2. Literature Review
2.6 Summary
國
立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
(43) Declaratives
你去過那邊了, 不是嗎?
ni qu-guo nabian-le , bu-shi-ma you go Asp there-perfective , not-yes-Q You have been there, haven’t you?
(44) Imperatives
不准動, *不行嗎/*不好嗎?
bu zhun dong bu-xing-ma / bu-hao-ma Neg allow move not- feasible-Q / not-right-Q
‘Don’t you move, won’t you?’
In summary, the imperative is in fact a clause type in Chinese which can be distinguished by tag questions and rhetorical questions.
2.6 Summary
In this chapter, this thesis has reviewed some previous work on imperatives in Chinese. Under scrutiny, this thesis found that the previous analyses of Chinese imperatives lack theoretical grounds, as several problems and wrong prediction arise under those analyses.
In Chapter Three, this thesis will classify Chinese imperatives and further examine the situational type of verb predicates, verb types, aspect markers, temporal adverbials, and sentential /adverbial adverbs for all types of imperatives to generalize the syntactic characteristics of Chinese imperatives in the course of the argumentation.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
3.0 Introduction
In this chapter, this thesis first classifies Chinese imperatives into two main categories: positive imperatives and negative imperatives (Yuan, 1993). In positive imperatives, the unmarked type and marked type are distinguished by the polite verbs qing and preposition phrase gei wo. Then, this thesis examines the situational type of verb predicates, verb types, aspect markers, temporal adverbials, and sentential /adverbial adverbs for all types of imperatives. The characteristics of Chinese imperatives will be manifested throughout the course of the following argumentation.
3.1. Positive Imperatives
3.1.1 Unmarked Type
The most commonly used positive imperatives are sentences with verb phrases or predicates alone as (45) to (51) below.
(45) 坐下來! Activity/stage level predicate zuo xialai
Sit down ‘Sit down!’
(46) a.*高興! State/stage level predicate gaoxing
happy ‘Be happy! ’
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
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b. 高興點!
gaoxing -dian happy diminutive ‘Be more happy!’
(47)*流血! State liuxie
bleed ‘Bleed!’
(48) 畫一幅畫! Accomplishment hua yi-fu hua!
paint one -CL picture ‘Paint a picture!’
(49) 贏那場比賽! Achievement ying na-chang bisai!
Win that -CL game ‘Win that game!’
(50) *聰明! Individual level predicate congming
smart ‘Be smart!’
(51) *漂亮! Individual level predicate piaoliang
beautiful ‘Be beautiful!’
As shown in the sentences above, this thesis notes that not all verbs or predicates can form imperatives. Activity verbs, as in (45), are able to form imperatives, whereas
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
state verbs, such as gaoxing ‘happy’ or liuxie ‘bleed’, are not permitted to be expressed as imperatives. In (48) and (49), stage level predicates, such as accomplishments and achievements, grammatically form imperatives. In contrast, individual level predicates in (50) and (51) are ungrammatical in the imperative form.
The above sentences imply that imperatives require active verbs and semantic agents as their subjects. That is, the imperative is restricted to a situation in which there is an agent.
In (46a), the state verb gaoxing ‘happy’ is unable to form an imperative, but dian
‘diminutive’ indicating the change of state makes the (46b) grammatical. The collocation between imperatives and verb types is summarized in Table 5 below.
Table 5 Collocation between Imperatives and Verb Types
Verb Type Example Collocation
with imperative
State liuxie X
Active zuo xialai
ˇ
Accomplishment hua yi-fu hua!
ˇ
Stage level predicate
Achievement ying na-chang bisai!
ˇ
Individual level predicate
State congming X
That fact that imperatives require semantic agents is further supported by the collocation of verb types and imperatives. An unaccusative verb is an intransitive verb whose syntactic subject is not a semantic agent, but a theme. In contrast, an
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
unergative verb is an intransitive verb whose syntactic subject is a semantic agent. A transitive verb is a verb whose syntactic subject is a semantic agent and whose syntactic object is a semantic theme/patient. A causative verb is a verb whose syntactic subject is a causer and whose syntactic object is a theme/patient. The following, (52) to (55), below illustrate the four different verb types as well as their argument structures.
(52) Unergative {Agent verb}
你笑 ni xiao you smile
‘You smile!’
(53) Unaccusative { Themei verb i} a.*你死
ni si you die
‘You go die.’
b.*冰溶化
bing ronghua4 Ice melt
‘Ice melt!’
c.*房子倒
fangzi dao house collapse
‘*House collapse!’
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
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(54) Transitive {Agent verb Theme}
你說實話 !
ni shuo shihua You say truth
‘You tell me the truth ! ’
(55) Causative {Causer verb Theme}
你關上門
ni guan-shang men you close up door
‘You close the door !’
In observing the above positive imperative sentences, this thesis finds that the unaccuastive verb, whose syntactic subject is not a semantic agent, cannot appear in the imperative form. This indicates that Chinese imperatives require semantic agents as syntactic subjects.
As mentioned in the literature review, the cross-linguistic investigation of imperatives indicates that imperatives possess a distinct morphology within the verb, or distinct syntax from other clause types in other languages. On the contrary, Chinese does not utilize any verb affixes or other morphosyntactic mechanisms to indicate mood; hence, on the surface, imperatives in Chinese are similar to declaratives. Given that the means in other languages for verifying the status of a sentence as an imperative are not available in Chinese, it is necessary to employ other means to do so;
such means can be viewed as a language-specific parameter. Apart from illocutionary force and imperative mood, this study proposes that imperatives can be distinguished from other clause types in Chinese, and that this can be done so by the regulation of
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the argument structure of verbs. That is, Chinese imperatives require semantic agents4 as syntactic subjects.
The following (56) to (59) show the collocation between aspect markers and imperatives.
4 The proto-typical imperative subject is agent, while in some occasion, theme is also grammatical as the imperative subject as the following sentence (53’) with the
psychological verb.
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立 政 治 大 學
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e.*眨了眼!
zha- le yan blink -phase eye
‘*Finish blinking your eyes.’
(57) *看過那部電影!
kan-guo na- chang dianying Watch Asp that- CL movie ‘*Watched that movie!’
(58) 看著我的眼睛!
kan- zhe wo- de yanjing look -Asp 1st possessive eye ‘Keep looking at my eyes!’
(59) *在唱歌!
zai-changge Asp sing ‘*Be singing!’
Generally, -le is unable to occur in imperatives which denote an imperfective event, as illustrated in (56a) and (56b). In (56d) and (56e), verbs such as zha ‘blink’
and diedao ‘fall down’ are unable to form imperatives with the perfective marker –le, whereas (56c) chi-le wucan is considered grammatical. This leads us to conclude that the lexicon plays a crucial role in determining whether the verb can occur with –le and grammatically form imperatives. If the lexicon denotes an event which is a durative process such as chi wucan ‘eat lunch’ in (56c), -le is grammatical in the imperatives. On the other hand, if the lexicon denotes a punctual event, then -le cannot occur with the lexicon to form an imperative.
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
In (57) above, the experiential marker –guo, which suggests that something happened in the past, is also found to be incompatible with imperatives. The incompatibility between verbs and -guo can be understood by taking the semantic perspective into consideration. Semantically, imperatives act as commands which encourage or prevent a particular event from happening. Hence, the aspect marker -guo, suggesting a past bound event, is not compatible with imperatives. The above sentences also indicate that verb phrasal imperatives cannot denote a perfective aspect;
instead, they must be an unbounded event and denote a future orientation.
On the contrary, in (58) above, imperatives are found to be compatible with -zhe, which is a post verbal marker indicating continuous durativity. A continuous durativity event is unbounded and imperfective; and therefore, grammatical in imperatives. On the other hand, as seen as in (59) above, given imperatives cannot command an event which is already underway; they cannot collocate with -zai, which is a pre-verbal marker indicating progressive durativity.
The above examples indicate that imperatives are unbounded and future-oriented;
that fact can be further supported by the collocation of time adverbials as in the following (60) below.
(60) a.明天練習!
Mingtian liansi tomorrow practice ‘Practice tomorrow!
b.*昨天練習!
Zuotian liansi yesterday practice ‘Practice yesterday!’
Imperatives with activity predicates are compatible with future adverbials such
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
as mingtian ‘tomorrow’, but not with past adverbials such as zuotian ‘yesterday’.
Thus, the above indicates imperatives are unbounded and future-oriented.
Now consider (61) below, which examines imperatives with manner and sentential adverbs.
(61) a.你慢慢地走 manner adverb Ni manmandi zou
you slowly walk ‘You walk slowly’
b.*你一定犯錯! sentential adverb Ni3 yiding fancuo
you definitely make mistake ‘You definitely make mistakes.
In (61) above, verb phrasal imperatives can take a manner adverbial, but cannot take a sentential adverbial.
In summary, verb phrasal imperatives are syntactically quite similar to Chinese declaratives on the surface, but their peculiarity lies in the fact that they impose the above semantic and syntactic constraints on the verb predicates.
3.1.2 Marked Type
Qing is a polite verb used in imperatives to soften a command and show politeness, as in (62) below. Qing can occur in the initial position in a sentence or after the subject.
(62) a.請你喝杯水
Qing ni he-bei shui Please you drink-CL water
‘Please drink (some) water.’
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
b.請坐下 Qing zuoxia
please sit down
‘Please sit down.’
There are two other forms, ba and gei wo, which can soften or strengthen the command. As mentioned in Section 2.5, Li (2006) claims that ba marks a low degree of strength, implying that the speaker is more flexible in terms of whether the action is actually carried out or not. Thus, if a speaker would like to turn a command imperative into a suggestion, he or she can add the sentence particle ba to the end of the sentence, as in (63) below.
(63) 去打掃你的房間吧! .
Qu dasao ni-de fangjian ba go clean your-possessive room particle
‘Clean your room! ’
On the other hand, if the speaker would like to strengthen the degree of command, he or she can add the preposition phrase gei wo to the imperatives, as in (64) below.
(64) 你給我坐下
ni gei wo zuoxia you give I sit down ‘You sit down on me.
However, both ba and gei wo are not used exclusively in Chinese imperatives.
Since they cannot be treated as imperative markers in Chinese, this thesis will further discuss gei wo in Chapter Five.
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
3.2 Negative Imperatives
3.2.1 Negators in Chinese
The two most common negators in Chinese are bu, mei (meiyou), as in (65) below.
(65) a. 他不念書
ta1 bu nianshu 3SG NEG study
‘ He does not study.’
b. 他沒有開門
ta meiyou kaimen 3SG NEG open door
‘He didn’t open the door.’ (Li & Thompson 1981: 417, 418) Neither bu nor mei you are able to form imperatives by themselves. Hence, (66a) and (66b) below are acceptable only in the declarative form.
(66). a. 你不動
ni bu dong!
you neg move
‘You don't move.’
b. 你沒有忘記中飯
ni meiyou wangji zhongfan!
you Neg forget lunch ‘You didn’t forget your lunch!’
Bie is a polysemy with two different meanings and functions. Bie1 is specific to
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
imperatives and acts to prohibit a particular event from happening in the present and future, as in (67a) below. On the other hand, bie2 is used in declaratives and functions to express an assumption or a counter-factual proposition expressing the speaker’s wish, as in (67b) below.
(67) a. 你別動!
ni bie dong You Neg move ‘Don’t you move.’
b.颱風今晚登陸台灣東部, 他別已經去了花蓮 taifeng jinwan denglu4 Taiwan dongbu Typhoon tonight land Taiwan east
ta bie yijing qu- le5 Hualian He Neg already go-perfective Hualian
‘Tonight, the typhoon will strike eastern Taiwan. I hope that he hasn’t gone to Hualian yet.’
Bu can appear in imperatives and it expresses prohibition. When bu appears in a bie1 imperative, it always appears after bie1, as in (68) below.
(68) 別不理人 bie bu liren!
Neg Neg notice
‘Don’t ignore people’
Although bu may appear in imperatives, it seems that it falls within the scope of bie1 and does not contribute to the imperative force. In contrast, bie1 is conventionally associated with imperatives, and cannot be used in declaratives or interrogatives. Bie1 is incompatible with the sentence final ma, wh-words, and A-not-A interrogative forms, as seen in (69) and (70) below.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
(69)你別站在那裡
ni bie zhan zai nali.
you Neg stand at there
‘Don’t stand there.’
‘*You don’t stand there.’
(70) a.*你別動嗎 ?
ni bie dong ma?
you Neg move Q-particle b. *別把書給誰?
bie ba shu ge shei?
Neg ba book give who c. * 別在床上跑不跑?
bie zai chuanghang pao-bu- pao ? Neg at bed on jump neg jump
In summary, the fact that bie1 behaves differently from the negation used in declaratives and interrogatives further confirms that bie1 is a special imperative negator and that it contributes to both the imperative force and negation.
3.2.2 Bie1 as a Distinctive Negative Imperative Marker
Bie1 is considered to be historically derived from bu yao, but it no longer possesses the meaning ‘don’t want’ that bu yao does. The context in which bie1 appears is a subset of the context in which bu yao appears (Chen-Main, 2005). Thus, there is a parallel between bie1 and bu yao with respect to the compatibility between situational types, verb types, aspect markers, temporal adverbs, and manner/sentential adverbs. In this section, this study examines the situational types, verb types, aspect markers, temporal adverbs, and manner/sentential adverbs in negative imperatives
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
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with bie1, and in Chapter Four this study will further compare bie1 and buyao.
First, the predicates in sentences (45) to (51) are repeated in the following (71), and the situational types of verbs demonstrate different ranges of grammaticality in negative imperatives with bie1.
(71) a. 別樂觀 bie leguan
Neg optimistic ‘Don’t be optimistic!’
b.別跑 bie pao.
Neg run
‘Don’t run.’
c.別畫一幅畫
bie hua yi-fu hua.
Neg paint one-CL paint
‘Don’t paint a picture.’
d.別贏那場比賽
bie ying na-chang bisai.
Neg win that CL game
‘Don’t win that game.’
As shown in (71) above, bie1 imperatives with activity, accomplishment, and achievement predicates, which refer to an event that can be brought about by an individual, are grammatical. In contrast, those with individual-level state and stage-level state predicates, which refer to the inherent properties of an individual that cannot be changed, are anomalous. The above indicate that negative imperatives require semantic agents as syntactic subjects and an active verb as predicate.
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立 政 治 大 學
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Secondly, verb types in the preceding sentence (52) to (55) is repeated again in the following, (72) to (75), to examine the compatibility between verb types and negative imperatives with bie1.
(72) Unergative {Agent verb}
你別笑
ni bie xiao you neg smile
‘Don’t you smile!’
(73) Unaccusative { Themei verb i} a.你別死
ni bie si you neg die
‘Don’t you die on me!’
b.冰別溶化
bing bie ronghua Ice neg melt
‘The ice must not melt!’
c.房子別倒 fangzi bie dao house neg collapse
‘The house must not collapse!’
(74) Transitive {Agent verb Theme}
你別說實話 !
ni bie shuo shihua You neg say truth
‘Don’t you tell the truth! ’
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(75) Causative {Causer verb Theme}
你別關上門
ni bie guan-shang men you Neg close up door
‘Don’t you close the door!’
The syntactic subjects in (72), (74), and (75) above are all semantic agents, which further confirms the analysis that the syntactic subjects in imperatives must be semantic agents. However, to indicate that grammatically speaking unaccusative verbs can appear in negative imperatives, as in (73), is not reasonable. One possibility is that examples in (73) above are not imperatives at all, but rather are declaratives; in fact the sentences feature the negator bie2, which functions to express an assumption or a counter-factual proposition expressing the speaker’s wish, as in (29) mentioned in Section 2.3.4.
Third, the compatibility of aspect marker and negative imperatives with bie1 is examined in the following (76) and (77) whose predicates are repeated from the preceding sentences (52) to (59). The collocation of aspect markers and bie1 is the same as verb phrasal imperatives. The incompatibility between bie1 and aspect markers can be interpreted by taking the semantic perspective into consideration.
(76) a. 別看電視
bie kan dianshi.
Neg watch TV
‘Don’t watch TV.’
b. 別看著電視
bie kan-zhe dianshi.
Neg watch-Asp TV
‘Don’t keep watching TV.’
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c. *別在看電視
*bie zai-kan dianshi.
Neg Asp- watch TV d. *別看過電視
bie kan-guo dianshi.
Neg watch- Asp TV
‘Don’t watch TV’
Semantically, bie1 in imperative sentences serves to prevent particular events from coming into being. From (76c) above, this thesis finds that bie1 imperatives cannot collocate with -zai, a pre-verbal marker indicating progressive durativity, as they cannot command an event which is already underway. Nor is the experiential marker –guo suggesting a past bound event compatible with bie1 imperatives, as in (76d) above. From (76b), this study finds that bie1 imperatives are compatible with the marker -zhe, which is a post verbal marker indicating continuous durativity. A continuous durativity event is unbounded and imperfective; therefore, it is grammatical in bie1 imperatives.
(77) a. 別跑了操場
Bie pao le caochang Neg run –le playground ‘*Don’t you ran the playground. ’
b 別吃了午餐!
bie chi-le wucan Neg eat- phase lunch ‘Don’t finish eating lunch!’
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c.* 別跌了倒5 bie die-le-dao Neg fall-phase down
‘*Don’t finish falling down.’
d.* 別眨了眼!
Bie zha-le-yan Neg wink-phase-eye
‘* Don’t finish blinking your eyes.’
Generally, the perfective marker -le is unable to occur in imperatives which denote an imperfective event, as illustrated in (77a). In (77c) and (77d), verbs denoting a punctual event such as zha ‘wink’ and diedao3 ‘fall down’ are unable to form bie1 imperatives with the perfective marker –le indicating the termination of a bounded event. In (77b), chi wucan ‘eat lunch’ denotes an event which is a durative process; when used in this way is grammatical to occur with the perfective marker –le may be used to form bie1 imperatives. The above sentences also demonstrate that bie1 imperatives cannot denote a perfective aspect, but rather have a future orientation6.
Furthermore, imperatives with bie1 are unbounded and future-oriented, which is further confirmed by the fact that imperatives are compatible with future adverbials, as in (78a) below, but not with past oriented adverbs, as seen in (78b) below.
5 Since there is bie2, sentence (77c) is ambiguous. Therefore, sentence (77c) is grammatical under the reading of bie2 and (77c) is a declarative sentence. That is, the ungrammatical sentences in imperatives might be grammatical declarative sentences under the reading of bie2.
6 It can also be some internal situation as long as it is not a bounded event, thus, in
6 It can also be some internal situation as long as it is not a bounded event, thus, in