2. Literature Review
2.3 Availability of the Accounts to Chinese Resultative Compounds
2.3.1 Insufficiencies in the Derivational Account
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).’
2.3 Availability of the Accounts to Chinese Resultative Compounds
After reviewing both the derivational and lexicalist accounts of argument realization on Chinese resultative compounds, this chapter describes the problems with which the derivational account is faced and the relatively sufficient ability of the LFG account in the comprehensive prediction of compound argument realization.
2.3.1 Insufficiencies in the Derivational Account
Recall that in the derivational account, the argument realization of Chinese resusltative compounds is analyzed by means of derivational operations that lead to various templates of syntactic structures of the compounds and syntactic constraints that regulate the interpretations of the compounds. This analysis encompasses almost all of the resultative compounds there is to be found in Chinese. However, if one takes a closer look at the interactions between the operations and constraints and the
possible outcomes of the analysis, one would find that the derivational account does not produce satisfactory results in accounting for the argument realization of Chinese resultative compounds.
With the Chinese resultative compounds that exhibit intransitivity and
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
subject-predication and are different from the English resultative constructions, a syntactic constraint named the Force Recipient Principle proposed by Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2001) and later modified by Huang (2006) was given to prevent the compounds from being ruled out by the Direct Object Restriction (Simpson, 1983).
This constraint successfully explains the substantiality of Chinese unergative and transitive resultative compounds with subject-predication of the Result:
(23) Zhangsan kan-lei-le (unergative) Zhangsan read-tired-ASP
‘Zhangsan read himself tired.’
(24) Zhangsan kan-lei-le baozhi. (subject-predication) Zhangsan read-tired-ASP newspaper
‘Zhangsan read the newspaper and got tired.’
In (23), no object exists. Therefore, the predication of the Result in the unergative compound falls on the prominent argument, i. e. the subject. On the other hand, although there is an object in the sentence, the “Force” of reading newspaper transmits not to the object being read but back to the reader; hence the
subject-predication of the Result. However, a big part of the picture would be missing if we live simply on this constraint:
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
(25) Zhangsan zhui-lei-le Lisi. (transitive) Zhangsan chase-tired-ASP Lisi
a. ‘Zhangsan chased Lisi and made him (Lisi) tired.’ (object-predication) b. ‘Zhangsan chased Lisi and (Zhangsan) got tired.’ (subject-predication) c. ‘Lisi chased Zhangsan and was made tired (by Zhangsan).’ (causative)
Since the effect of the chasing action functions on the object, Lisi, the interpretation of object-predication is successfully predicted. But other interpretations of this sentence would be missed out. Further, in the causative reading of (25), Zhangsan is the one being chased and the recipient of force during the act of chasing. If so, the constraint would wrongly predict that the Result should be predicated on Zhangsan, thus producing an ungrammatical interpretation of the sentence:
(26) Zhangsan zhui-lei-le Lisi.
Zhangsan chase-tired-ASP Lisi
*‘Lisi chased Zhangsan and he (Zhangsan) got tired.’
Some problems can as well be seen from the test of adverb incorporation in the derivational operations. In the causative templates of the derivational accounts, resultative compounds have undergone movements from the innermost embedded verb head to the outermost null causative verb to acquire the resultative and causative
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
meanings, as in Template D:
(27) yi- ke jidan ye-si-le yi-sui yinger one-CL egg choke-dead-ASP one-year baby
‘An egg choked a one-year-old baby to death.’
D. Pure causative (2): [ x CAUSE [BECOME<UNACCUSATIVE> [ y <STATE>]]]
VP1
DP V1’
V1 V2P
DP V2’
[CAUSE]
V2 VP3
ye-si-le DP V3’
choke-dead-ASP [BECOME]
<UNACCUSATIVE> V3 yi-ke jidan yi-sui yinger t
one-CL egg one-year baby <STATE>
t
Since an adverb is an adjunct, it can be attached as the sister of a V’. In a structure like the above, there are three available positions for the attachment of an adverb:
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
(28) VP1
DP V1’
○3 AdvP V1’
tongku-de V1 V2P painfully
DP V2’
[CAUSE]
○2 AdvP V2’
ye-si-le tongku-de V2 VP3 choke-dead-ASP painfully
DP V3’
○1 AdvP V3’
[BECOME]
<UNACCUSATIVE> tongku-de V3 yi-ke jidan yi-sui yinger t painfully
one-CL egg one-year baby <STATE>
t
On a closer inspection, one can see that the sentence with the adverb is acceptable before the derivation but ungrammatical after. The following are comparisons between the acceptable “before” sentences and the ungrammatical “after” sentences, depending on the available positions for the adverb:
‧
one-CL egg CAU one-year baby choke-become painfully dead-ASP‘An egg choked a one-year-old baby and caused him a painful death.’
b. after [BECOME] derivation:
*yi- ke jidan shi yi-sui yinger ye-si-le tongku-de one-CL egg CAU one-year baby choke-dead-ASP painfully
‘An egg choked a one-year-old baby and caused him a painful death.’
○2 a. before [CAUSE] derivation:
yi- ke jidan shi yi-sui yinger tongku-de ye-si-le one-CL egg CAU one-year baby painfully choke-dead-ASP
‘An egg choked a one-year-old baby and caused him a painful death.’
b. after [CAUSE] derivation:
* yi- ke jidan ye-si-le yi-sui yinger tongku-de one-CL egg choke-dead-ASP one-year baby painfully
‘An egg choked a one-year-old baby and caused him a painful death.’
It is clear that after the derivations, the adverb ends up being in the wrong position with respect to the verb. This fact provides evidence for a re-evaluation of the substantiality of the derivational accounts.
Furthermore, Problems also arise in the aforementioned templates used for classifying the syntactic structures and derivational operations of Chinese resultative
7 De in ye-de indicates the becoming of the result depicted by si while de in tongku-de is an adverb marker. Adverbs with de appear before verbs in Mandarin Chinese.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
compounds. Take the sentence in (25) for example, if according to the templates, interpretation A should fit into the Causing-with-a-manner template, Template E:
(29) Zhangsan zhui-lei-le Lisi. (transitive) Zhangsan chase-tired-ASP Lisi
‘Zhangsan chased Lisi and made him (Lisi) tired.’ (object-predication)
E. Causing with a manner: [ x CAUSE<UNERGATIVE> [BECOME [ y <STATE>]]]
VP1
DP V1’
V1 V2P
DP V2’
[CAUSE]
<UNERGATIVE> V2 VP3
zhui-lei-le DP V3’
chase-tired-ASP [BECOME]
V3 Zhangsan Lisi t
Zhangsan Lisi <STATE>
t
However, other interpretations of this sentence fit into other templates:
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
(30) Zhangsan zhui-lei-le Lisi. (transitive) Zhangsan chase-tired-ASP Lisi
‘Lisi chased Zhangsan and was made tired (by Zhangsan).’ (causative)
C. Pure causative (1): [ x CAUSE [BECOME<UNERGATIVE> [ y <STATE>]]]
VP1
DP V1’
V1 V2P
DP V2’
[CAUSE]
V2 VP3
zhui-lei-le DP V3’
chase-tired-ASP [BECOME]
<UNERGATIVE> V3 Zhangsan Lisi t
Zhangsan Lisi <STATE>
t
‘Zhangsan chased Lisi and (Zhangsan) got tired.’ (subject-predication) Template: Not applicable
The causative reading of Zhangsan zhui-lei-le Lisi fits into Template C under Huang’s (2006) categorization, where the internal argument of zhui, Zhangsan, is thought to be generated in the subject position of the sentence without any movement. And the
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
transitive reading does not fit into any of the templates because it does not convey causativity. In brief, a resultative compound with multiple interpretations structurally fit into different templates. This being so, the point of generalization in argument realization of Chinese resultative compounds seems to be lost and the identity (to what category a resultative compound belongs) of the compounds blurred because the transitive use of a single compound renders the result of the compound being in many different categories. Moreover, the causativity encoded in the templates shows two different kinds of nature, depending on the syntactic nature of V1. Not covering this point also whittles down the credibility of the derivational analysis. The identification of causativity in Chinese resultative compounds is significant to the meaning and argument realization of the compounds. More details will be given in Chapter 4.