Both accounts discussed in 3.4 and 3.5 impose an underlying bi-clausal structure on the inversion construction. However, a vp-stacking analysis requires evidence such as the multiple adverbial positions shown in (57b-c).
(57) a. John –ed
e the ball roll down the hill.
b. John gently rolled the ball down the hill.
c. John rolled the ball gently down the hill.
A syntactically derived construction thus must exhibit some robustness in syntactic behavior and a considerable degree of productivity. The inversion verbs do not fit either criterion. As we have demonstrated, the inversion construction is highly restricted in its syntactic behavior, prohibiting even negation or A-not-A question. Furthermore, we have also demonstrated that the verbs allowed in the inversion construction, though unified under a-structure <ag th>, are highly unproductive. We will now explore the issue of productivity further.
First of all, subject-object inversion verbs seem to be monosyllabic. All the examples cited by Ren (2005) and in other works cited therein, as well as all the examples my informants and myself can come up with, are monosyllabic verbs.
However, there are plenty of bisyllabic verbs in Chinese (e.g., Chung 2005). To illustrate, xiangyong ‘enjoy using, eat’ is often used as a polite and formal substitute for chi ‘eat’. And when it comes to the intake of internal medicine, either chi or
fuyong can be used as the verb, again the latter being more formal. However,
inversion is not allowed with the two bi-syllabic alternatives, in spite of their identical semantic content with chi ‘eat’. This kind of phonological constraint is characteristic of morphological operations, not syntactic derivation.Furthermore, a precise semantic characterization of the verbs allowed in the construction proves elusive. Ren (2005: 16) observes that inversion verbs must denote an action at the completion of which the theme is to be occupied or possessed. Accommodation verbs certainly fit the description, and consumption does entail possession, so this also covers consumption verbs. This considerably further narrows down the <ag th> verbs allowed and also nicely unifies verbs of accommodation and verbs of consumption. However, there are many exceptions.
When one buys something, one ends up possessing it, but mai ‘buy’ is not allowed, nor is any of the following: shou ‘receive’, jie ‘borrow’, na ‘take’, qu
‘take’, tou ‘steal’, qiang ‘rob’, de ‘obtain’, you ‘have’, bao ‘hug, embrace’, and
zhan ‘occupy’. The two verbs chi ‘eat’ and tun ‘swallow’ are fairly close in
meaning, and something swallowed is certainly occupied, but tun allows no inversion between the swallower and the swallowee, nor do yan ‘swallow’, yao‘bite’, chang ‘taste’, tian ‘lick’, and jiao ‘chew’. Interestingly, while jiao ‘chew’ is not good, ken ‘chew (on)’ is acceptable, presumably because in certain contexts, ken actually means to chew and eat.
(58) Zhe guo jizhua neng ken/*jiao ji ge ren?
this pot chicken-feet can chew how-many CL person
‘How many people can chew this pot of chicken feet and be fed?’
While
he ‘drink’ is good, xi ‘suck’, as in xi kele ‘sucking coke’, is not, both
referring to a similar action of getting liquid into the mouth. However, when the same verb xi refers to the sucking of smoke into the mouth, as in xi xuejia ‘smoking cigars’, or the sucking of powder into the nose, as in xi gukejian ‘sniffing cocaine’, inversion is allowed.(59) a.*Yi guan kele xi liang ge ren.
one can coke suck two CL person
‘One can of coke accommodates the drinking by two people.’
b. Yi bao yan xi shi ge ren.
one pack cigarette suck ten CL person
‘One pack of cigarettes accommodates the smoking by ten people.’
c. Yi angsi gukejian xi san ge ren.
one ounce cocaine suck three CL person
‘One ounce of cocaine accommodates the sniffing by three people.’
On the other hand, Ren’s generalization also undergenerates. Take xi for example. The ill-formed (60b) is accounted for, because at the completion of washing, possession is not entailed. However, the well-formed (61b) is a surprise.
The soap after washing is gone, not possessed or occupied.
(60) a. Liang ge ren xi zhe tiao maotan.
two CL person wash this CL blanket ‘Two people wash this blanket.’
b.*Zhe tiao maotan xi liang ge ren.21 this CL blanket wash two CL person
(61) a. Shi ge ren xi zhe kuai feizao.
ten CL person wash this block soap
‘Ten people use this block of soap to wash themselves.’
b. Zhe kuai feizao xi shi ge ren.
this block soap wash ten CL person
‘A block of soap accommodates the washing by ten people.’
Likewise, the grammatical shua ‘brush’ in (62b) is unaccounted for, because at the completion of the brushing of teeth, the toothpaste in question has been consumed but not possessed as is in the case of food and beverages.
(62) a. Shi ge ren shua yi tiao yagao.
ten CL person brush one tube toothpaste
‘Ten people use one tube of toothpaste for brushing (teeth).’
b. Yi tiao yagao shua shi ge ren.
one tube toothpaste brush ten CL person
‘A tube of toothpaste accommodates the brushing (of teeth) by ten people.’
The point is quite clear, then. All these idiosyncrasies in syntactic behavior and arbitrary gaps in lexical generalization all point to a morpholexical solution, not a syntactic one. A morpholexical operation is proposed in (63) to account for the additional extent role bound with the existing agent role, which explains the fact that the inverted agent, now the object, also denotes the extent of the action.22 Following Huang (1992), the term ‘composite’ role will be used to refer to a role formed by two composing roles, such as ag-ext.
(63) Extent-addition morpholexical operation:
Va<x y>*, x = ag & y = th, Æ Va <x-z
y>, z = ext
*Va denotes an action at the completion of which x is to be possessed, occupied, or consumed by y.23
In this informal formulation, the verb class of Va in (63) is also understood to have many gaps and allow certain exceptions. In terms of linking, both <ag-ext-SUBJ th-OBJ> or <ag-ext-OBJ th-SUBJ> are well-formed. Before going into the specific problem this inversion poses for linking, we should demonstrate that in the inverted sentences it is indeed subject-object inversion; in other words, the inverted theme is indeed the subject and the inverted agent the object. Examples of the subject raising construction are given in (64) to demonstrate that the preverbal NPs are indeed (raised) subjects (Tan 1991). In (64a), shi is a raising verb24, and so is yinggai ‘should’ in (64b); thus, the only preceding NP can only be a subject in both sentences.
(64) a. Zhe zhang chuang shi shui tamen si ge ren.
this CL bed SHI sleep they four CL person ‘This bed does sleep those four people.’
b. Zhe guo rou yinggai chi tamen liang ge ren.
this pot meat should eat they two CL person
‘This pot of meat should feed/serve those two people.’
Furthermore, as convincingly argued for in Sybesma (1999), all postverbal bare nominals in Chinese are complements, not adjuncts. Thus, the unmarked postverbal NPs in (64) must be non-oblique objects. Again, evidence
(65) a. Zhe zhang chuang ba tamen si ge ren shui de this CL bed BA they four CL person sleep DE yao-suan-bei-tong.
ache-all-over
‘Sleeping in this bed has made those four people ache all over.’
b. Zhe guo rou ba tamen liang ge ren chi de xin-man-yi-zu.
this pot meat BA they two CL person eat DE fully-content ‘Eating this pot of meat made those two people fully content.’