Abstract
The study investigates the characteristics of imperative (IMP) subjects in Mandarin Chinese (MC). In the previous studies, MC IMP subjects are thought to be in [Spec, vP]. Yet, from the test of VP-Ellipsis, time adverbials test and deontic modals position, MC IMP subjects would not be in [Spec, vP], but in [Spec, ModP Deontic] instead. More intriguingly, the IMP mood adverb qiānwàn ‘by all/no means’ would trigger subject obligatory topicalization (SJOT) due to its focus pitch which induce the intervention the binding of D(efiniteness)-operator and MC IMP subjects in the sense of Tsai (2014). Furthermore, the 2nd person features of MC IMPs should be attributed to vocatives in [Spec, DirectiveP] in the pragmatics area above CP-level in the sense of Speas and Tenny (2003), Hill (2007), Hageman and Hill (2013). The 2nd person features are licensed via Agree in Haegeman and Lohndal (2010). Such an analysis also correctly predicts the impossibility of MC IMPs and their 2nd person features in embedded clauses, since vocatives would suffer truncation in subordinate clauses. Thus, the thesis provides a study of the interface between pragmatics and syntax.