Niina Ning Zhang (born in

Hohhot Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the capital of Inner Mongolia in the north of the People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrative, economic and cultural center.''The Ne ...

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

PR China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

) is a theoretical linguist specializing in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

and

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy Philosophy (f ...

Education and career

Zhang obtained her

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degree in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

from

Shanghai International Studies University Shanghai International Studies University (SISU; ) is China's leading university in linguistics, cultural studies, and global and area studies. Established in December 1949, SISU is known for being one of the earliest institutions where China's hi ...

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

degrees in

from

and, in 1997, from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. In 1997-2003, she was a researcher in

Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Zentrum is German for centre. Zentrum is also a brand name for the amino acid Arginine 1200 mg. Zentrum may also refer to: * BMW Zentrum, a BMW museum in Spartanburg, South Carolina * Center (group theory), the centre of a group, denoted Z( ...

(ZAS). Now she is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of the Institute of Linguistics,

National Chung Cheng University National Chung Cheng University (CCU; ) is a national university in Minxiong Township, Chiayi County, Taiwan. CCU is a member of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. History National Chung Cheng University was the first ...

. She has also taught linguistic courses in

, and

Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of ...

. Her research specialty is

formal syntax In formal language theory, a grammar (when the context is not given, often called a formal grammar for clarity) describes how to form strings from a language's alphabet that are valid according to the language's syntax. A grammar does not describe ...

, especially the

coordinate In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The order of the coordinates is sign ...

constructions. In her book Coordination in Syntax (2010 Cambridge University Press), she argues for four radical claims: (1) conjuncts are syntactically asymmetrical; (2) there is no independent syntactic category for coordinators; (3) Ross's (1967) Coordinate Structure Constraint is not a construction-specific syntactic constraint; (4) Across-The-Board Movement does not exist.

Main publications

Books and Ph.D. dissertations

* Zhang, N. 2013. ''Classifier Structures in Mandarin Chinese''. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. * Zhang, N. 2010. ''Coordination in Syntax''. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics Series 123, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Schwabe, Kerstin and N. Zhang (eds.). 2000. ''Ellipsis in Conjunction.'' Tuebingen: Niemeyer. * Zhang, N. 1997. ''Syntactic Dependencies in Mandarin Chinese''. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Toronto. * Zhang, N. 1990. ''Chinese Slips of the Tongue and Models of Language Production''. Ph.D. dissertation. Shanghai International Studies University.

Main journal articles

* Zhang, N. 2022. Defective Incorporating Verbs in Mandarin.
Language and Linguistics
' 23 (2): 329-348. * Zhang, N. 2022. Agentless Presupposition and Implicit and Non-Canonical Objects in Mandarin.
Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale
' 51 (1): 81-104. * Zhang, N. 2022. Kind-Level Predicates of Events Inside Another Predication.
Studia Linguistica
' 76 (2): 315-353. * Zhang, N. 2021. Pairing Degree-WH Clauses in Mandarin.
Studies in Chinese Linguistics
' 42 (2): 121-160. * Zhang, N. 2020. Two categorial issues of degree constructions in Mandarin.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics
' 30 (3): 217-229. * Zhang, N. 2020. External Degree Constructions in Mandarin.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics
' 29 (4): 365-392. * Zhang, N. 2020. Low predicate inversion.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics
' 29 (2): 159-207. * Zhang, N. 2019c. Appearance and Existence in Mandarin Chinese.
Studies in Chinese Linguistics
' 40 (2):101–140. * Zhang, N. 2019b. Sentence-final aspect particles as finite markers in Mandarin Chinese.
Linguistics
' 57 (5): 967–1023. * Zhang, N. 2019a. Complex indefinites and the projection of DP in Mandarin Chinese.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics
' 28: 179–210. * Zhang, N. 2018. Non-canonical objects as event kind-classifying elements.
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
' 36 (4): 1395–1437. * Zhang, N. 2017b. The syntax of event-internal and event-external verbal classifiers.
Studia Linguistica
' 71: 266-300. * Zhang, N. 2017a. Unifying two general licensors of completive adverbials in syntax.
Linguistics
' 55 (2): 371-411. * Zhang, N. 2016b. Identifying Chinese dependent clauses in the forms of subjects.
Journal of East Asian Linguistics
' 25 (3): 275-311. * Zhang, N. 2016a. Understanding S-Selection.
Studies in Chinese Linguistics
' 37 (1): 56-73. * Zhang, N. 2015c. The Morphological Expression of Plurality and Pluractionality in Mandarin.
Lingua
' 165: 1-27. * Zhang, N. 2015b. Functional Head Properties of the Degree Word Hen in Mandarin Chinese.
Lingua
' 153: 14-41. * Zhang, N. 2015a. Nominal-internal phrasal movement in Mandarin.
The Linguistic Review
' 32 (2): 375-425. * Zhang, N. 2014. Expressing Number Productively in Mandarin Chinese.
Linguistics
' 52 (1): 1-34. * Zhang, N. 2014. Summing quantities of objects at the left edge.
Taiwan Journal of Linguistics
' 12 (2): 33 - 57. * Zhang, N. 2013. Encoding Unexpectedness by Aspect Inflection.
Concentric: Studies in Linguistics
' 39 (1): 23-57. * Zhang, N. 2012. Projecting semantic features.
Studia Linguistica
' 66 (1): 58-74. * Zhang, N. 2009. The Syntax of Same and ATB Constructions.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics
' 54 (2): 367-399. * Zhang, N. 2008. Gapless relative clauses as clausal licensers of relational nouns,
Language and Linguistics
' 9 (4): 1005-1028. * Zhang, N. 2008. Existential Coda Constructions as Internally Headed Relative Clause Constructions.
The Linguistics Journal
' 3 (3): 8-57. * Zhang, N. 2008. Repetitive and Correlative Coordinators as Focus Particles Parasitic on Coordinators.
SKY Journal of Linguistics
' 21: 295-342. * Zhang, N. 2007. The Syntactic Derivations of Two Paired Dependency Constructions.
Lingua
' 117 (12): 2134-2158. * Zhang, N. 2007. Root merger in Chinese compounds.
Studia Linguistica
' 61 (2): 170-184. * Zhang, N. 2007. A syntactic account of the Direct Object Restriction in Chinese.
Language Research
' 43 (1): 53-75. * Zhang, N. 2007. The Syntax of English Comitative Constructions.
Folia Linguistica
' 41: 135-169. * Zhang, N. 2006. Representing Specificity by the Internal Order of Indefinites.
Linguistics
' 44 (1): 1-21. * Zhang, N. 2000. Object Shift in Mandarin Chinese.
Journal of Chinese Linguistics
' 28 (2): 201-246. * Zhang, N. 1998. The Interactions Between Lexical Meanings and Construction Meanings.
Linguistics
''36 (5): 957-980. * Zhang, N. 1998. Argument Interpretations of the Ditransitive Construction.
Nordic Journal of Linguistics
' 21: 179-209. * Zhang, N. 1997. The Avoidance of the Third Tone Sandhi in Mandarin Chinese,
Journal of East Asian Linguistics
' 6: 293-338.

Main book chapter articles

* Zhang, N. 2017b. Verbal classifiers. In R. Sybesma, W. Behr, Y. Gu, Z. Handel, C.-T. J. Huang, & J. Myers (eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics''. Leiden: Brill. Vol. 1: 627-631. * Zhang, N. 2017a. Adpositions. In R. Sybesma, W. Behr, Y. Gu, Z. Handel, C.-T. J. Huang, & J. Myers (eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics''. Leiden: Brill. Vol. 1: 116-122. * Zhang, N. 2012. Countability and numeral classifiers in Mandarin Chinese. In Diane Massam (ed.), ''Count and Mass Across Languages''. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 220-237. * Zhang, N. 2009. The Syntax of Relational-Nominal Second Constructions in Chinese. ''Yuyanxue Luncong'' 39. Beijing: Peking University Press: 257-301. * Zhang, N. 2007. On the Categorial Issue of Coordination. ''Lingua et Linguistica'' 1.1. Lulu Press: 7-45. * Zhang, N. 2002. Movement within a Spatial Phrase. In: Hubert Cuyckens and Guenter Radden (eds.), ''Perspectives on Prepositions''.'' Linguistische Arbeiten''. Band 454. Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer: 47–63.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Niina Ning Linguists from China Living people Educators from Inner Mongolia People from Hohhot Academic staff of Guangxi Normal University Academic staff of Shanghai International Studies University Academic staff of the University of Toronto Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin Academic staff of the National Chung Cheng University Writers from Inner Mongolia Scientists from Inner Mongolia Women linguists Year of birth missing (living people)