Chapter 4 Findings
4.4 Aspectual Variations of Tuī and Lā
Previous studies have argued that the aspectual properties of verbs serve to convey the argument realization revealed in the type of events involved in a verb (Vendler 1957, 1967;
Smith 1983, 1991, 1997; Van Voorst 1988; Levin & Rappaport 2005). In the causal events of tuī 推 ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull,’ the aspectual properties are varied which thus, reveal that the causal events of tuī 推 ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’ may be classified into two major groups:
motional and non-motional usages. The aspectual variations are listed below:
(33) Collocation with the PROGRESSIVE aspectual marker zài 在/ zhèng zài 正在 Motional
他在/正在推/拉車子進學校，
tā zài/zhèngzài tuī/lā chēzi jìn xuéxiào he ASP push/pull car enter school
‘He is pushing/pulling the car into school.’
Non-motional
(a) 林老師在/正在推邀請。
lín lǎo shī zài/zhèngzài tuī yāoqǐng
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lin teacher ASP push invitation
‘‘Teacher Lin is rejecting the invitations.’
(b) 記者在/正在拉時間，
jìzhě zài/zhèngzài lā shíjiān reporter ASP pull time
‘The reporter is prolonging time.’
(34) Collocation with the PERFECTIVE aspectual marker 了 le Motional
毛家三兄弟在蘇州橋上推/拉了小車，
máo jiā sān xiōngdì zài sūzhōuqiáoshàng tuī/lālexiǎochē
Mao house three brothers at Suzho bridge up push/pull ASP small-car
‘The three Mao brothers pushed/pulled a small car while on Suzho Bridge.’
Non-motional
(a) 民主黨拉了許多票。
mínzhǔdǎng lāle xǔduō piào democrats pull ASP many vote
‘The democrats won a lot of votes.’
(b) 他推了俊詳為領導者，
tā tuīle jùnxiáng wèi lǐngdǎozhě he push ASP Junxiang as leader
‘He recommended Junxiang as the leader.’
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(35) Collocation with the PERFECTIVE aspectual marker guò 過 Motional
毛家三兄弟在蘇州橋上推/拉過小車，
máo jiā sān xiōngdì zài sūzhōuqiáoshàng tuī/lā guò xiǎochē
Mao house three brothers at Suzho bridge up push/pull ASP small-car
‘The three Mao brothers once pushed/pulled a small car while on Suzho Bridge.’
Non-motional
(a) 民主黨拉過許多票。
mínzhǔdǎng lāguò xǔduō piào democrats pull ASP many vote
‘The democrats once won a lot of votes.’
(b) 他推過俊詳為領導者，
tā tuīguòjùnxiáng wèi lǐngdǎozhě he push ASP Junxiang as leader
‘He once recommended Junxiang as the leader.’
(36) Collocation with the DURATIVE aspectual marker zhe 著 Motional
(a) 他推著輪椅進學校上課，
tā tuī zhe lúnyǐ jìn xuéxiào shàngkè he push ASP wheelchair enter school class
‘He pushed the wheelchair into school for classes.’
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(b) 他們會拉著你到一個人少的角落，
tāmen huì lā zhe nǐ dào yī-gè rén shǎo de jiǎoluò they will pull ASP you arrive one people few DE corner ‘They will pull you to a corner where less people are around.’
(c) 母親推著小孩參觀美術館，
mǔqīn tuī zhe xiǎohái cānguān měishùguǎn mother push ASP child visit museum ‘Mother pushed the child to visit the museum.’
(d) 王叔叔拉著母親一起合照，
ｗáng shūshu lā zhe mǔqīn yīqǐ hézhào Wang uncle pull ASP mom together take-picture ‘Uncle Wang pulled mom to take a picture together.’
Non-motional
(a) *民主黨拉著許多票。
mínzhǔdǎng lā zhexǔduō piào democrats pull ASP many vote
‘The democrats won a lot of votes.’
(b) *他推著俊詳為領導者，
tā tuī zhejùnxiáng wèi lǐngdǎozhě he push ASP Junxiang as leader
‘He recommended Junxiang as the leader.’
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(c) *林老師推著邀請。
lín lǎo shī yòu zài tuī yāoqǐng lin teacher again is push invitation
‘Teacher Lin is pushing off invitations again.’
(d) *記者拉著時間，
jìzhělāzhe shíjiān reporter pull ASP time
‘The reporter prolonged the time.’
By considering the above examples from (33) to (36), it is observed that the events of tuī 推 ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’ do not have much variations in aspectual markings. Both motional and non-motional events of tuī 推 ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’ may collocate with aspectual markers such as zài 在/zhèng zài 正在 (33), le 了(34), and guò 過 (35). This illustrates that Mandarin tuī 推 ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’ belong to the event type of activity verbs (Liao 2003), since ‘they generally signal the active participation and involvement of an animate subject in an event’ (Li & Thompson 1981, 6:217). However, taking a closer look at examples (36) with the collocation of durative aspectual marker zhe 著, it is observed that there’s an aspectual variation between the motional events of tuī 推 ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’ with the non-motional ones. This is because zhe 著 specifies a durative state that signals a certain ‘manner of existence,’ ‘manner of movement,’ or ‘accompanying manner’ (Yip & Rammington 2004) which we will explain in chapter 5.
Based on our aspectual distributional frequency below (table 12), we can vividly observe that other from the most frequently occurring form [V+Ø ] with tuī 推 ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’
used independently, we also found that ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’ frequently collocate with durative aspectual marker zhe 著 as in the form [V+著] illustrated below:
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Table 12: The aspectual variations of Tuī and Lā
By observing table 12, it is shown that the form [V+著] is the second highest frequency (35.3% tuī 推 for and 36% for lā 拉); therefore, leading us to wonder if there are any semantic distinctions between ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’ used independently and those that collocate with aspectual marker zhe 著? In order to explore this issue, let’s move on to the mapping of aspectual marker zhe 著 with its respective syntactic forms presented in the following table:
Verb Patterns
Tuī (344) Lā (355)
Count Frequency Count Frequency NP1<V+著<NP2<Coverb+NP3<(VP) 205 60% 235 66%
NP1<V+著<NP2<VP 139 40% 120 34%
Table 13: The distributional frequency of Tuī and Lā with Aspectual Zhe
With regard to the above aspectual distributional frequencies (table 12 and 13), it is revealed that the events of tuī 推 ‘push’ and lā 拉 ‘pull’ with the caused-motion pattern of [NP1 V+著 NP2 PP (VP)] and the typical serial verb construction of [NP1 V+著 NP2 VP]
may involve two subtypes: 1) those with the main predicate only ([V+Ø ]), that is, tuī 推 ‘push’
and lā 拉 ‘pull’ used independently and 2) those with the main predicate and the durative
Count Frequency Count Frequency
V+Ø
475 47.4% 473 46.7%V+著
35435.3%
36536.0%
V+了
88 8.8% 97 9.6%在/正在+ V 45 4.5% 48 4.7%
V+過
41 4.1% 30 3.0%73
there will be some collocational constraints that results in the semantic distinctions between the two subtypes.