Syntax Accessibility and Discourse Accessibility: The Distribution of Demonstrative Quantitative Classifier Markers in Chinese Relative Clauses

Based on the implicit/explicit characteristics and the word order of demonstrative quantitative classifier markers in Chinese relative clauses, this article distinguishes three types of Chinese relative clauses:modifier nominal (MN), inner modifier nominal (IMN), and outer modifier nominal (OMN).A corpora study is then conducted to explore the distribution of the demonstrative quantitative classifier markers from the perspective of syntax accessibility and discourse accessibility.Instead of focusing on only one single factor, this research integrates multi-factors to reveal the accessibility of the head NP in these three types.The results are as follows:1) From the syntactic perspective, both MN and IMN are related to the subject relative clauses, whereas OMN does not show any preference.All the three types tend to take the object positions in the main clauses.2) From the discourse perspective, the head nouns in MN and IMN express new information.The head nouns in MN are in the position nearest to the NP relativized, while the head nouns in IMN are in the farthest position.Some differences are found regarding the length of head nouns and the number of modifiers among the three types.Discourse accessibility are more interpretative than syntax accessibility in accounting for the distribution of the demonstrative quantitative classifier markers.