Abstract
There are two inconsistencies regarding the violation of relative clause islands that challenge current analyses for relative clauses in Chinese. First, the violation is acceptable only when the relative clause island is located in the subject-modifying position, but not in other positions. Second, when the island is in the subject-modifying position, the violation is sometimes acceptable and sometimes unacceptable. This paper argues that when the extraction out of relative clause islands is permissible, there is actually no island violation, because the target of relativization is located outside of the island in the underlying structure. In addition, a pragmatic condition is proposed to play a role in allowing the target of movement to be a topic in the underlying structure. When the target NP cannot be properly characterized by the following clause, it cannot be a topic NP in the underlying structure. In this case, the target of relativization must be located inside the island, and extracting it out of the island causes ungrammaticality. This analysis provides a unifying analysis based on movement and can account for the inconsistencies successfully. It suggests that pragmatics affects syntax, and that all relative clauses in Chinese can be derived via syntactic movement.