On Causative Projections in Mandarin Chinese

Kuo, Pei-Jung

doi:10.30961/lr.2023.59.2.163

Lang. Res. 59(2):163-191

pISSN: 0254-4474, eISSN: 2586-7113

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30961/lr.2023.59.2.163

Article

On Causative Projections in Mandarin Chinese

Pei-Jung Kuo ¹ ^, ^†

Author Information & Copyright ▼

¹National Chiayi University

^†Corresponding Author: Professor Department of Foreign Languages National Chiayi University No.85, Wunlong Village, Minsyong Township, Chiayi County, Taiwan E-mail: domo@mail.ncyu.edu.tw

ⓒ Copyright 2023 Language Education Institute, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jun 02, 2023 ; Revised: Aug 04, 2023 ; Accepted: Aug 16, 2023

Published Online: Aug 31, 2023

ABSTRACT

In this study, I examine causative projections in the resultative construction in Mandarin Chinese. In comparing Tsai's (2015b) analysis of Chinese resultatives to that of Bi and Pan (2018), I argue that several pieces of evidence favor Bi and Pan's proposal, which situates the causative projection around the vP periphery. I suggest, however, that their structure could be further refined and propose a fine-grained structure that not only explains the behavior of the relevant resultative and causative constructions in Chinese but also accords with causative distributions cross-linguistically.

Keywords: outer light verb; causative projection; the ba construction; tripartite VP analysis; inner light verb

References

Alexiadou, A., Anagnostopoulou, E., & Schäfer, F. (2006). The properties of anticausatives crosslinguistically. In M. Frascarelli (Ed.), Phases of interpretation Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Bi, L. & Pan, H. (2018). On subject-oriented resultatives in Mandarin. Language and Linguistics, 19(3), 377-394.

Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

Collins, C. (2005). A smuggling approach to the passive in English. Syntax 8, 81-120.

Cuervo, M. 2003. Datives at large. Doctoral dissertation. MIT, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.

Ernst, T. (1995). Negation in Mandarin Chinese. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 13(4), 665-707.

Ernst, T. (2002). The syntax of adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fu, J. (1994). SOV word order in Chinese and IP specifier. Paper presented at NACCL-6, University of Southern California.

Hale, K., & Keyser, S. J. (1993). On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In K. Hale and S. J. Keyser (Eds.), The view from building 20: Essays in linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger, pp. 53-109. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

10.

Harley, H. (1995). Subjects, events, and licensing. Doctoral dissertation. MIT, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.

11.

Hu, J., Pan, H. & Xu, L. (2001). Is there a finite vs. nonfinite distinction in Chinese? Linguistics, 39(6), 1117-1148.

12.

Huang, C. J. (1988). Wo pao de kuai and Chinese phrase structure. Language, 64, 274-311.

13.

Huang, C. J., Li, Y. A., & Li, Y. (2009). The syntax of Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

14.

Jung, H. (2014). On the syntax of applicative and causative constructions. Doctoral dissertation. The University of Arizona.

15.

Kratzer, A. (1996). Severing the external argument from its verb. In J. Rooryck and L. Zaring (Eds.), Phrase structure and the lexicon, pp. 109-137. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

16.

Lam, C. (2018). Negation and aspect: A comparative study of Mandarin and Cantonese varieties. Doctoral dissertation. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

17.

Li, Y. (1997). Chinese resultative constructions and the UTAH. In J. Packard (Ed.), New approaches to word formation in Chinese, pp. 285-310. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

18.

Li, Y. A. (2006). Chinese Ba. In M. Everaert, & H. van Riemsdik (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, 1, pp. 374-468. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

19.

Li, C. N., & Thompson, S. A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

20.

Lin, H. L. (2021). The paradox of subject-oriented resultative compounds in Taiwan Southern Min. In Proceedings of the 35th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation, PACLIC 2021, pp.379-385. Shangha.

21.

Lin, T. J. (1998). On GE and other related problems. In L. Xu (Ed.), Collection des Cahiers de Linguistique, Asie Orientale 2: The Referential Properties of Chinese Noun Phrases, pp 209-253. Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

22.

Lin, T. J. (2001). Light verb syntax and the theory of phrase structure. Doctoral dissertation. University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, U.S.A.

23.

Lowe, E. J. (2008). Personal agency: The metaphysics of mind and action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

24.

Marantz, A. (1997). No escape from syntax: Don't try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon. Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 4.2, 201-225.

25.

Paul, W. (2002). Sentence-internal topics in Mandarin Chinese: the case of object preposing. Language and Linguistics, 3(4), 695-714.

26.

Pylkkänen, L. (2002). Introducing arguments. Doctoral dissertation. MIT, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.

27.

Pylkkänen, L. (2008). Introducing arguments. Cambridge: MIT Press.

28.

Soh, H. (2005). Mandarin distributive quantifier GE 'each', the structures of double complement constructions and the Verb-Preposition distinction. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 14, 155-173.

29.

Sybesma, R. (1992). Causatives and accomplishments: The case of the Chinese ba. Doctoral dissertation. Leiden University.

30.

Sybesma, R. (1999). The Mandarin VP. Springer Dordrecht.

31.

Tsai, W. D. (2007). On middle applicatives. Paper presented in the 6th GLOW in Asia, December 27-December 29, 2007, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

32.

Tsai, W. D. (2010). On the syntax semantics correspondences of Chinese modals. Studies of the Chinese Language, 3, 208-221.

33.

Tsai, W. D. (2015a). On the topography of Chinese Modals. In Ur Shlonsky (Ed.), Beyond functional sequence, pp. 275-294. New York: Oxford University Press. .

34.

Tsai, W. D. (2015b). A tale of two peripheries: Evidence from Chinese adverbials, light verbs, applicatives, and object fronting. In Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai (Ed.), The cartography of Chinese syntax, pp.1-32. New York: Oxford University Press.

35.

Tsai. W. D. (2017). On split affectivity in Chinese. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, New Series 47(2), 407-432.

36.

Wang, W. S. (1965). Two Aspect Markers in Mandarin. Language 41(3), 457-470.

37.

Zhao, C. (2021). On middle applicatives: Evidence from Mandarin BA. Internal Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 8(1), 35-72.