The Syntax of Null Possessors with Kinship Terms and Body Part Nouns in Vietnamese

Abstract

Bare nouns representing kinship terms (KNs) and body parts (BPNs) can be assumed to project a null possessor argument, which allows for the interpretation of such nouns relative to other linguistically present NPs. In Vietnamese, the distribution of KNs and BPNs is subject to different locality conditions and leads to the analysis of null possessors with KNs as covert anaphors, while null possessors with BPNs are null pronominals (pro). This contrasts with Mandarin Chinese, where it has been suggested that null possessors of KNs and BPNs are two different types of null anaphors. The observed distributional differences and analyses of bare KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese vs. Chinese raise questions of parametric variation with regard to null elements with parallel interpretive properties and also whether linking mechanisms may occur with other bare nouns without the projection of null possessors that are subject to binding theoretic locality restrictions.

1. Introduction

Kinship term nouns (KNs) and body part nouns (BPNs) in Vietnamese do not need an overt possessor, unlike English, and may occur as simple bare nouns, as illustrated in (1) and (2):1

(1)	Lan	nói chuyện	với	chồng.
	Lan	talk	with	husband
	‘Lan talks to her husband’.

(2)	Lan	đang	xoa	vào	tay.
	Lan	ASP	rub	at	arm
	‘Lan is rubbing her arm’.

However, the distribution of bare noun KNs and BPNs is not free, and the relation of KNs/BPNs to their understood possessors can be shown to be constrained in various ways. For example, KNs need to be c-commanded by their antecedent possessor, as seen in the restrictions on interpretation shown in (3) and (4)—the NPs ‘Nam’ and ‘Ngọc’ may not be interpreted as the antecedent possessors for con trai ‘son’ in (3) and (4) even though this might be a pragmatically natural interpretation given the discourse situation.

(3)	Giáo viên	của	Nam	trách mắng	con trai.
	teacher	of	Nam	criticized	son
	OK: ‘Nam’s teacher criticized his son (the teacher’s son)’.
	NOT: ‘Nam’s teacher criticized Nam’s son’.

(4)	Lan,	trong	thời gian	mà	Ngọc	nằm	bệnh viện,
	Lan,	at	time	REL	Ngọc,	be	hospitalized
	đã	đưa	con trai	đi	du lịch	Thái Lan.
	PST	take	son	go	travel	Thailand.
	OK: ‘Lan, at the time Ngọc was hospitalized, took Lan’s son on a trip to Thailand’.
	NOT: ‘Lan, at the time Ngọc was hospitalized, took Ngọc’s son on a trip to Thailand’.

In what follows, we will use the simple term ‘antecedent’ to refer to the NP that is construed as controlling the reference of a null possessor hypothesized to be present with bare noun KNs and BPNs. The paper’s investigation of KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese has the following goals. First, we aim to descriptively map out the distribution of KNs and BPNs relative to NPs that serve as potential antecedent possessors across three different construction types—topic constructions, passive constructions, and biclausal structures—attempting to see how uniformly KNs and BPNs pattern in these different environments. Second, we will describe and analyze a range of syntactic and pragmatic factors that govern and affect antecedent KN/BPN relations in different ways in Vietnamese. Third, the study will compare KN/BPN patterns in Vietnamese with equivalent patterns in Chinese and the analyses of null possessors in Chinese that have been offered for such elements. Synthesizing all of this information will then lead to an analysis of the syntactic status of null possessors in Vietnamese and a discussion of cross-linguistic variation with bare noun KNs and BPNs, in particular the different status of null possessors with KNs and BPNs in Mandarin Chinese. Finally, the paper will reflect on issues of parametric variation with regard to null elements that have common interpretive properties and whether (and how) linking mechanisms may occur with other types of nouns without the necessary projection of null possessors subject to binding theoretic locality restrictions.

2. The Distribution and Interpretation of Bare Noun KNs and BPNs

In order to generate descriptions of the distribution of KNs and BPNs that can be used to analyze the syntactic status of their null possessors, we will consider the patterning of KNs and BPNs relative to their antecedents in three different constructions: (a) topic constructions where the topic is the intended antecedent of a null possessor in a KN/BPN; (b) two-clause constructions where the subject of a matrix clause is the intended antecedent for a lower clause subject or object KN/BPN; and (c) (long) passive constructions, where an NP preceding the passive morpheme bị is the intended antecedent of a KN/BPN in the object-of-main-verb position. For each construction type, a considerable variety of examples were tested, with typically representative examples being presented here in the paper.

2.1. Bare Noun KNs and BPNs in Topic Constructions

With topic constructions, two major patterns were examined, varying the position of the KN/BPN in subject and object positions, with the intended antecedent for the KN/BPN always being placed in the sentence’s initial topic position.

The common pattern found when a KN occurs in matrix subject position and its intended antecedent is the sentential topic is that the KN can, without difficulty, be construed as relating to the topic NP. For example, in (5) below, the bare KN bố ‘father’ can be easily understood to be the father of the topic Nam. We will make the assumption that this relation involves a null possessor element projected with the KN, which we will represent as ‘e’:

(5)	Namk,	[ek	bố]	khá	là	già	rồi.
	Nam		father	quite	is	old	ASP
	‘Nam’s father is quite old’.

The same patterning occurs with BPNs—a BPN in the subject position is naturally understood to be referentially linked to the topic NP:

(6)	Ngak,	[ek	tóc]	rất	là	dài.
	Nga		hair	very	be	long.
	‘Nga’s hair is very long’.

However, a regular difference in acceptability occurs when a KN or BPN is placed in an object position relating to an antecedent topic. As illustrated in (7) and (8), such patterns are significantly degraded.

(7)	??	Namk,	tôi	rất	thích	[ek	bố].
		Nam	I	very	like		father
	Intended: ‘I like Nam’s father a lot’.

(8)	??	Ngak,	tôi	rất	thích	[ek	đôi mắt].
		Nga	I	very	like		eyes
	Intended: ‘I like Nga’s eyes very much’.

The generalization resulting from a consideration of many such examples is noted in (9):

(9)	Generalization I (Vietnamese)
	In topic constructions, KNs and BPNs relating to the topic as antecedents are acceptable as subjects but significantly degraded as objects.

If this patterning in Vietnamese is now compared with Mandarin Chinese (henceforth simply referred to as ‘Chinese’), it is found that the same generalization applies with KN/BPN-antecedent relations in Chinese topic constructions. If a KN or BPN occurs in the subject position, it can naturally relate to the preceding topic as its antecedent, as seen in (10) and (11) (Huang, 1984; Zhang, 2009; Ke & Pires, 2022; Ke, 2023):

(10)	Huangrongm,	[em	meimei]	zhang	de	hen	piaoliang.
	Huangrong		sister	grow	DE	very	pretty
	‘Huangrong’s sister is beautiful’ (Ke, 2023, p. 135).

(11)	Huangrongm,	[em	yanjing]	zhang	de	hen	piaoliang.
	Huangrong		eye	grow	DE	very	pretty
	‘Huangrong’s eyes are beautiful’ (Ke, 2023, p. 135).

However, if a KN or BPN is placed in an object position, it cannot relate to the topic as its antecedent:

(12)	*Huangrongm,	Guojing	hen	xihuan	[em	meimei].
	Huangrong	Guojing	very	like		sister
	Intended: ‘Guojing likes Huangrong’s sister very much’ (Ke, 2023, p. 135).

(13)	*Huangrongm,	Guojing	hen	xihuan	[em	yanjing].
	Huangrong	Guojing	very	like		eye
	Intended: ‘Guojing likes Huangrong’s eyes very much’ (Ke, 2023, p. 135).

We will postpone analysis of these contrasts in both Vietnamese and Chinese until we have documented patterns that occur in the two other constructions to be considered.

2.2. Bare Noun KNs and BPNs in Two-Clause Constructions

The second syntactic environment to be considered here is two-clause constructions consisting of a matrix clause whose main verb embeds a finite complement clause.2 When a KN/BPN is placed in an embedded clause object position and its intended antecedent is the matrix clause subject, there are differences in acceptability between KNs and BPNs. Sentences with KNs in this configuration are degraded, as seen in (14), whereas BPNs are fine in the same position, as shown in (15) and (16):

(14)	??Có	một	bạn họck	(trong lớp)	nghĩ	Nam	không	thích
	be	one	classmate	(in class)	think	Nam	NEG	like
	[ek	bố].
		father
	NOT OK: ‘One studentk thinks Nam dislikes theirk father’.

(15)	Namk	nói rằng	Nga	đã	làm	gãy	[ek	mũi].
	Nam	say that	Nga	PST	make	break		nose.
	‘Namk said that Nga broke hisk nose’3.

(16)	Namk	nói rằng	Nga	thường	chạm	vào	[ek	chân/mông].
	Nam	say that	Nga	often	touch	into		leg/butt
	‘Namk says that Nga often touches hisk leg/butt’.

Such patterns in Vietnamese contrast with what is found in Chinese, where KNs are reported to be acceptable in lower clause object positions, relating to a matrix antecedent (17)/(18), but BPNs are not acceptable (19).

(17)	Yuehanj	zhidao	Tangmuk	hen	aihu	[ej/k	fuqin].
	John	know	Tangmu	very	care.for		father
	‘Yuehanj knows that Tangmuk takes good care of hisj/k father’ (Ke & Pires, 2022, p. 282).

(18)	Zhangsanj	yishi-dao	Lisik	kuai	nongshang	[ej/k	fuqin]	le.
	Zhangsan	realize	Lisi	soon	hurt		father	SFP
	‘Zhangsanj realized that Lisi is about to hurt hisj/k father’ (Ke & Pires, 2022, p. 282).

(19)	Zhangsanj	yishi-dao	Lisi	kuai	nongshang	[e*j/k	shou]	le.
	Zhangsan	realize	Lisi	soon	hurt		hand	SFP
	‘Zhangsanj realized that Lisik is about to hurt his*j/k hand’ (Ke & Pires, 2022, p. 282).

The relevant generalization for 2-clause structures in Vietnamese is given in (20).

(20)	Generalization II (Vietnamese)
	In 2-clause structures, BPNs in embedded object position may relate to the matrix subject as their antecedent, but KNs are significantly degraded in the same configuration.

This patterning in Vietnamese is, somewhat surprisingly, the opposite of Chinese, where BPNs are not acceptable in embedded object position (relating to the matrix subject as antecedent), but KNs are judged to be fine in this position.

2.3. Bare Noun KNs and BPNs in Passive Constructions

The third structure which will be examined relative to antecedent NP-KN/BPN linking is the bị (long) passive construction, in which a passive-like meaning arises from the use of the morpheme bị in the schema represented in (21) and illustrated in (22), where NP₁ is typically a patient undergoing the action of the verb, and NP₂ is the agent of the action (Simpson & Ho, 2013):

(21)	NP1 bị NP2 V

(22)	Nam	bị	Nga	đánh.
	Nam	PASS	Nga	hit
	‘Nam was hit by Nga’ (Simpson & Ho, 2013, p. 160).

In various instances, it may be possible for a third NP to occur in such strucures, following the main verb. This allows for the testing of KNs and BPNs in this position, as schematized in (23).

(23)	NP1 bị NP2 V [NP3 e KN/BPN]

When a BPN occurs in the post-verbal object position in (23), NP₁ may serve as its antecedent, as shown in the examples (24–25):

(24)	Ngak	bị	Nam	giật	[ek	tóc].
	Nga	PASS	Nam	pull		hair
	‘Ngak had herk hair pulled by Nam’ (Simpson & Ho, 2013, p. 162).

(25)	Namk		bị	Nga	tát	vào	[ek	mặt].
	Nam	PASS		Nga	slap	on		face
	‘Nam’s face was slapped by Nga’.

However, it is not possible for a KN to be placed in the NP3 position linked to NP1 as its intended antecedent, as seen in (26–27):

(26)	??Ngak	bị	một	người	găngxtơ	giết	[ek	ba].
	Nga	PASS	one	CL	gangster	kill		father
	Intended: ‘Nga suffered her father being killed by a gangster’ (Simpson & Ho, 2013, p. 163).

(27)	??Ngak	bị	Ông	thầy giáo	phạt	[ek	con trai].
	Nga	PASS	Ong	teacher	criticise		son
	Intended: ‘Nga’s son was criticized by teacher Ong’ (Simpson & Ho, 2013, p. 163).

The generalization relating to passive structures is noted in (28).

(28)	Generalization III (Vietnamese)
	In passive structures, BPNs in object-of-verb position may relate to the pre-bị subject NP as their antecedent, but KNs are severely degraded in the same configuration.

Here again, there is a notable contrast with KNs and BPNs in the similarly structured Chinese long passive construction using the morpheme bei (29). Both BPNs and KNs are acceptable in the NP3 position in Chinese (30–31):

(29)	NP1 bei NP2 V [NP3 e KN/BPN]

(30)	Zhangsank	bei	tufei	da-si-le	[ek	baba]
	Zhangsan	PASS	bandit	hit-kill-ASP		father
	‘Zhangsan suffered his father being killed by bandits’ (Huang, 1999).

(31)	Lao Zhangk	bei	Lisi	da-diao-le	[ek	yachi].
	Lao Zhang	PASS	Lisi	hit-lose-ASP		teeth
	‘Zhang had his teeth knocked out by Lisi’ (adapted from Shi, 1997).

2.4. Mid-Point Summary

The statements in (32) summarize the core observations which been made thus far, and the patterns reported in Section 2.1, Section 2.2 and Section 2.3 are represented in

Table 1. The distribution of KNs and BPNs to antecedents in Vietnamese and Chinese.

Construction Type:	Noun Type		Vietnamese	Chinese
Topic	KNs, BPNs	as:	✓Subjects	✓Subjects
	KNs, BPNs	as:	??Objects	*Objects
2-clause	KNs	as:	??Objects	✓Objects
	BPNs	as:	✓Objects	*Objects
Passive	KNs	as:	??Objects	✓Objects
	BPNs	as:	✓Objects	✓Objects

).

(32)	a. The distribution of KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese is not free or consistently parallel when a KN or BPN is linked to an intended antecedent across another NP in topic structures, 2-clause sentences, and passive constructions.
	b. The linking of KNs and BPNs to antecedent NPs in Vietnamese shows some similarities with equivalent relations in Chinese but also a range of notable differences.
	c. In Vietnamese, KNs are more restricted than BPNs in their distribution relative to their antecedents in complex structures. This difference is seen in both 2-clause structures and passives.

The generalizations in (9), (20), and (28) and Table 1 record the typical acceptability of KNs and BPNs in the three syntactic environments considered. Before incorporating this information into an analysis of KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese, we would like to point out and describe certain factors that may further affect perceptions of acceptability and which need to be controlled for in assessing the general patterning of KNs and BPNs. These additional, potentially complicating factors are noted in Section 2.5, Section 2.6, Section 2.7 and Section 2.8 below.

2.5. Blocking Effects

The interpretation of KNs and BPNs may frequently be restricted in topic constructions when there is a structurally closer potential antecedent for the null possessor in configurations of the form represented in (33).

(33)	NP1j …NP2k …[e ??j/k KN/BPN].

This intervention effect typically occurs when both NP1 and NP2 are human in reference.

If NP2 is inanimate, the linking of NP1 to a null possessor with BPNs and KNs may sometimes improve, particularly in topic constructions. BPNs may be significantly improved in such circumstances, as shown in (34) and (35):

(34)	Ngak,	máy nhận diện	đã	không	nhận ra	[ek	gương mặt].
	Nga	the machine	PST	NEG	recognize		face.
	‘The machine didn’t recognize Nga’s face’.

(35)	Namk,	loại thuốc này	giúp	chữa lành	[ek	cánh tay].
	Nam,	medicine this	help	heal		arm
	‘This medicine healed Nam’s arm’.

The acceptability of KNs in topic constructions may also be improved when NP2 is inanimate, though KNs still may not be felt to be fully natural:

(36)	(?)Namk,	USC	vừa	đuổi học	[ek	con trai].
	Nam	USC	just	expel		son.
	‘USC just expelled Nam’s son’.

2.6. Effects of Verb Type

Some effects on the acceptability of BPNs in topic constructions may relate to verb type encoding other-directed as opposed to neutral or self-directed actions. If an unambiguously other-directed verb (e.g., ‘kiss (on the lips)’) is used in topic constructions, this will effectively eliminate its subject (NP2) as a potential antecedent for a BPN in object position.4 The construal of a BPN with a topic may subsequently improve, although not necessarily to the point of being fully natural:

(37)	(?)Ngak,	tôi	đã	hôn lên	[ek	má].
	Nga	I	PST	kiss on		cheek.
	‘I just kissed Nga on her cheek’.

2.7. Effects of Context/Contextual Support

The long-distance linking of KNs over intervening potential antecedents may be ameliorated with rich contextual information. Without special context, KNs are restricted to taking local antecedents:

(38)	Namj	biết	rằng	Ngak	yêu	[e*j/k	cha]	rất nhiều.
	Nam	know	that	Nga	love		father	very much
	‘Namj knows that Ngak loves *hisj/herk father a lot’.

However, if (38) is judged within an explicit (preceding) context, such as ‘While Nam was not at home, Nga (the neighbor) helped Nam taking care of her father’, a long-distance construal of the KN becomes acceptable, and cha ‘father’ may be construed as relating to the matrix subject (as ‘Nam’s father’). With such rich context situations, we believe that KNs may be interpreted in a name-like way, as referring to individuals already established in the discourse situation and providing a reference value for the KN. If this is correct, and the context essentially supplies the identity of a bare noun KN rather than an NP present in the sentence, such rich context examples do not provide clear information on how KNs may depend on other sentence-internal elements for their interpretation.

2.8. Effects of Focus and Contrast

There are quite significant effects of contrast and focus that affect the acceptability and naturalness of KNs and BPNs in topic constructions. Most typically, KNs and BPNs that occur in the object-of-verb position (39) cannot be linked to a topic, as illustrated in (40):

(39)	??Topick Subject V [ek KN/BPN]

(40)	?(?)Ngak,	tôi	thích	[ek	đôi mắt].
	Nga	I	like		eyes
	Intended: ‘I like Nga’s eyes’.

However, if both contrast and focus are added, such patterns may frequently become fully acceptable. Two components seem to jointly create the improvement effect, involving (a) the addition of the contrastive topic marker thì to the topic and (b) the addition of a focus operator such as chỉ ‘only’ or cả ‘also’ scoping over the object. The amelioration effect of adding contrast on the topic and focus on the operator is shown in (41), which improves the BPN in (40) to a high level of acceptability:

(41)	Ngak	thì,	tôi	chỉ	thích	[ek	đôi mắt],	không	thích	[ek	tóc].
	Nga	CT	I	only	like		eyes	NEG	like		hair
	‘I only like Nga’s eyes, not her hair’.

KNs in object positions in topic constructions are also significantly improved when contrast occurs on the topic and the object is focused with chỉ ‘only’, as seen in (38):

(42)

Namk

thì

tôi

chỉ

thích

[ek

bố]

chứ/mà

không

thích

[ek

mẹ].

Nam

CT

I

only

like

father

but/but

NEG

like

mother

‘I only like Nam’s father. I don’t like his mother’.

The contrast+focus effect additionally occurs with the pairing of contrastive topic marker thì and the focus operator cả ‘also’:

(43)	Ngak	thì,	tôi	thích	cả	[ek	mái tóc].
	Nga	CT	I	like	also		hair
	‘I also like Nga’s hair’.

Similar patterns have been observed in Chinese in Zhang (2009), Ke and Pires (2022), and Huang and Yang (2024), raising the question of how such effects should inform the analysis of KNs and BPNs. In Ke and Pires (2022) and Ke (2023), focus effects are acknowledged but then set aside and not considered as part of the core patterns to be modeled, whereas in Huang and Yang (2024), the role of focus in improving examples of the type schematized in (39) figures as a key concern, motivating a particular syntactic approach. We will discuss how the focus effects found in Vietnamese may plausibly be addressed later on in Section 3.

All of the factors identified in Section 2.5, Section 2.6, Section 2.7 and Section 2.8 may serve to improve otherwise degraded structures with KNs and BPNs to different degrees and need to be controlled for in assessing the general patterning of KNs and BPNs. As mentioned earlier in Section 2.4, the generalizations about Vietnamese presented in (9), (20), and (28) and Table 1 encode what we take to be the typical acceptability of KNs and BPNs in the three syntactic environments investigated, taking the factors described in Section 2.5, Section 2.6, Section 2.7 and Section 2.8 into account. Now, we will turn to consider what kind of syntactic analysis of KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese is supported by the data patterns considered thus far.

3. The Analysis of KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese

We make the assumption that locality restrictions and constraints on the interpretation of KNs and BPNs relate to the syntactic properties of null possessors projected with KNs and BPNs in the absence of overt possessor NPs. Such null possessors might be instantiations of one (or more) of the null NP types which have been posited to occur elsewhere in different languages, listed in (44):

(44)	Commonly hypothesized null NP types
	(i)	null pronominals;
	(ii)	null anaphors;
	(iii)	null operator trace;
	(iv)	ellipsis of NPs.

Two of the types noted in (44) may, however, be unlikely candidates for the identity of null possessors with KNs/BPNs in Vietnamese—(iii) and (iv). With regard to (iii), the analysis of NP gaps arising from the movement of null topic operators proposed in Huang (1984) was critically supported by the island sensitivity of null objects in Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese. However, in Vietnamese, KNs and BPNs can occur within islands such as relative clauses and show no sensitivity to the CED/Subjacency (45/46), suggesting that a movement analysis of null possessors in Vietnamese is not appropriate. This additionally rules out an analysis of possessor raising, in which the possessor would be moved from within the DP headed by the possessum (Deal, 2013).

(45)	Namk	kiện	cô gái	mà	đã	làm	gãy	[ek	mũi].
	Nam	sue	the girl	who	PST	make	break		nose.
	‘Namk knows the girl who broke hisk nose’.

(46)	Ngak	biết	người đàn ông	mà	đã	chỉ trích	[ek	cha].
	Nga	know	the man	who	PST	criticized		father.
	‘Ngak knows the man who criticized herk father’.

As for possibility (iv), it might be hypothesized that null possessors of KN/BPNs result from ellipsis applying to a syntactically projected possessor, akin to the process of argument ellipsis, which is argued to produce null subject and objects in a range of languages (Takahashi, 2008a; H.-T. Cheng, 2013). However, a typical property of ellipsis is that it applies in structures where a constituent such as a VP, TP, or DP would otherwise redundantly be (overtly) repeated in the second of two broadly parallel structures, as in (47–50). The content of elided constituents is consequently old/given and regularly recoverable from a preceding clause with a similar/related structure. The patterning of null possessors with KNs and BPNs does not share these common properties of ellipsis, decreasing the plausibility of an ellipsis analysis of such elements.5

(47)	John asked me to open the vault, and so I will [VP open the vault]!

(48)	Bill invited someone to dinner, but I don’t know who [TP Bill invited to dinner].

(49)	Mary reviewed John’s paper, and I reviewed [Mary’s paper].

(50)	a.	Taroo-wa	sannin-no	sensei-o	sonkeishiteiru
		Taroo-TOP	3-gen	teacher-ACC	respects
		‘Taroo respects three teachers’.
	b.	Hanako-mo	sannin-no	sensei-o	sonkeishiteiru
		Hanako-also	3-gen	teacher-ACC	respects
		‘Hanako also respects three teachers’ (adjusted from Takahashi, 2008b).

Considering the possibility that Vietnamese null possessors may instead have the syntactic status of null pronominals or null anaphors, it is useful to reflect on the analysis that has been proposed for such elements in Chinese by Huang (1984, 1989) and Ke and Pires (2022). Huang (1984, 1989) suggests that null possessors in Mandarin Chinese are instances of pro and subject to the Generalized Control Rule/GCR, which essentially requires that a pro must be coreferential with the closest c-commanding antecedent. Such assumptions are able to capture the observation that KNs and BPNs with null possessors are acceptable in topic constructions in Mandarin in the subject position (10, 11) but not possible in object positions (12, 13). In the former case, the pro null possessor is directly c-commanded by its antecedent in the topic position, satisfying the GCR, whereas when a pro null possessor occurs in a KN/BPN in object position, it cannot take the topic as antecedent due to the GCR, because there is a closer c-commanding NP—the subject. Such an approach has more recently been critiqued in Ke (2023, pp. 134–135) on the grounds that it may not satisfactorily account for the patterning of KNs and BPNs in embedded clause subject positions, where KNs are unacceptable (predicted by the GCR) but BPNs are acceptable, which is unexpected for a GCR account (see Ke, 2023, pp. 134–135 for details). Ke and Pires (2022) offer a different characterization of null possessors with KNs and BPNs in Mandarin as null anaphors of two distinct types. Comparing restrictions on the distribution and interpretation of KNs and BPNs relative to their antecedent (possessor) NPs, it is argued that the null possessors taken to be present with KNs have all of the regular properties of the overt long-distance anaphor ziji in Mandarin (subject-oriented, logophoric, permitting long-distance binding), while the null possessors of BPNs share a parallel patterning with the local anaphor ta-ziji (not subject-oriented, not logophoric, requiring local binding). Ke and Pires (2022) consequently propose that the null possessor projected with KNs is a covert equivalent to the long-distance anaphor ziji and a null counterpart to the local anaphor ta-ziji with BPNs.

If we now consider Vietnamese null possessors in the light of models proposed for Mandarin, an adoption of Huang’s pro + GCR account would not seem to be viable for Vietnamese. While such an approach would make correct predictions for patterns found in topic structures in Vietnamese (which are essentially parallel to those found in Mandarin), the acceptable occurrence of BPN objects in embedded clauses relating to subjects in higher clauses is unexpected and would violate the GCR. In the configuration in (47), a pro occurring as a null possessor of the BPN should only be able to be controlled by the closer subject NP₂ according to the GCR, yet instances of (51) where the BPN takes NP₁ as its antecedent are fine in Vietnamese, as already illustrated in examples (15) and (16).

(51)	NP1 V [NP2 V [NP3 e1/2 BPN]]

The analysis of Mandarin null possessors developed by Ke and Pires (2022) would also not seem to be appropriate for Vietnamese. Although such an approach provides an accurate account of the patterning of null possessors found in Mandarin with KNs and BPNs, as we have shown in Section 2.1, Section 2.2 and Section 2.3 and summarized in Table 1, the distribution of null possessors in Vietnamese is significantly different from Mandarin in both two-clause and passive structures. In Vietnamese, the patterns found with KNs and BPNs consequently require a different analysis from Mandarin. For example, BPNs in Vietnamese do not have the distribution of local anaphors, unlike their equivalents in Mandarin, and KNs in Vietnamese show greater locality restrictions than Mandarin KNs, analyzed by Ke & Pires as long-distance anaphors.

Various of the basic diagnostics used by Ke & Pires to analyze Mandarin can, however, usefully be considered in approaching Vietnamese KNs and BPNs and how to capture their distinctive properties and differences from Mandarin. Here, we will describe sloppy identity interpretations, subject orientation, and c-command in antecedent/null possessor relations and subsequently combine this information with the locality phenomena noted in Table 1 to finally arrive at an analysis of Vietnamese null possessors with KNs and BPNs in Section 3.4.

3.1. Sloppy Identity

Whether sloppy and/or strict interpretations are possible or required in patterns of ellipsis is sometimes suggested to be determined by the syntactic status of relevant elements as either pronouns or anaphors. As noted by Ke and Pires (2022, p. 278), ‘It has long been known that elided bound reflexives have only a sloppy reading, whereas elided bound pronouns have both a strict and a sloppy reading’ (Sag, 1976; Williams, 1977). This contrast is illustrated in the pair of sentences (52) and (53). The anaphor in (52) only permits a sloppy reading when VP ellipsis occurs, but the pronoun in (53) allows either a strict or a sloppy interpretation:

(52)	Johnj defended himselfj, and Billk did [elided VP defend himself*j/k] too.
	Only sloppy: ‘Bill defended Bill’.
	No strict reading: ‘Bill defended John’.

(53)	Johnj likes hisj car and Billk does [elided VP like hisj/k car] too.
	Sloppy OK: ‘Bill likes Bill’s/his won car’.
	Strict OK: ‘Bill likes John’s car’.

Ke & Pires show that null possessors in Mandarin permit only sloppy interpretations in ellipsis constructions with both KNs and BPNs, supporting their analysis as null anaphors in both cases.

Turning to Vietnamese, the cũng vậy ‘also thus’ copying construction can potentially be used to probe the status of null possessors with KNs and BPNs (see Simpson & Ngo, 2022 for strict/sloppy interpretations of elided/copied objects in cũng vậy constructions). With KNs, it is found that only sloppy interpretations of a null possessor are available, as illustrated in (54):

(54)	Trong	chuyến dã ngoại,	Ngọc	rất	nhớ	mẹ,	Lan	cũng vậy.
	during	camping,	Ngọc	very	miss	mom,	Lan	also thus
	‘During the camping, Ngọc misses her mom, and Lan does too’.
	Only sloppy: ‘Lan misses Lan’s mom’.
	No strict reading: ‘‘Lan misses Ngọc’s mom’.

This patterning would be consistent with the null possessors of Vietnamese KNs also being an anaphor of some type. With BPNs, however, it is found that either a strict or a sloppy interpretation is possible in cũng vậy constructions, as shown in (55):

(55)	Ông tổng thống	đã	bảo vệ	đầu.	Người vệ sĩ	cũng	vậy.
	president	PST	protected	head	bodyguard	also	thus.
	‘The president protected his head, and the bodyguard did too’.
	Sloppy OK: ‘The bodyguard protected his own head’.
	Strict OK: ‘The bodyguard protected the president’s head’.

This different patterning with BPNs (different from KNs in Vietnamese and also different from BPNs in Mandarin) would potentially align with null possessors in Vietnamese being null pronominals rather than null anaphors.

3.2. Subject Orientation

Ke and Pires (2022) claim that subject orientation patterns in Mandarin support their analysis of the null possessor in Chinese KNs as being a null equivalent of the overt anaphor ziji ‘self’. They note that overt ziji is subject-oriented and then demonstrate that KNs also appear to be subject-oriented. In (56), the KN erzi ‘son’ can only be construed as relating to the subject Zhangsan, not the indirect object Lisi:

(56)	Zhangsanj songgei-le	Lisik	yi-zhang	[ej/*k	erzi]	de	zhaopian.
	Zhangsan give-ASP	Lisi	1-CL		son	DE	photo
	‘Zhangsanj gave Lisik a photo of hisj/*k son’ (Ke & Pires, 2022).

This contrasts with the patterning of BPNs, which Ke & Pires suggest have null possessors that are local anaphors equivalent to ta-ziji, which is not subject-oriented. In the same configuration as (57), a BPN can be (easily) construed as relating to the indirect object; hence, the null possessor of a BPN is not subject-oriented, as expected if it indeed is a null equivalent of the ta-ziji:

(57)	Zhangsanj gei Lisik	hua-le	yi-zhang	lian?j/k	de	sumiao.
	Zhangsan for Lisi	draw-ASP	1-CL	face	DE	photo
	‘Zhangsanj drew Lisik a sketch of hisj/*k face’ (Ke & Pires, 2022).

Considering Vietnamese, the overt long-distance anaphor mình is subject-oriented, like Chinese ziji (Ivan & Bui, 2019; Chou & Phan, to appear):

(58)	Ginnyj	nói	với	Lunak	về	mìnhj/*k.
	Ginny	talk	with	Luna	about	self
	‘Ginnyj talked with Lunak about selfj/*k’ (Ivan & Bui, 2019, p. 52).

This subject orientation is maintained when mình occurs as the overt possessor of a KN, as seen in (55):

(59)	Ngọcj	đưa	cho	Lank	bức tranh	của	[ba	mìnhj/*k].
	Ngọc	give	for	Lan	picture	of	father	self.
	‘Ngocj gives Lank the picture of herj/*k father’.

However, when null possessors are (by hypothesis) projected with KNs and BPNs, neither KNs nor BPNs show a subject orientation in their interpretation:

(60)	Ngọcj đưa cho Lank	bức tranh	của	[ej/k	ba].
	Ngọc give for Lan	picture	of		father.
	‘Ngọcj gives Lank the picture of herj/k father’.

(61)	Ngọcj	vẽ	cho	Lank	một	bức	phát hoạ	[ej/k	khuôn mặt].
	Ngọc	drew	for	Lan	1	CL	sketch		face.
	‘Ngocj drew a sketch of herk face for Lank’.

This patterning suggests that (a) neither of the null possessors with KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese are simple null equivalents to the overt long-distance anaphor mình, and (b) KNs in Vietnamese again show differences in their interpretation from KNs in Mandarin and so should be analyzed in a different way.

3.3. C-Command Revisited

Ke and Pires (2022) observe that both KNs and BPNs must be c-commanded by their antecedents in Mandarin. This is taken to further support an analysis of the null possessors of both KNs and BPNs as null anaphors rather than null pronouns, as pronouns do not require c-commanding antecedents. At the outset of the current paper, it was noted that KNs in Vietnamese similarly require c-commanding antecedents, as illustrated in examples (3) and (4), repeated here:

(3)	Giáo viên	của	Nam	trách mắng	con trai.
	teacher	of	Nam	criticized	son
	OK: ‘Nam’s teacher criticized his son (the teacher’s son)’.
	NOT: ‘Nam’s teacher criticized Nam’s son’.

(4)	Lan, trong thời gian		mà	Ngọc nằm bệnh viện,	đã	đưa	con trai	đi
	Lan, at time		REL	Ngọc be hospitalized,	PST	take	son	go
	du lịch	Thái Lan.
	travel	Thailand.
	OK: ‘Lan, at the time Ngọc was hospitalized, took Lan’s son on a trip to Thailand’.
	NOT: ‘Lan, at the time Ngọc was hospitalized, took Ngọc’s son on a trip to Thailand’.

Such patterns would potentially support the analysis of null possessors with KNs in Vietnamese as being null anaphors of some type rather than null pronouns. With regard to BPNs, the patterning is different, however, and BPNs may relate to antecedents that do not c-command them, as shown in (62) and (63):

(62)	[Khi	Linhj	đang	đọc	sách],	thì	Hoàngk	chải	[ej/k	tóc].
	when	Linh	PROG	read	book,	CONJ	Hoang	comb		hair.
	‘While Linhj was reading a book, Hoangk comb herj/k hair’.

(63)	[Con dao	của	Namk]	rơi	vào	[ek	chân].
	knife	of	Nam	fell	onto		foot
	‘Namk’s knife fell onto hisk foot’.

This contrastive patterning with BPNs argues against any analysis of their null possessors as null anaphors, which should require c-commanding antecedents, and instead presents a distribution that is more like that of pronominal elements.

3.4. Putting All the Pieces Together: The Analysis of Vietnamese KNs and BPNs

We are now in a position to reach an analysis of the null possessors assumed to be projected with KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese, combining insights into their distribution described in Section 2 with other information just detailed above in Section 3.1, Section 3.2 and Section 3.3. Our proposals are made in (64) and (65), and this is followed by a Table that provides a summary of the properties of KNs and BPNs from the discussion in Section 2.1, Section 2.2, Section 2.3, Section 2.4, Section 3.1, Section 3.2 and Section 3.3.

KNs have been noted to have the following properties. First, they need to be c-commanded by their antecedents, which is a patterning typical of anaphors, not pronominals. Second, they only give rise to sloppy interpretations in ellipsis-type constructions, which is again a property characteristic of anaphors rather than pronouns. KNs are additionally restricted in their distribution and must occur in a very local relation with their antecedents, not being separated from their antecedent by any intervening, c-commanding NP. Specifically, as noted in Section 2, KNs are degraded as objects in topic constructions: [??Topic_m Subject_k V [e_m KN]]. They are degraded as the lower objects of 2-clause constructions relating to the higher clause subject: [??Subject_m V [Subject V [_Ob e_m KN]]]. They are also degraded as the objects of passive constructions: [??Subject_m bị NP_k V [[_Ob e_m KN]]]. KNs consequently have the profile of anaphors but not that of long-distance anaphors such as Vietnamese mình or Mandarin ziji. Bare noun KNs are additionally not subject-oriented, unlike the overt long-distance anaphor mình. From all of the above, we now conclude that the identity of null possessors is that of a local anaphor, approximate to the Vietnamese local anaphor chính mình.

(64)	Proposal 1: KNs in Vietnamese
	The null possessors projected by KNs are covert local anaphors which must be bound by the structurally closest, c-commanding antecedent NP.

As for BPNs, the null possessors assumed to occur with BPNs are quite unrestricted in their properties, in contrast to the patterning of KNs. BPNs in Vietnamese do not need to be c-commanded by their antecedents, they do not exhibit subject orientation, and they permit either sloppy or strict interpretations in ellipsis-like cũng vậy constructions, a property which aligns them with pronouns rather than anaphors. In terms of locality and the relation of BPNs to their antecedents, BPNs are fine as the lower objects of two-clause constructions relating to the matrix subject as an antecedent (unlike KNs): [Subject_m V [Subject V [_Ob e_m BPN]]]. BPNs are also fine as objects in passive constructions relating to a pre-bị subject (again, unlike KNs): [Subject_m bị NP_k V [[_Ob e_m BPN]]]. The sole obvious locality restriction with BPNs is that they are sometimes degraded as objects in topic constructions: [??Topic_m Subject_k V [e_m BPN]]. However, this restriction disappears when the intervening subject is inanimate (30/31).

While something additional needs to be said about those instances of topic constructions where BPNs are degraded in object positions, and we will turn to this shortly, the general patterning of BPN null possessors otherwise demonstrates a consistent matching with the common properties of pronouns—no c-command requirement relative to antecedent NPs, no strictly local relation to an antecedent required, and the possibility of strict as well as sloppy readings in ellipsis-type constructions. We, therefore, propose that the null possessors of BPNs in Vietnamese are null pronominals/instances of pro.

(65)	Proposal2: BPNs in Vietnamese
	The null possessors projected by BPNs are covert pronominal elements – instances of pro.

Table 2. Summary of Properties of KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese.

Bare Noun Type	KNs	BPNs
Must be c-commanded by antecedent	Yes	No
Only sloppy interpretations in ellipsis-type constructions	Yes	No
Subject-oriented	No	No
OK as the object in an embedded complement clause	No	Yes
OK as the object in passive structures	No	Yes
Status as the object in topic constructions	??	?

provides a summary of the various properties of KNs and BPNs observed in Vietnamese.

3.5. Two Outstanding Issues

In Section 4, we will reflect on how to interpret the variation found in Vietnamese vs. Chinese in the patterning and analysis of their KNs and BPNs. First, having laid out our claims on the identity of null possessors with KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese, we return to two related remaining issues that are in need of some discussion, posed as questions in (66) and (67).

(66)	If the null possessors of BPNs are indeed pronominal, why are they sometimes degraded in topic constructions?

(67)	How does focus and contrast improve degraded topic constructions with BPN/KNs?

Concerning (62), we have reported that speakers often find BPNs unnatural in object position in topic constructions when the antecedent for the BPN is the topic, as schematized in (68) and illustrated with example (8) repeated here:

(68)	?Topick, Subject V [ek BPN]

(8)	?Ngak,	tôi	rất	thích	[ek	đôi mắt].
	Nga	I	very	like		eyes
	Intended: ‘I like Nga’s eyes very much’.

If the null possessor of BPNs is an occurrence of pro, the question is why the configuration in (67) should be felt to be (somewhat) unnatural. For Huang (1984, 1989), examples parallel to (8) in Mandarin would be accounted for by means of the GCR—the pro null possessor in the object would need to be controlled by the nearest c-commanding NP, which is the subject and not the topic. However, we are not in a position to invoke the GCR to rule out examples such as (8) in Vietnamese because there are other configurations in Vietnamese that are perfectly well-formed but violate the GCR—BPNs may occur as objects in embedded clauses in two clause structures relating to the matrix clause subject, as already seen in examples (15) and (16) repeated below. If the GCR were to constrain the null possessors of BPNs as instances of pro, the BPN objects in (15) and (16) should not be able to take the matrix clause subject as their antecedents, because there is a closer c-commanding NP—the subject of the embedded clause. As examples like (15) and (16) are fully well-formed in Vietnamese, we have to conclude that the GCR does not constrain the distribution of BPNs relative to their antecedents and, hence, cannot be responsible for the degraded nature of topic construction examples like (8).

(15)	Namk	nói rằng	Nga	đã	làm	gãy	[ek	mũi].
	Nam	say that	Nga	PST	make	break		nose.
	‘Namk said that Nga broke hisk nose’6.

(16)	Namk	nói rằng	Nga	thường chạm		vào	[ek	chân/mông].
	Nam	say that	Nga	often	touch	into		leg/butt
	‘Namk says that Nga often touches hisk leg/butt’.

In considering alternative explanations for the slight deviance of (68), we make the observation that even examples where a BPN occurs in subject position in topic constructions (schematized in (69)) are perceived to sound more natural when interpreted in a context that involves contrast. For example, (6) will be most natural in a context in which the speaker is trying to distinguish ‘Nga’ from other people.

(69)	Topick, [ek BPN] V…

(6)	Ngak	[ek	tóc]	rất	là	dài.
	Nga		hair	very	be	long.
	‘Nga’s hair is very long’.

The configuration in (69) should be well-formed according to the GCR as a putative constraint on pro null possessors, as (69) is a structure in which the BPN is immediately c-commanded by its antecedent, with no other intervening NPs. The fact that contrast is nevertheless required for instances of structure (69) as well as (68) to sound natural suggests to us that topic constructions of such a type are conditioned by a general pragmatic well-formedness requirement that contrast and focus be present in the construction in order for it to be used in a felicitous and natural way. Such a property may be a distinctive feature of Vietnamese topic constructions involving KNs and BPNs that are construed in relation to the topic (without movement) or perhaps are more widespread among other languages. We note that in English, overt pronominal possessors of BPNs sometimes sound unnatural in topic constructions in the absence of a clearly contrastive context (70) and improve in their naturalness when contrast and focus are added, as in (71), and some speakers of Mandarin have reported similar feelings to us about Chinese equivalents to (69).

(70)	?Tom, Bill looked at his knee.

(71)	Tom, Bill looked at his knee. Sue, he stared at her head. They had all three been injured in the crash.

The ‘explanation’ for the degraded status of (69/9) that we would tentatively like to advance is that they are felt to sound unnatural simply due to a perceived lack of contrast and focus, which are properties regularly licensing the use of such non-movement, hanging topic constructions. As noted earlier, when contrast and focus are explicitly added into (68/9), as in (41), repeated here as (72), such structures become well-formed and are felt to be acceptable.7

(72)	Ngak	thì,	tôi	chỉ	thích	[ek	đôi mắt],	không	thích	[ek	tóc].
	Nga	CT	I	only	like		eyes	NEG	like		hair
	‘I only like Nga’s eyes, not her hair’.

This now leads us to our second, related question in (63): ‘How does focus/contrast improve degraded examples of BPN/KNs in such constructions?’

An interesting syntactic analysis of this issue, as it manifests itself in Chinese, is developed by Huang and Yang (2024). This work builds on the proposal in Huang (1984, 1989) that null possessors of KNs/BPNs are instances of pro and must be bound by the closest c-commanding antecedent due to the GCR. As mentioned above, structures such as (68), repeated below, where a KN or BPN occurs in object position in a topic construction, will violate the GCR if the null possessor pro attempts to relate to the topic as its antecedent because the subject is a closer antecedent. Examples such as (73) are felt to be unacceptable.

(68)	Topicm Subjectk V [ prok/*m KN/BPN] …

(73)	*Zhangsan,	wo	kanjian	le	[pro	hou naoshao]
	Zhangsan	I	saw	PERF		back of head
	Intended: ‘As for Zhangsan, I saw the back of his head’ (Huang & Yang, 2024, p. 15).

However, when focus is added to examples of this type, as in (74), they are judged to be well-formed:

(74)	Zhangsan,	wo	zhi	kanjian	le	[pro	hou naoshao]
	Zhangsan,	I	only	saw	PERF		back of head
	OK: ‘As for Zhangsan, I only saw the back of his head’ (Huang & Yang, 2024, p. 15).

Huang and Yang’s novel approach to this patterning is the suggestion that focused objects in examples like (74) undergo QR-like covert focus movement to a position higher than the subject, making the topic into the closest antecedent for the null possessor pro, as schematized in (75):

(75)

Huang and Yang’s covert focus movement proposal offers a principled and genuinely interesting analysis of focus effects with KNs and BPNs in object positions in Mandarin and might be thought to be potentially appropriate for Vietnamese, too. However, we will not adopt such an analysis for Vietnamese due to the following concerns. First, Huang and Yang’s modeling critically assumes the GCR as a restriction on pro in Chinese (LF focus movement serves to overcome the GCR-violating configuration in (68)), but in Vietnamese, the GCR seems to be violated regularly with BPNs in Vietnamese two-clause and passive constructions—see the examples (15) and (16) repeated above, and the passive examples (24) and (25) below. In all these instances, a null possessor pro is able to take as its antecedent an NP that is not the closest c-commanding NP:

(24)	Ngak	bị	Nam	giật	N[ek	tóc].
	Nga	PASS	Nam	pull		hair
	‘Ngak had herk hair pulled by Nam’ (Simpson & Ho, 2013, p. 162).

(25)	Namk	bị	Nga	tát	vào	[ek	mặt].
	Nam	PASS	Nga	slap	on		face
	‘Nam’s face was slapped by Nga’.

We, therefore, conclude above that the GCR does not govern the distribution of BPNs relative to their antecedents. It consequently cannot be the cause of degraded topic construction examples such as (8), and we are not able to invoke LF focus movement of objects over subjects as an explanation for the amelioration effects of focus and contrast in these constructions.

Instead, we would like to briefly sketch a potential information structure approach to this patterning, which is currently a speculation but one that we feel is deserving of consideration. It has frequently been remarked that null elements such as pro may often be naturally linked to continuing discourse topics—the reference of pro corresponds to the ongoing discourse topic. When topic constructions of the type in (64) [Topic, Subject V [_OBJ e BPN]] are presented to listeners without any embedding context/prior discourse, it is plausible that listeners will tend to interpret the initial NP as a new discourse referent rather than as a continuing discourse topic, which may reduce its natural availability as an antecedent for a pro in the continuation of the sentence. The addition of the contrastive topic marker thì to the topic will signal that the topic is to be construed as a member of an existing contrast set assumed in the context, not a fully new discourse referent, facilitating its linking to a null possessor element. Additionally, if focus is placed on a following BPN, this will serve to highlight an intended pairing of the BPN with the topic, as it does in other contrastive topic constructions, for example: ‘As for FISH, I only eat salmon’. The combination of contrast on a topic (with thì) and focus on a BPN can, therefore, be suggested to better support interpretations in which null possessors of BPNs are construed as connected to (coreferential with) topic NPs, resulting in the observed improvement ‘effect’ (and we remind readers that many speakers find that special context and focus/contrast is also necessary to make BPNs and KNs in the subject position sound natural as well—configuration (65))—hence such information structure licensing requirements would apply to KN/BPN topic constructions in general, not simply the object cases corresponding to (64)). While such a pragmatic approach to the effects of focus/contrast in these constructions certainly needs to be fleshed out further, we are hopeful that it ultimately will allow for a plausible (non-syntactic) understanding of the focus alternations noted here for Vietnamese (and see also (Ke, 2023) for a useful related discussion of discourse structure constraints on the construal of BPNs in topic constructions in Chinese).

4. Conclusions and Directions for Future Work

The primary goal of the current study is to develop a description and understanding of the occurrence of bare nouns encoding kinship terms and body parts in Vietnamese, investigating how such elements relate to antecedent possessors present in a variety of linguistic structures. In the course of the investigation, we highlighted how a variety of pragmatic factors may affect the natural use and interpretation of bare noun KNs and BPNs beyond other properties relating to the fundamental identity of null possessors projected with KNs and BPNs, which we take to be syntactic. Attempting to control for discourse factors as well as possible, we reached a number of generalizations concerning the basic patterning of KNs and BPNs in topic, two-clause, and passive structures. Collectively, this information reveals that KNs and BPNs have significantly different properties in Vietnamese and that KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese are also different from KNs and BPNs in Mandarin Chinese. We analyzed these differences as resulting from distinctions in the null possessors taken to be present with bare noun KNs and BPNs, with KNs in Vietnamese projecting a null possessor that is a local anaphor and BPNs occurring with a null pronominal/pro possessor. This empirically-driven analysis of Vietnamese contrasts with conclusions reached about Mandarin in Ke and Pires (2022) and Ke (2023), where the null possessors of KNs are argued to be covert long-distance anaphors, and those with BPNs are shown to pattern like local anaphors. These characterizations of null possessors in Vietnamese and Mandarin are shown in

Table 3. The syntactic identity of null possessors in Vietnamese and Mandarin.

	Vietnamese	Mandarin
KNs	local anaphor	long-distance anaphor
BPNs	pro	local anaphor

.

One important result of the present study is, consequently, the conclusion that null possessors projected by bare noun KNs and BPNs do not have the same syntactic identity and distribution across languages. The current investigation of Vietnamese, therefore, contributes to the initiation of descriptions of cross-linguistic variation among KN/BPN null possessors—the development of a typology of bare KNs/BPNs, which may hopefully grow with studies of other languages.

One might naturally also ask if the conclusions about Vietnamese KNs/BPNs relative to Mandarin are surprising or even concerning. From a certain perspective, Vietnamese and Mandarin are interestingly observed to show opposite patternings with null possessors, as noted in (76).

(76)	Vietnamese KNs are more restricted in their distribution than BPNs.
	Chinese BPNs are more restricted in their distribution than KNs.

We suggest that there is actually no theoretical reason why the null possessors of KNs vs. BPNs should be expected to pattern uniformly within a single language or in an identical way across languages with regard to locality (resulting from syntactic identity)—in other words, no reason why KNs should necessarily be consistently more or less restricted in their locality than BPNs. Possessors and possession relations may be structurally realized in different ways across languages, as found, for example, in the variation that occurs in ‘possessor raising’ patterns both across and within individual languages (Deal, 2013; Tyler, 2019). We submit that the syntactic identity of null possessors with kin terms and body part nouns may well vary across languages, just as the identity of other types of null elements in argument positions may be non-uniform and result from different instances of pro, ellipsis, operations of movement, etc. In brief, there is no fundamental property of KNs and BPNs that should require their possessors to exhibit fully parallel morpho-syntactic properties either within or across languages, and variation, when attested, should not be viewed as strikingly unexpected.

Though KNs and BPNs may consequently develop null possessor syntax that is independent and distinct, we believe that a closer parallelism might be anticipated to occur between the patterning of BPNs and a third ‘type’ of noun which involves a regular possession relation—Part-Whole Nouns/PWNs, such as those illustrated in (77) (PWNs underlined):

(77)	‘a/this car and its steering wheel’
	‘a/this book and its cover’,
	‘a/this house and its roof’

BPNs are, in essence, simply the animate equivalent of a Part/Whole relation, with an animate/human rather than an inanimate antecedent possessor—in both instances, there is a quasi-inalienable relation of a part to a whole:

(78)	‘the man—his arm’
	‘John—his hair’
	‘Nga—her eyes’

Given the semantic similarity between BPNs and PWNs, it might, therefore, be expected that BPNs and PWNs would exhibit a similar/parallel distribution and be assumed to project null possessors with shared properties. This, indeed, is found to be the case in Vietnamese. PWNs in Vietnamese pattern very much like BPNs and are very free in their distribution. They do not need to be c-commanded by their antecedents, like BPNs:

(79)	Khi	mấy tên cướp biển	lên được tàu,	chúng	đã cướp cái mỏ neo.
	When	pirates	board ship	PL	PST steal CL anchor
	‘When the pirates boarded the ship, they stole its anchor’.

(80)	Sau khi	tên lửa	cất cánh,	khoang nhiên liệu	rơi xuống	Trái Đất.
	after	rocket	took off,	fuel pod	fell to	Earth.
	‘After the rocket took off, its fuel-pod fell to earth’.

Additionally, PWNs can occur separated from their antecedents by other, closer NPs, as BPNs can:

(81)	Quyển	sách		này,	tôi	rất	thích	trang bìa.
	CL	book	DEM		I	very	like	cover
	‘This book, I like its cover a lot’.

(82)	Chiếc	xe	này,	tôi	rất	thích	cái	bánh xe sau.
	CL	car	DEM,	I	very	like	CL	steering wheel
	‘This car, I like its steering wheel a lot’.

In this respect, it may be suggested that Vietnamese internally follows an expected patterning. Intriguingly, Mandarin Chinese is different in this regard. Ke (2023) reports that PWNs in Mandarin are very free in their distribution, as in Vietnamese. However, this contrasts with the distribution of BPNs in Mandarin, which is much more restricted and analyzed as resulting from the presence of null possessors, which are local anaphors. We believe it will be interesting for future studies on KNs and BPNs to further track the relation of BPNs to PWNs so as to establish whether Vietnamese indeed presents a more unmarked pattern, with a close distributional connection between BPNs and PWNs.

Another potentially fruitful topic for future studies focused on Vietnamese and certain other languages may be an investigation of the use of classifiers with KNs and BPNs. In the course of the present study, it was observed that, in certain instances, KNs and BPNs may only be acceptable/natural if a classifier is combined with them (without any numeral), resulting in a [CL + N] constituent—a ‘bare classifier’ structure (L. L.-S. Cheng & Sybesma, 2005; Simpson et al., 2011; Jenks, 2018). Hence, the use of a classifier (which is optional in other contexts) makes an unacceptable structure acceptable. This improvement effect is illustrated in (83–85) below, where the target sentences are felt to be degraded without the presence of a classifier on the KN or BPN:

(83)	A: Nam is very upset right now.
	B: Why? What happened?
	A: Vài kẻ bắt cóc	đã	bắt giữ	?(đứa)	con trai	vào hôm qua.
	Some kidnapper	PST	seize	CL	son	yesterday.
	‘Yesterday some kidnappers seized Nam’s son’.

(84)	A: What’s wrong with Roro? Why is he howling?
	B: Lỗi của tôi.	Tôi	dẫm	lên	?(cái)	đuôi.
	fault of I.	I	step	on	CL	tail.
	‘Its my fault. I stepped on his tail’8.

(85)	Ngak	thì	tôi	thậm chí	còn chưa	thấy	mặt	?(người)	bạn trai.
	Nga	thì	I	even	still not yet	see	face	CL	boyfriend.
	‘I still haven’t even seen Nga’s boyfriend’.

This naturally raises the question of why/how the use of classifiers sometimes improves degraded occurrences of BPNs/KNs. At this point, pending further careful investigation, which will have to be carried out in future work, we speculate that the use of classifiers with KNs and BPNs may enable a different mode of linking between nouns and ‘antecedent’ NPs, similar to the use of definite articles in place of overt possessors in other languages, which is not subject to obvious locality or c-command requirements. In languages such as English, KNs and BPNs most commonly occur with possessive adjectives such as ‘his father/leg’, but in certain contexts, such modifiers may also be replaced with the definite determiner ‘the’ resulting in [Det N] constituents of the type ‘the father/the leg’, as illustrated in (86–87). PWNs also regularly permit the use of definite determiners as an alternant to possessive adjectives (88):

(86)	KNs. Context: A teacher speaking to a colleague about who is scheduled to collect a group of children from school after a special activity:
	‘As for this student, his/the father is going to pick him up’.

(87)	BPNs. Context: A nurse is reporting information about patients to a doctor who is touring a hospital ward:
	‘As for this patient, his/the leg was injured by falling debris’.

(88)	PWNs. Context: Someone considering purchasing a house comments on the positive and negative features of individual houses:
	‘As for this house, I like its/the roof and its/the windows’.

In Vietnamese, simple classifier + noun combinations (‘bare classifier’ constructions without numerals [CL N]) frequently have definite interpretations that equate with determiner + N pairs in English. We believe that this is an interesting parallel to explore further—whether the referential linking of possessed KNs, BPNs, and PWNs realized as [CL+N] pairs in Vietnamese converges with the use of [Det+N] forms with possessed KN/BPN/PWN nouns in English and makes use of a common mode of association with antecedent possessors which appears to be less constrained than the use of null possessors. As bare classifier constructions also occur in various regional varieties of Chinese (including Cantonese and many varieties of Wu Chinese—L. L.-S. Cheng & Sybesma, 2005; Li & Bisang, 2012; Jian, 2015) as well as north Indic languages (including Bangla, Assamese, Oriya—Dayal, 2012; Simpson & Biswas, 2016) and Hmong (Bisang, 1993), comparative work on the use of [CL+N] patterns as alternants to null possessor patterns with KNs and BPNs could very usefully be into extended into Sinitic and Indian languages. We will need to leave such a broad typological investigation for a future time.