Remarks on Object Movement in Mandarin SOV Order

This paper proposes a uniform movement approach to bare O-M (object movement) and lian-focalization (e.g. Shyu 1995), and articulates a [+Focus] feature motivated substitution mechanism. The movement is well-motivated under Chomsky’s (1993) Economy Principle and Poole’s (1996) execution of Form Chain, instead of being triggered by Case-related agreement. This paper further demonstrates how considering different types of predicates helps clarify the nature of the discourse topic, emphatic topic, and focus. Moreover, the comparison of the O-M in Chinese with that in other languages shows that Chinese O-M is not identical to the VP-peripheral scrambling in Japanese, and it also is different from the O-M found in languages that are motivated by overt Case-checking/overt verb movement, e.g. the Icelandic language. The proposed A-chain focalization lends further support to the existence of A-chain focalization. Ultimately, the result of this study lends further support to the non-unitary focusing devices both within a single language and among languages.