Research

Yes-no questions: syntax-pragmatics interface

This series of research grant projects aims to examine in turn the inventory of yes-no question forms and their answers in Cantonese and Mandarin, and to compare between these two languages on the speaker intention (positive, negative or neutral) encoded by the various forms of yes-no questions. One extension to this syntax-pragmatics form-function mapping study is to apply the formal theoretical findings to recent political discourse (2019-2021) in terms of how HKSAR key government officials responded to yes-no questions raised by the press during Q&A sessions.

Grants:

2021-2023 HKSYU University Research Grant (PI)

2021 HKMU Financial Support for Pilot Work for Resubmission of Promising Faculty Development Scheme Proposals (PI)

2020–2021 HKMU School Research Fund (PI)

The main focus of my research is the comparative syntax of Sinitic languages, particularly among Cantonese or Yue varieties. The comparative nature of my research also extends to the connection between contemporary linguistic patterns and historical change, especially in the evolution of negators in Chinese, and other functional elements such as the postverbal modal 得 de/dak. My research, in general, emphasises on the empirical ground behind theoretical claims, and hopes to contribute to a better understanding of lesser-known varieties of Chinese.

Below is an overview of my research projects, presentations and publication ordered by topic.

Negation and aspect in Chinese

This line of research began with my PhD project which explored the interaction between standard negation and aspect in Chinese under two conditions: bare negation showing negation-situation type compatibility, and negation with overt aspectual marking. The study has drawn on two Mandarin and two Cantonese varieties: Beijing Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin, Hong Kong Cantonese, and the previously unstudied Gaozhou Cantonese. The dissertation has demonstrated that the aspectual sensitivity of negation is governed by more general structural properties than idiosyncratic aspectual selection requirements of the negators.

Lam, Cherry CY. under review. Standard negation and aspectual definiteness in Chinese varieties. Journal of East Asian Linguistics.

Lam, Cherry CY. under review. Standard negation in Gaozhou Yue. Journal of Chinese Linguistics. (first review completed)

Lam, Cherry CY. 2022. Standard negation and aspectual definiteness: new evidence from Cantonese. Proceedings of the 24th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (SICOGG 24), 59-81. Seoul: Hankook Munhwasa.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2022. Standard negation and aspectual definiteness: new evidence from Cantonese. 24th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (SICOGG 24). Korean Generative Grammar Circle. 12–14 August 2022 [online due to pandemic].

Lam, Cherry CY. 2020. Verbal definiteness and presupposition effects in Gaozhou Cantonese standard negation. North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL 32). University of Connecticut. 18–20 September 2020 [moved online due to pandemic].

Lam, Cherry CY. 2020. A Chinese negation puzzle revisited: A study of Mandarin and Cantonese varieties. Workshop on Innovations in Cantonese Linguistics (WICL 5). The Ohio State University. 18–19 April 2020 [moved online due to pandemic].

Lam, Cherry CY. 2018. Presupposition effects and standard negation in Gaozhou Cantonese. LSHK Annual Research Forum. City University of Hong Kong. 1 December 2018.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2018. Negation and Aspect: a comparative study of Mandarin and Cantonese varieties. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge.

Croft's Negative Existential Cycle in Chinese

Based on Croft’s Negative Existential Cycle (NEC), I have tested this diachronic model on diachronic evidence and synchronic comparative data from Mandarin and Cantonese. The results show that the NEC is attested in Chinese throughout its history and across varieties, and that different varieties can be positioned at different stages in the Cycle. The finding provides a historical account for the shared aspectual sensitivity between Mandarin méi(yǒu), Hong Kong Cantonese mou5 and Gaozhou Cantonese mau5.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2022. Croft’s Cycle in Mandarin and Cantonese through history and across varieties. In Ljuba Veselinova & Arja Hamari (eds.), The Negative Existential Cycle from a historical-comparative perspective (Studies in Diversity Linguistics Series), 357-401. Berlin: Language Science Press.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2018. On the interaction between negation and aspect in grammaticalization: a cross-linguistic study of three Chinese varieties. Current Research in Chinese Linguistics 97(1). 215-232.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2017. The shaping of Mandarin negation - a new perspective from grammaticalisation. 25th Annual meeting of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics (IACL-25). Budapest, Hungary. 24–28 June 2017.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2017. Croft's negative existential cycle and the shaping of the negation system in varieties of Chinese. Negative existential cycle workshop. Stockholm, Sweden. 4–5 May 2017.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2015. On the interaction between negation and aspects in grammaticalisation: a cross-linguistic study of three Chinese varieties. 20th International Conference on Yue Dialects. The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 11–12 December 2015.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2015. On the shaping of Chinese negation systems – interaction between Croft’s negative-existential cycle and BE/HAVE evolution. 9th International Conference of the European Association of Chinese Linguistics (EACL 9). Stuttgart, Germany. 24–26 September 2015.

Polyfunctional light verb

It has been a well-established areal phenomenon in Mainland Southeast Asia and Northern Europe that there is the element, ACQ(UIRE), which functions as a lexical verb meaning ‘to get or acquire’ and appears, as a functional item, in numerous seemingly unrelated constructions such as modal constructions, resultatives, descriptive complementation, and focus constructions. I have proposed a parametric framework for Hong Kong Cantonese dak1 'get' that takes into account four readings of postverbal ACQ-sentences, namely potential, permission, descriptive, and focus, and argues that all postverbal ACQ-structures in Cantonese share the same basic configuration in which the ACQ heads a vP-internal ModP which expresses possibility modality and selects a small clause XP. The analysis also provides an explanation for several long-standing issues, including the verb-copying phenomenon, the cooccurrence of dak1 with the modal auxiliary ho2ji5, the distribution of the A-not-A form and negation, and the across-the-board aspectual incompatibility in postverbal ACQ-structures.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2023. Rethinking postverbal ‘acquire’ and related constructions in Cantonese: Polyfunctionality and parameters. Language and Linguistics 24(4). 674-732.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2022. Revisiting postverbal 'acquire' in Cantonese. 28th Annual meeting of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics (IACL-28). The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. 20–22 May 2022 [moved online due to pandemic].

Lam, Cherry CY. 2021. Postverbal acquisitive modal and related constructions. a parametric approach. 23rd Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar (SICOGG 23). Korean Generative Grammar Circle. 11–13 August 2021 [moved online due to pandemic].

Lam, Cherry CY. 2021. Postverbal “acquire” in Cantonese: a unified analysis. 33rd North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL 33). University of Chicago. 24–25 June 2021 [moved online due to pandemic].

Lam, Cherry CY. 2020. Rethinking polysemy: An all-in-one framework of dak1 in Cantonese. The Open University of Hong Kong RIBiLT seminar series. 23 September 2020.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2017. Polyfunctional GET marker in Chinese varieties: a unified account of postverbal DAK. 22nd International Conference on Yue Dialects. The Education University of Hong Kong. 8–9 December 2017.

Classifiers & numbers, definiteness & specificity

It has been a longstanding debate whether the DP projection is present in Chinese and the role of classifiers in encoding definiteness. My research since my 2014 MPhil dissertation has explored the classifier dependency in Mandarin and Cantonese. The findings have shown that classifier obligatoriness varies with number size in both Chinese varieties, and a clearer distinction or definition is necessary for the concept of definiteness and specificity when discussing the kind of referentiality encoded by classifiers in Mandarin and in Cantonese.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2020. Beyond one, two, three: Number matters in classifier languages. In András Bárány, Theresa Biberauer, Jamie Douglas & Sten Vikner (eds.), Syntactic architecture and its consequences I: Syntax inside the grammar, 511–525. Berlin: Language Science Press.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2020. Number matters in Mandarin and Cantonese. 24th International Conference on Yue Dialects. University of Macau. 13–14 November 2020 [moved online due to pandemic].

Lam, Cherry CY. 2019. A DP account for variation in classifier dependency in Cantonese and Mandarin. LSHK Annual Research Forum. The Education University of Hong Kong. 7 December 2019.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2014. Explaining variation in classifier dependency in Mandarin and Cantonese nouns. 2nd Asian and European Linguistic Conference (AE-Link 2). Newcastle, United Kingdom. 5–6 December 2014.

Lam, Cherry CY. 2014. Disambiguating [±Specific] noun phrases in Chinese: A comparative study of Cantonese and Mandarin. MPhil thesis, University of Cambridge.