Movement of topicalization and its relation to resumption in Mandarin

[ABSTRACT ONLY; NO FULL TEXT] This study employs stranding theory to analyze the availability of resumptive pronouns in Mandarin topicalization. There have been debates on if both base generation and movement are needed to form topic structures. For the gapless topic structures, some argue that the movement approach explains gapless by 'subsequent deletion' (Shi, 1992). However, Huang, et al. (2012: 203) argued an 'aboutness relation: the topic is related to the comment semantically. The movement approach is necessary to explain the situation where topics fail to co-refer the pronoun in the main clause - the topic is derived by movement and violates the Binding Principle. Therefore, they concluded that gapless topicalization is base-generated and otherwise it is derived by movement. Meanwhile, resumptions in Mandarin are discussed in relative clauses (Hu, 2013) and 'even construction, but not in topic structures. Data shows resumptive pronouns are available in topic structures, but not always. In terms of resumption, Boeckx (2003) proposed the Stranding Theory, arguing that the resumption and its antecedent consists of a Large-DP in deep structure. As a determiner, the resumptive pronoun is the complement of its co-indexed NP. The NP moves up and leaves the resumption stranding in its base position, which explains the fact that the resumptive pronoun and the NP are D-linked. This D-link interpretation to some extent aligns with Huang et. al. (2012)'s 'aboutness' interpretation. Having this relation, in this paper, I discuss resumptions in topics of wh-phrases, prepositional objects, bare objects, subjects, and island constraints. This exploration supports how stranding theory defines the movements of a resumptive pronoun's antecedent, which represents the topic in topicalization and its relation to resumption.