Soggetti nulli in frasi subordinate in cinese mandarino. Quando la sintassi influisce sull’interpretazione

Based on original data collected through two on-line acceptability experiments, evidence is provided that null subjects are interpreted as co-referent with a specific type of Topic, which is the Aboutness-shift Topic (henceforth, A-Topic), also in a radical null subject language like Mandarin Chinese, similarly to consistent (Frascarelli 2007) and partial null subject languages (Frascarelli 2018, Frascarelli, Jiménez-Fernández 2019). Data collected also support the hypothesis put forth in Bianchi, Frascarelli (2010), according to which bridge and factive verbs are crucially different in regards of the possibility to realize embedded A-Topics in their complements. Specifically, it will be shown that the complement of bridge verbs, endowed with illocutionary force, can host A-Topics, thus allowing for embedded null subjects to be interpreted as co-referent with an extra-clausal referent. On the contrary, this possibility seems to be excluded in case of factive verbs: since their complements are presuppositions, no A-Topics can be hosted in their CP area, consequently blocking a pure pragmatic interpretation of embedded null subjects (contra Zheng 2001, Xu 2005, Song 2009, Yuan 2014).