Gaplessness in Chinese relative clauses

Abstract

This study posits the existence of a covert gap in Chinese gapless relative clauses, seeking to elucidate how this gap, created by the omission of certain sentential elements, can be recovered via coercion from the relative head noun. This mechanism is elucidated by analyzing the relativization process in prepositional phrases and serial verb constructions. Within prepositional phrases, two subtypes are discerned. The first subtype involves the omission of the preposition, a process termed Preposition Ghosting, which occurs to avoid a violation of the Edge Constraint. Conversely, in the second subtype, the preposition remains in situ without undergoing direct relativization, attributable to its less straightforwardly inferable thematic relationship with the head noun. In serial verb constructions, the process of relativization may lead to the omission of either the first or second verb, with the omitted verb subsequently recoverable through coercion from the relative head noun. The findings suggest that ‘gapless’ relative clauses in Chinese are, in fact, ‘gapped’, which highlight syntactic universals that transcend surface-level forms and meanings.