Two Functional Projections in the Medial Domain in Chinese

Abstract

This paper argues that Rizzi’s (1997) “fine structure of the left periphery” can be applied to the medial domain in Mandarin Chinese (i.e., the domain between TP and vP) and that this domain can license both Topic and Focus under distinct functional projections, with TopicP dominating FocusP. This paper explains the information-theoretic status of preposed objects by detailing the structural restrictions associated with the relevant topic and focus readings, respectively, and elaborating on their differences. By adopting this joint approach – one which is different from previous analyses – I show that preposed objects can be either Topic or Focus in the medial domain. This paper then presents a unified account for the preposed object construction, the so-called verb-copying construction and various other related phenomena.