<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>The present paper proposes a morphological lowering analysis for the structure associated with alethic ACQ, a postverbal morpheme capable of denoting the modality of ability and possibility in Chinese as well as many Southeast Asian languages. Built in the framework of distributed morphology, we suggest that ACQ is base-generated in a preverbal node as a modal element and lowers to a postverbal position during its derivation on the PF branch. We compare and contrast the proposed lowering account with the other model of analysis, the raising analysis, and demonstrate that the lowering account is superior both conceptually and empirically.</p></abstract>

The present paper proposes a morphological lowering analysis for the structure associated with alethic ACQ, a postverbal morpheme capable of denoting the modality of ability and possibility in Chinese as well as many Southeast Asian languages. Built in the framework of distributed morphology, we suggest that ACQ is base-generated in a preverbal node as a modal element and lowers to a postverbal position during its derivation on the PF branch. We compare and contrast the proposed lowering account with the other model of analysis, the raising analysis, and demonstrate that the lowering account is superior both conceptually and empirically.

Raising or Lowering?—A Case Study of Alethic ACQ in Chinese and Southeast Asian Languages

School of International Studies, Zhejiang University

Department of Asian Languages, Luoyang University of Foreign Languages

Department of Language Engineering, Luoyang University of Foreign Languages

Studies in Chinese Linguistics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The present paper proposes a morphological lowering analysis for the structure associated with alethic ACQ, a postverbal morpheme capable of denoting the...

Raising or Lowering?—A Case Study of Alethic ACQ in Chinese and Southeast Asian Languages

Publié en ligne: 30 déc. 2016

Pages: 75 - 108

Reçu: 22 mai 2015

Accepté: 30 déc. 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/scl-2016-0004

Mots clés
alethic ACQ, distributed morphology, lowering, raising, Chinese, Southeast Asian languages

© 2016 Gong Cheng et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Raising or Lowering?—A Case Study of Alethic ACQ in Chinese and Southeast Asian Languages

Publié en ligne: 30 déc. 2016

Pages: 75 - 108

Reçu: 22 mai 2015

Accepté: 30 déc. 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/scl-2016-0004

Mots clésalethic ACQ, distributed morphology, lowering, raising, Chinese, Southeast Asian languages

© 2016 Gong Cheng et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
alethic ACQ, distributed morphology, lowering, raising, Chinese, Southeast Asian languages