Titolo della tesi: Topic-Comment Structure and the Interpretation of Null Subjects in Modern Chinese
Based on original data collected through an acceptability experiment, the present work aims to show that, in a radical null subject (NS) language like Mandarin Chinese, a NS is interpreted as co-referent to an Aboutness-Shift Topic (A-Topic), as in consistent and partial null subject languages, like Italian and Finnish respectively (cf. Frascarelli 2007, 2018). Nevertheless, the data regarding acceptability of NSs in different syntactic contexts shows specificities for Mandarin Chinese, which must be explained and integrated in the theory for a comprehensive account. Furthermore, the analysis of central and adverbial clauses show that A-Topics in Mandarin Chinese are derived by A’-movement from their subject position in the T-domain to the split-CP area. Moreover, based on the data collected through an original oral production experiment, it is shown that different types of Topics (namely, A-Topic, C(ontrastive)-Topic and G(iven)-Topic) show specific discourse-related intonational contours, even in a tone language like Chinese. Finally, two Hierarchies will be proposed, namely Topic Hierarchy, according to which an A-Topic precedes both a C- and a G-Topic, and an Acceptability Hierarchy, based on the structural constraints that affect interpretation (namely, ambiguity, locality and topic shift).