Charles Tsz-Kwan Lam

Purdue University | Purdue · Linguistics Program

The use of resumptive pronouns in relative clauses appears to be governed by structural complexity in grammar and usage. Resumptive pronoun distributions across languages typically follow the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan and Comrie 1977, Noun Phrase Accessibility and Universal Grammar, Linguistic Inquiry: 8: 63-99): if the grammar al...

This study compares two constructions in Cantonese which shares similar features in their syntax and semantics. Previous works observe that comparatives often appear after experiential aspect in the verbal domain historically. This study builds upon this observation and argues that the similarities between two constructions, comparatives and experi...

This paper investigates the formal semantics of reduplication in Cantonese, i.e. how the meaning of reduplicated forms are encoded and computed with the given meaning from the base forms. In particular, this paper argues that reduplication denotes a summation function that adds up arguments (be they object-, event- or degree-arguments) and return a...

This paper identifies a number of different pathways that give rise to sentence final particles in Chinese. In particular, it focuses on a strategy referred to as 'clausal integration'. Diachronic evidence is given for the emergence of sentence final particles er yi yi and ye yi yi in Old Chinese. Additional examples are further provided from Early...

Previous studies have identified three major pathways for the emergence of sentence-final particles in Chinese. The first pathway involves the grammaticalization of nominalizers, as attested in Mandarin de (Yap, Choi & Cheung, to appear), Chaozhou kai (Xu & Matthews, to appear), and Cantonese ge (Yap & Matthews, 2008). The second pathway involves t...