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This paper argues that subjecthood is a relevant concept in the grammar of (Mandarin) Chinese, i.e., Chinese is subject-prominent as well as topic-prominent, and the most appropriate way of characterising subjects is by determining their regular structural position in clause structure. Subjects are claimed to occupy a structural position distinct from, and to the right of, the typical position associated with topics. This position, furthermore, is shown to stand to the left of the whole predicate phrase, as well as preposed distributive-universal quantifiers, associated with the function word dou. The structural analysis is set in the clause-structural model of Beghelli-Stowell (1995, 1997). Apparent counterexamples to the linking of subjects to the determined subject position are discussed, too, and shown to pose no problem to the proposal laid out here.
preposed objects were most likely quantified or negated. It must be noticed that in the M3 and M4 periods, when an object is preposed and not quantified or negated, it is in most cases a pronoun. This is consistent with the framework illustrated in Section
Meisterernst (2010) discusses in detail, here the preposed object focus is followed by the pronoun shì (e.g. (15a)) or the particle zhī (e.g. (15b)). 7 (15
