De-constructing small clauses: The case of Mandarin Chinese

Overview & Synopsis

Taking up an early observation by Y.-H. Audrey Li (1985) stating the systematic lack of Chinese equivalents for English small clauses (SC) with nominal predicates (They elected John president), this article demonstrates that Chinese lacks SCs altogether. This holds independently of the approach adopted, be it the analysis of SCs as lexical projections with different category labels (cf. Stowell 1981, Matushansky 2019) or the uniform analysis of SCs as PredP (cf. Bowers 1993). In Chinese, there is no root vs non-root asymmetry for predicates: If a category X is not licit as an autonomous predicate in matrix sentences, then it is not licit as predicate elsewhere, i.e. in nonroot clauses, either. Furthermore, Chinese has no exceptional case marking verbs, i.e. verbs selecting SC-complements. Claims to the contrary in the literature are based on Chinese translations of English SCs and involve completely different structures. Given the lack of SCs in non-root contexts in Chinese, an analysis postulating SCs for nonverbal predication in matrix sentences does not seem to be warranted.