Functional Uncertainty in the Mandarin Nominal: A Unified Analysis of Relative Clauses and Locative Structures

Bresnan's Endocentric Mapping Principles (Bresnan, 2001) are used as diagnostics to demonstrate that the Mandarin relative clause structure is an endocentric one, in which the particle de is the sole functional and c-structural head, and the modified noun is one of two specifiers. The relative clause occupies a phrase-initial specifier position associated with a Modifier DF, and the final NP occupies a phrase-final specifier position associated with the DF, Focus. Support for this analysis comes from a comparison of relative clauses and main clauses with post-posed topics, and from theory-internal arguments relating to the linking of DFs and GFs in functional uncertainty equations (based on Dalrymple, 2001). The same analysis accounts for associative structures, where a nominal phrase modifies a noun, including locative structures where a nominal predicate selects a nominal argument.