Issues on Chinese Verbs and Telicity

Chinese is considered a language without any accomplishment verbs (Tai 1984, Lin 2004,

Liao 2004). Tai (1984) proposes that the semantic accomplishment in Chinese can only be

indicated by two-syllable verbs with additional semantic information. For example, Chinese

verbs gai ‘build’ and xie ‘write’ are activity verbs instead of accomplishment verbs because

they are [+stage] but [-telic]; in contrast, gai-wan ‘build-InAsp’ and xie-wan ‘write-InAsp’

36

can indicate semantic accomplishment since the two activity verbs are combined with InAsp

wan as the additional semantic information for [+telic], as demonstrated in (7a-b).

(7) (Tai 1984)

a. Wo zuotian xie-le yi-feng xin,

I yesterday write-ASP one-CL letter

“I wrote a letter yesterday,”

keshi mei xie-wan

but not write-InAsp

“but I did not finish it.”

b. Wo zuotian xie-wan-le yi-feng xin

I yesterday write-InAsp-ASP one-CL letter

“I wrote a letter yesterday,”

*keshi mei xie-wan

but not write-InAsp

“but I did not finish it.”

In (7a), the event is [0-telic] in the first sentence and the second sentence provides the

information that the event is [-telic]; on the contrary, the first sentence in (7b) is [+telic] since

37

there is InAsp wan as the semantic information of [+telic], so the second sentence which

implies [-telic] is unacceptable since it contradicts the accomplishment of the event of the

first sentence.

Moreover, some Chinese verbs, such as da-po ‘hit-broken’, seem to indicate

accomplishment, as shown in (8).

(8) (Lin 2003)

Ta da-po yi-ge hua-ping

he hit-broken one-CL flower-bottle

“He broke one vase.”

The reason why (8) is [+telic] is not because the main verb da ‘hit’, which is an activity

verb, can indicate accomplishment by itself, but because the suffix -po ‘broken’ provides the

semantic information that the vase is broken already. Therefore, the [+telic] reading of (8) is

caused by the semantic nature of -po rather than by the verb da. Here, the idea that there is no

accomplishment verbs in Chinese is still supported.

Furthermore, Lin (2004) suspects that the definiteness of objects may have influence on

the selection the [+telic] reading. Lin (2004) points out that the [0-telic] examples in Tai

(1984), as shown in (9), can be [+telic] in other examples with indefinite objects, as shown in

38 (10a-b).

(9) (Tai 1984)

a. Wo zuotian xie-le yi-feng xin²

I yesterday write-ASP one-CL letter ,

“I wrote a letter yesterday,”

keshi mei xie-wan

but not write-InAsp

“but I did not finish it.”

(10) (Soh and Kuo 2001)

a. Ta chi-le liang-ge dangao, *keshi mei chi-wan

He eat-ASP two-CL cake, but not eat-InAsp

“He ate two cakes, *but he did not finish eating them.”

b. Ta kan-le liang-ben shu, *keshi mei kan-wan³

He read-ASP two-CL book, but not read-InAsp

2 The example in (9a) can be plausibly [+telic] if yi-feng xin ‘one letter’ is replaced with liang-feng xin ‘two letters’. This phenomenon may be caused by the special effect by one-CL, which can be indefinite but also specific or referential based on contexts.

3 The first sentence in (10b) can have the [0-telic] reading for 7 out of 10 informants in my survey.

39

“He read two books, *but he did not finish reading them.”

The first sentence in (9) is [0-telic] and the second sentence makes (9) [-telic]. Based on

(9), xie ‘write’ is an activity verb instead of an accomplishment verb since xie cannot select

the [+telic] reading by itself; on the contrary, Soh and Kuo’s (2001) examples in (10a-b) with

chi ‘eat’ and kan ‘read’ are [+telic]. Moreover, Lin (2004) doubts the acceptability of (9)⁴

However, Soh and Kuo have examples in their paper later in 2005 that provide

agreement with Tai’s (1984) example in (9), as shown in (11a-b)

,

and he argues that in Chinese an event should be [+telic] when the object is indefinite

according to (10a-b).

5.

4 I conducted a survey on Tai’s (1984) example shown in (9) in order to examine the acceptability for Chinese native speakers. The result was that 10 out of 15 informants accepted (9). Besides, Soh and Kuo (2005) agree with the acceptability of (9). Therefore, I will regard (9) as acceptable in this paper. On the other hand, the unacceptability raised by Lin (2004) may be caused by dialectal differences and it is common to see that there are different readings in Chinese examples in studies on Chinese linguistics.

5 Soh and Kuo (2005) mainly focus on the linguistic phenomena rather than the explanations so they do not further explain the reason why examples shown in (11a-b) are acceptable while (10a-b) in Soh and Kuo (2001) are not.

40

(11) a. Ta hua-le yi-fu hua

he draw-ASP one-CL picture

“He drew a picture/a circle,”

(keshi mei hua-wan)

(but not paint-InAsp)

“(but he didn’t finish it.)”

b. Ta xie-le yi-feng xin

he write-ASP one-CL letter

“He wrote a letter/a character,”

(keshi mei xie-wan)

(but not write-InAsp)

“(but he didn’t finish it.)”

The first sentences in (11a-b) are [0-telic] since both the picture and the letter are not

absolutely finished. Soh and Kuo’s (2005) examples show that hua ‘draw’ and xie ‘write’

cannot select the [+telic] reading although the objects are indefinite. Consequently, there is

space for reconsideration for Lin’s (2004) suggestion that Chinese verbs can select the [+telic]

reading with indefinite objects. Also, Lin (2004) does not further discuss the semantic

difference between xie ‘write’ in Tai (1984) and chi ‘eat’ and kan ‘read’ in Soh and Kuo

41

(2001). With the consideration that different verbs may result in different readings, I will lead

a further investigation into whether the semantic nature of a verb together with the

definiteness of objects have effect on the selection of [±telic] in Chapter 3.

4. Summary

In this chapter, I clarify the difference between the semantic realization and [±telic] in

Chinese. The main function of the Chinese aspectual marker le is to bear the realization of an

event rather than to indicate the [+telic] reading. Moreover, I also discuss whether there are

accomplishment verbs in Chinese and my conclusion is negative, as suggested by Tai (1984).

Therefore, for Chinese speakers, in order to express the [+telic] reading, especially when the

event is [+stage], certain linguistic forces other than verbs must play crucial roles in the

selection of the [+telic] reading. As a result, I will propose a detailed framework for the

selection of [+telic] in Chapter 3.

42