2. Literature Review
2.2 Lexicalist Account
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
VP1
DP V1’
V1 V2P
DP V2’
[CAUSE]
<UNERGATIVE> V2 VP3 ti-po-le
kick-broken-ASP DP V3’
[BECOME]
V3 x y t
Zhangsan qiuxie <STATE>
Zhangsan sneakers
With the derivational templates and the syntactic constraints that regulate the predications of the verb components in resultative compounds, the argument realizations and interpretations of the compounds should be comprehensively accounted for. However, problems arise in this methodology of analysis. It
undergenerates and the causativity of resultative compounds described in it does not conform to the interpretations of the compounds. These problems will be discussed in later chapters.
2.2 Lexicalist Account
The issues of causativity and argument realization of Chinese resultative
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
compounds have also been approached from a lexicalist point of view. But before moving to the issues of resultative compounds, how the lexicalist approach treats the relationship between argument structure and grammatical functions is to be made clear. Within the framework of Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) raised by Bresnan (1990, 2001), the diverse constituent structures (c-structures) of different languages are not derived from a unified underlying structure, unlike the traditional view taken by Generative Grammar like Chomsky’s (1981, 1995) Government and Binding (GB) or the Minimalist Program (MP). No syntactic derivations are involved in the
structures of languages, be it a hierarchical language like English or a flat language like Warlpiri4 (Bresnan, 2001). The marking of constituency in flat languages is indeed a lexical process. Since no syntactic derivation is involved in languages, what constituents appear in what grammatical functions is treated as a lexical relational issue in LFG. For example, passivization is seen as a syntactic transformation caused by the search of Case in Generative Grammar (Burzio, 1986). However, in LFG, it is more of a lexical operation that involves the mappings of arguments to different grammatical functions.
Also a relational lexical operation, causativization could be analyzed similarly.
Through the process of causativization, the causativized predicate may have its
4 Warlpiri is an indigenous language in Australia. The language has a ‘flat’ constituent structure, where the constituents in the sentence can occur in any order as long as the auxiliary tense marker occurs in the second position.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
arguments end up in different grammatical functions as opposed to its active
counterpart. It is along this line of reasoning that Chinese resultative compounds are inspected by many researchers (Her, 2004, 2007, 2009; Li, 1995; Shibagaki, 2009).
Not all of the Chinese resultative compounds are related to causativity; for those that do incorporate causativity in them, researchers have tried to capture the causative reading in the resultative compounds by various means. Li (1995), as one of the researchers, has proposed the concept of Causative Hierarchy to resolve the intricate interpretations of the resultative compounds in question.
The resultative compound of this kind first documented in Li’s (1995) analysis was zhui-lei (chase-tired). Three possible interpretations could result from the
sentence ‘Zhangsan zhui-lei-le Lisi’:
(19) Zhangsan zhui-lei-le Lisi John chase-tired-ASP Lee
a. ‘John chased Lee to the extent of making him (Lee) tired.’
b. *‘Lee chased John and he (John) got tired.’
c. ‘John chased Lee and (John) got tired.’
d. ‘Lee chased John and was made tired (by John).’
Interpretations (19a) and (19d) both have a causative meaning. Since none of the verbs in the resultative construction are causative themselves, Li (1995) claims that
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
the causative reading is achieved through the combination of the two verbs into a resultative compound. The causative reading is due to the assignment of the causative roles (C-roles) received from Rs in the V-R compounds to the grammatical functions, based on Causative Hierarchy; i.e., the more prominent Cause to the more prominent Subject and the less prominent Affectee to the less prominent Object. In his account, the more prominent Cause role could be assigned to the more prominent Subject even though the Cause as well as the theta role of the R is a less prominent role on
Thematic Hierarchy (Bresnan and Kanerva, 1989, 1992) as opposed to the theta role of the V in the V-R compound:
(20) Thematic Hierarchy (Bresnan and Kanerva, 1989, 1992):
ag ＞ ben ＞ go/exp ＞ inst ＞ pt/th ＞ loc
In the prediction of Thematic Hierarchy, a more prominent theta role should be linked to a more prominent grammatical function. Therefore, Agent is usually linked to Subject since Agent is the most prominent role and Subject the most prominent function. But Li’s (1995) analysis of linking a less prominent theta role with the Cause role to a more prominent function indicates that Causative Hierarchy overrides Thematic Hierarchy. With an extra syntactic construct of Causative Hierarchy, Li
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
indeed poses a con to the elegance of his theory if the solution to the problem of interpreting causativity in resultative compounds could be sought entirely lexically without having to resort to any extra device. Since causativization in many languages is viewed to be a lexical relational operation like passivization (Aissen, 1979; Alsina, 1996; Bresnan, 1990; Falk, 2001), Her (2007) has further pursued this issue of resultative compounds with causative meanings by means of LFG, which treats lexical relational operations as the alternations of argument-function mapping.
In Her’s (2007) analysis, the various argument-function mappings of the theta roles of Chinese resultative compounds, along with causative readings, result from the competition between the arguments for the two available syntactic positions. Using the aforementioned resultative compound, zhui-lei, in Li’s (1995) analysis, Her (2007) demonstrates how the arguments of the verbs form a composite role and explicates how they manifest in the grammatical functions by introducing the syntactic concept of suppression. Having inspected the argument structure of resultative compounds, Her (2007) comes up with the argument compositions of the verbs as follows:
(21) Resultative Compounding (Her, 2007):
Vcaus ＜x y＞+ Vres ＜z＞→
Vcaus Vres＜α β＞, where ＜α β＞= (i) ＜x y-z＞
(ii) ＜x-z y＞
‧
As can be seen in (21), the first verb component of resultative compounds, Vcaus
requires two arguments while the second verb component, Vres requires one. When they combine to form a resultative compound, their argument structures merge and two possibilities of the argument structures ensue. With the syntactic operation of suppression introduced for a strict one-to-one mapping requirement in LFG, Her (2007) successfully predicts all the possible interpretations a transitive resultative compound like that in (19) could contain5:
(22) Zhangsan zhui-lei-le Lisi John chase-tired-ASP Lee
Vzhui ＜ag pt＞+ Vlei ＜th＞→
Vzhui Vlei＜α β＞, where ＜α β＞=
(i) ＜ag pt-th6＞
‘John chased Lee to the extent of making him (Lee) tired.’
(ii) ＜ag pt-th＞
‘John chased Lee to the extent of making him (Lee) tired.’
(iii) ＜ag-th pt＞
‘John chased Lee and (John) got tired.’
5 Mechanisms regulating how the argument-function mapping takes place in LFG will be given with more details in Chapter 3.
6 The concept of suppression is merely a syntactic device and functions in order to provide proper argument realization patterns of Chinese resultative compounds. Which argument is suppressed does not come through as a semantic difference in the interpretations of the compounds. Take (22i) and (22ii) for example, the interpretations are practically the same despite that different arguments are suppressed in the two argument structures. Although one of the arguments in the composite role is suppressed syntactically, its meaning is still understood with its syntactically unsuppressed companion. In other words, the objects in (22i) and (22ii) all represent the patient of zhui and the theme of lei no matter which argument is syntactically realized. Suppression of the role is indicated by crossing out the role.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
(iv) ＜ag-th pt＞
‘Lee chased John and was made tired (by John).’