ABSTRACT
The hierarchical order established for “core” functional projections is fixed and is subject to the “Subjectivity Scale Constraint”. This order reveals that, the higher a functional projection is, the more directly such a projection is linked to the speaker’s opinion, and the more directly a functional projection is linked to the speaker’s opinion, the more subjective the interpretation of such a projection becomes. This chapter offers an independent argument, based on the embeddability of these functional projections. It discusses the embeddability of each of the functional projections. Subjectivity refers to the speaker’s own evaluation or commitment or opinion. Pan insists that two aspects concerning root phenomena should be checked: syntactic embeddability and semantic/pragmatic embeddability. Syntactic embeddability examines whether a given element or a specific syntactic form can exist in an embedded clause. Semantic/pragmatic embeddability examines whether a syntactically embedded element has exactly the same interpretation or the same discourse function in an embedded clause as in a root sentence.
