Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

MANDARIN CLAUSE LINKAGE^221

(41) a. NI shi bu shi qïng ta lai chi fan?

you be NEG be invite him come eat rice

"Are you inviting him to come eat?"

b. *Ni qïng ta shi bu shi lai chi fan?

you invite him be NEG be come eat rice

"Are you inviting him to come eat (is it to come eat that

you're inviting him)?"

(42) a. Ta shi bu shi bing si le?

he be NEG be sick die ASP

"Did he die from disease/ sicken and die?"

b. *Tä bing shi bu shi sí.

he sick be NEG be die

It is clear from the above examples that the juncts in (40) (involving the
verbs "call" and "seek") can be questioned separately, in (41) and (42) only
the entire serialization can be questioned as a unit. This is due to the fact
that the sentences in (40) are clausal junctures, while those in (41) and (42)
are core and nuclear junctures repectively, their juncts being part of a
single clause with a single set of clausal operators.
The second operator is modality. Modality is a core operator; there­
fore clausal and core junctures can be allowed to have separate modality in
the two juncts (in coordinate nexus only at the core level), but nuclear
junctures cannot. For example:

(43) Lingdao key! mingling ni bu key i chûqù.

leader can/may order you NEG can/may go-out

"The leader can order you to not be permitted to go out."

(44) Ni bu hêyï shuäi pò döngxi.

you NEG can/may fling break thing

"You may not smash things."

In the core juncture in (43), the two juncts differ in terms of the core

operator modality ("may" vs. "may not"), while in the nuclear juncture in

(44) there is no possibility of separating shuäi ("fling") from pò ("break") in

terms of modality. (For the more complicated matter of modality in Poten­

tial Complement constructions, see below).