3. Extent in Mandarin Chinese
3.2 Duration as Extent
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
‘Three people crowd into this bed. ’
In Sentence (38), in terms of the verb 裝 zhuang1 ‘pack’, the NP ㄧ盒 yi4he2 ‘one box’ is “effected”, which means it is not a pre-existent object and it is the result of the action. Therefore, the NP ㄧ盒 yi4he2 ‘one box’ can be regarded as Extent. The other NP 十個蘋果 shi2ge5 ping2guo3 ‘ten apples’ also has the feature of quantity extent. In addition, it is also the Theme of the verb since it participates in the action.
Therefore, the NP 十個蘋果 shi2ge5 ping2guo3 ‘ten apples’ can be considered as a Theme with extent interpretation. In Sentence (39), the number expression 三個人 san3ge5ren2 ‘three people’ is the Agent of the verb 擠 ji3 ‘crowd’ but it also has the
interpretation of Extent.
3.2 Duration as Extent
Jackson (1990) noted that the circumstantial role, which provides the setting of a proposition, often concerns place or time. The semantic role which is related to time is labeled TEMPORAL, and there are three kinds of circumstances of time: position, frequency, and duration. Duration concerns the measurement of time and it is used to answer the question ‘How long’, ‘Until when’, and ‘Since when’. The following sentences are presented as examples of duration.
(40) a. He was ill for three days.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
b. Julian had acted very strangely since the tragedy.
c. It would probably last until the evening.
In Sentence (40a), ‘three days’ is to answer ‘how long’, ‘the tragedy’ in (40b) is to answer ‘since when’, and ‘the evening’ in (40c) is to answer ‘until when’. They are all duration and have similar notion with Extent, which is also measure element.
According to Jackson’s definition of duration, duration can be qualified as one kind of Extent. In Mandarin Chinese, there are also measure elements expressing duration.
The following sentences are presented as examples.
(41) a. ㄧ頓 飯 吃了 三 小時 yi2dun4 fan4 chi1le5 san3 xiao3shi2 One-CL meal eat-ASP three hour ‘The meal lasted for three hours.’
b. ㄧ包 菸 抽了 三 天 yi4bao1 yan1 chou1le5 san1tian1 One-CL cigarette smoke-ASP three day
‘The pack of cigarettes was smoked for three days.’
c. ㄧ本 書 寫了 三 年 yi4ben3 shu1 xie3le5 san1 nian2 One-CL book write-ASP three year ‘The book was written for three years.’
The three post-verbal NPs, 三小時 san3xiao3shi2 ‘three hours’, 三天 san1tian1
‧
‘three days’ and 三 年 san1nian2 ‘three years’, are all measure elements, measurement of time. The three NPs are the same as the duration in (40a), which is used to answer the question ‘How long’ and to specify duration of the verbal process.
However, only when duration is an argument can it be assigned the thematic role Extent. Compare the following sentences.
(42) a. ㄧ頓 飯 吃了 三 小時
The two sentences show that time measurement 九年 jiu3 nian2 ‘nine years’ in (43a)
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
is an adjunct because the deletion of it does not make the sentence ungrammatical in (43b). In (42a), however, the measure element 三小時 san3xiao3shi2 ‘three hours’ is an argument since its deletion will make the sentence unacceptable (42b). Now that the duration 三小時 san3xiao3shi2 ‘three hours’ can be an argument, it has to be assigned a thematic role by the verb. The NP san3xiao3shi2 ‘three hours’ does not participate in the action of the verb 吃 chi1 ‘eat’ and its function is to form setting of the verbal process, so it is duration of the verb. Since it is not a participant of the action, its thematic role cannot be Agent, Patient or Theme. Because it does not have a specific reference, and it is just amount of time, according to above analysis, the NP san3xiao3shi2 ‘three hours’ can be assigned as Extent. The three duration phrases in
(41), san3xiao3shi2 ‘three hours’ in (41a), san1tian1 ‘three days’ in (41b) and san1nian2 ‘three years’ in (41c) can all be assigned as Extent. Therefore, in Mandarin
Chinese, post-verbal durations form a kind of Extent.
In the three sentences in (41), the subjects are Theme and the objects are Extent.
Concerning the verbs, 吃 chi1 ‘eat’, 抽 chou1 ‘smoke’, and 寫 xie3 ‘write’, they are action verbs, which need agents to initiate the action. It is reasonable for them to have Agent as one argument, as presented in (44). If the verbs assign Agent and Theme as arguments, the Agent is in the subject position and the Theme is in the object position.
‧
the ability to assign three thematic roles, but only two of them can occur in the same sentence. Take the verb 抽 chou1 ‘smoke’ for example.(45) a. ㄧ包 菸 抽了 三天 yi4bao1 yan1 chou1le5 san1tian1 One-CL cigarette smoke-ASP three day
‘The pack of cigarettes was smoked for three days.’
b. 他 抽了 ㄧ包 菸 ta1 chou1le5 yi4bao1 yan1 He smoke-ASP one-CL cigarette ‘He smoked a pack of cigarettes.’
‧
In (45a), the verb only takes Theme and Extent. In (45b), there are Agent and Theme.
In (45c), only Agent and Extent appear in the sentence. Example (45d) is unacceptable in Mandarin Chinese since it is not allowed for the verb to have two complements, according to Postverbal Constraint. A correct formation will be as in (46) or (47).
In (46), there are two sentences combined together. The two sentences are 他抽一包
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
菸 ta1 chou1 yi4bao1 yan1 ‘He smoked a pack of cigarettes.’ and 他抽了三天 ta1
chou1le5 san1 tian1 ‘He smoked for three days’. Because the two subjects are the
same, the second 他 ta1 ‘he’ is deleted. In (47), the Agent 他 ta1 ‘he’ becomes the topic of the sentence. Therefore, the verb only assigns two arguments, which are 一 包菸 yi4bao1 yan1 ‘a pack of cigarettes’ and 三天 san1tian1 ‘three days’ . In both
sentences, there is only one complement after a verb form. Although there are two complements in Sentence (46), each verb only has one object. As shown in the above two sentences, the way for the three thematic roles, Agent , Theme, and Extent, to appear in the same sentence is to repeat the verb or to topicalize one of the roles. This is due to the well accepted assumption that a Mandarin verb may be followed by only one constituent and the assumption is generally termed as Postverbal Constraint. If there is one more constituent, other than the direct object, following the verb, the direct object is moved out of its postverbal position. Sometimes, the forced out object is topicalized and sometimes it leads to reduplication of the verb (Sybesma 1999).
However, the following sentences are acceptable in Mandarin Chinese.
(48) a. ㄧ頓 飯 吃了 他 三 小時 yi2dun4 fan4 chi1le5 ta1 san1 xiao3shi2 One-CL meal eat-ASP he three hour ‘It took him three hours to eat a meal.’
b. ㄧ包 菸 抽了 他 三 天
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
yi4bao1 yan1 chou1le5 ta1 san1 tian1 One-CL cigarette smoke-ASP he three day
‘It took him three days to smoke a pack of cigarettes.’
c. ㄧ本 書 寫了 他 三 年 yi4ben3 shu1 xie3le5 ta1 san1 nian2 One-CL book write-ASP he three years ‘It took him three years to write a book.’
The above sentences are marked in Mandarin Chinese for two reasons. The first one is that there are two complements after the verb. The second one is that the Agent is in the object position. In the following section, we will explain the sentences by analogy between verb types.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
35