Interpreting [e]: The Reformulation of a Gricean Framework in Understanding Null Categories in Mandarin Chinese

Previous syntactic approaches to account for null arguments in Mandarin Chinese (henceforth, MC) have assumed certain pragmatic factors. The main goal of this paper is two-fold: to provide an overview of the syntactic literature of null arguments in MC, and to illustrate Grice's Maxims as a way of showing how pragmatic features might contribute to the meaning of null arguments. This paper will agree with the broad notion that pragmatic factors are critical to any effort to account for null arguments in MC. By considering subject and object pronouns in MC, however, I will argue that previous studies have not specified the pragmatic factors relevant to accounting for null arguments in MC. I will show how Grice's Maxims shed light on the pragmatics that previous syntactic approaches have assumed and suggest that an adequate pragmatic explanation of null pronouns in MC requires an acknowledgment of the blending between pragmatics (including Grice's Maxims) and syntax.