A comparative analysis of the counterparts of where in Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Eastern Tamang

초록

We examine the properties of where in English along with its counterparts in Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Eastern Tamang. Despite a number of lexical differences among the four languages, many similarities fall into place if we analyze where as containing the null noun PLACE along with an interrogative wh-morpheme and an r- pronoun in the sense of Kayne (2010). Notably, we observe a cross-linguistic tendency in the four languages surveyed for where to behave differently when it has an ablative interpretation. There are certain environments in which an adposition can be dropped with a locative or allative interpretation, but not an ablative interpretation. Even in situations where it cannot be dropped (such as Mandarin Chinese), the locative and allative uses employ one adposition, while the ablative uses employ another. We follow Barrie and Yoo (2017) and assume that English place has an inherent theta$\theta$-role but that this is subject to cross-linguistic variation, explaining the properties found in Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Eastern Tamang.

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