caimei Yang; Jun Xu

doi:10.21049/ccs.2007.11.1.107

Cross-Cultural Studies

2007, 11(1), pp.107-143
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2007.11.1.107
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature

Xiaoxiang Chen ¹, Ruya Li ², Caimei Yang ³, Jun Xu ⁴

¹Hunan University
²Hunan University
³Hunan University
⁴Hunan University

ABSTRACT

This paper is concerned with two studies. One is about the c-commanding relationship between a reflexive or a pronoun and its possible antecedent, the obedience properties of Principle A and Principle B. The other involves the influence of the lexical properties on the co-reference between the reflexive ‘ziji’ or the pronoun ‘ta’ and its possible antecedent. Our findings suggest that children basically depend on their knowledge of locality and the lexical properties of the reflexive and the pronoun in interpreting the reflexive and the pronoun in Mandarin Chinese. There is a contrast between the possessive pronoun ‘ta-de’ and the non-possessive pronoun ‘ta’ in co-referring to the local antecedent. The possessive pronoun is bound to the local antecedent at a higher percentage than the non-possessive pronoun. The data exhibits a contrast between the adults and the children in G3 with the mean age of 5;9；0. 100% of the adults chose the long-distance antecedent for the reflexive ‘ziji’, 100% of the children chose the local antecedent. This may suggest that in children’s grammar, locality is prior to prominence in L1 reflexive acquisition.
KEYWORDS

Mandarin, reflexive ‘ziji’, pronoun ‘ta’, c-commanding relationship theinfluence of the lexical properties on the co-reference
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