Motivating a bipartite analysis for Mandarin focus-sensitive particle ye

Abstract The authors of this paper argue for a unified analysis of the so-called additive particle ye and scalar particle ye in Mandarin. It reviews the commonalities between additive and scalar sentences involving ye , and some potential problems that a polysemous analysis of ye faces in explaining these facts. Next, a unified analysis of ye is shown to be desirable, where only one lexical item ye is responsible for the additive meaning, and the additional scalar meaning in scalar sentences is attributed to a functional head bearing the scalar feature, which can be realized as lian and is related to a suprasegmental strengthening effect on focus. To formalize this idea, a revised bipartite analysis is built, in which both additive and scalar sentences are underlying Foc-Q-constructions. In additive sentences, Foc carries an unvalued interpretable additive feature [i addi ()], and Q carries the corresponding valued uninterpretable additive feature [u addi (+)]. Foc and Q Agree in situ ; after Spell-Out, Foc is realized as ye , and Q is silent. In scalar sentences, Foc carries [i addi (+)] and Q carries [u addi (), i scal (+)]. QP moves to Spec FocP, after which Q Agrees with Foc; after Spell-Out, Foc is realized as ye and Q is realized as lian optionally, and is obligatorily related to the suprasegmental strengthening effect on focus. Movement of QP is triggered by the Agree-check requirement of the unvalued feature carried by Q, rather than the [EPP] feature carried by Foc, making this proposal more minimal. The wh+ye constructions and a parameter concerning the property of the scalar feature are also tentatively discussed.