Lin (2001, 2008)

Lin (2001) observes that the Mandarin verbs are less restrictive than English verbs in terms of thematic relations. Lin notices the unselectiveness of subjects in Mandarin Chinese, as shown in the following examples.

(80) a. Laowang kai-le yi-liang tankeche.

Laowang drive-PER one-CL tank

‘Laowang drove a tank.’

b. Gaosugonglu-shang kai-zhe yi-pai tankeche.

expressway-top drive-DUR one-line tank

Lit. ‘On the expressway drive a line of tanks.’

c. Zhe-liang poche kai-de wo xia-si le.

this-CL broken.car drive I scare-dead Particle

‘Driving this broken car made me scared to death.’

From the examples above, the subject of the transitive verb kai ‘drive’ can be an agent (80a), a location (80b), or a theme (80c). The unselectiveness of theta roles are also found in the object position. Given the unselective property of subjects and objects, he follows Hale and Keyser’s (1993) l-syntax,⁸ arguing that a theta-role is the relation

8 The assumption made by Hale and Keyser (1993) is given below:

At the lexical level, a verb can represented as a lexical relations structure (LRS) which is constructed only with four lexical categories, V, N, A, P, associated with four elementary notional types: event, entity, state, and interrelation, respectively.

L-syntax refers to Hale and Keyser’s theory of theta-role and syntactic LRSs for lexical verbs.

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between a light verb and the argument. In order to explain the contrast between Mandarin and English, Lin (2001) makes two assumptions as follows.

(81) a. A verb contains both the lexical root and the light verb in English but only the lexical root and no light verb in Chinese.

b. The combination of lexical roots and light verbs can be “quite liberal” in s-syntax.

According to (81), the selection of the light verbs in s-syntax is attributed to the thematic flexibility in Mandarin and the subjects are not selected by the main verb, but by a light verb.

Lin (2001) proposes a light verb analysis for the construction involving locative subjects. As many previous studies claim, only the locative phrase subcategorized by the verb can trigger inversion. However, Lin argues that the verbs such as gai ‘build’, kai ‘drive’, and xie ‘write’, which can occur with a locative subject, do not have an

internal locative argument. Although the verbs of placement like fang ‘put’ and xie

‘write’ seem to have internal locative argument, Lin assumes that the verbs of placement do not have any argument because of the unselective property of objects.

Lin suggests that the verbs of placement in Mandarin are characterized by their stative or existential use. The verbs of placement can take either a locative or a theme subject, without any sense of action or agentivity. He uses the following examples to show the stativity of the placement verbs.

(82) Zhuo-shang fang-zhe san-ben shu.

table-top put-DUR three book

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‘On the table was put three books.’

(83) Na san-ben shu fang zai shujia-shang shi nian le,

that three-CL book put at bookshelf ten year Prt

conglai meiyou ren dong-guo.

ever no person touch-EXP

Lit. ‘Those three books have been put on the bookshelf for ten years; no one ever touches it.’

Lin states that the stativity is expressed by a durative marker -zhe in (82) and by the time adverbial shinian ‘ten years’ in (83). He further argues that in addition to the verbs of placement, all kinds of action verbs in Mandarin can assume existential use and take a locative subject when being conflated with the light verb EXIST in the sentence. He observes that the locative subject sentences can be rephrased as the sentences with the action verb being replaced by you ‘have’, which is argued to be an existential verb.

(84) a. Luzi-shang dun-zhe yi-guo niu-rou.

stove-top stew-DUR one-pot beef

Lit. ‘On the stove stewed a pot of beef.’

c. Luzi-shang (zheng dun-zhe) you yi-guo niu-rou.

stove-top (right-now stew-DUR) have one-pot beef

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‘There is a pot of beef on the stove (being stewed).’

As Lin suggests, this point just displays the existential use of action verbs in this construction. When an action verb is used existentially, the presence of a locative subject is licensed by the light verb EXIST.

Lin (2008) classifies the locative subjects into four types. The first type is the

“canonical” locative subject, which corresponds to the locative subject sentences with unaccusative verbs in other languages. The “existential” locative subject, the second type, denotes the location where something exists. The third type is the “occurrence”

locative subject, indicating the location in which an event takes place. The last type is the “agentive” locative subject, referring to the location where an event is in progress.

Based on the two light verbs EXIST and OCCUR, the four types of locative subjects can be further grouped into two classes: canonical and existential locative subjects which are licensed by EXIST and occurrence and agentive locative subjects which are licensed by OOCUR. The four types of locative subjects are illustrated in the sentences as follows.

(85) Cunzi-li lai-le yi-wei muoshenren. (canonical)

village-inside come-PER one-CL stranger.

‘The village came a stranger.’

(86) Heiban-shang xie-le san-ge zi. (existential)

blackboard-top write-PER three-CL word

Lit. ‘On the blackboard was written three words.’

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(87) Jianyu-li pao-le liang-ge fanren. (occurrence)

prision-inside run-PER two-CL prisoner

Lit. ‘From the prison run two prisoners.’

(88) Jiaotang-li zheng chang-zhe xiaoge. (agentive)

church-inside right sing-DUR school anthem

Lit. ‘In the church is singing the school anthem.’

Observing the unselective property of subjects in Mandarin, Lin proposes that the verbs in Mandarin do not have any argument. Lin (2001) argues that locative subjects do not originate from predicate-internal position, but instead are base-generated in the grammatical subject position. Lin (2001) suggests that if post-verbal locative phrases are invariably interpreted as goals of certain actions, then the head of the predicate should be the light verb CAUSE. When the post-verbal locative phrase undergoes movement to the subject position, the meaning of the sentence should not be altered and the light verb CAUSE should be present in the structure. However, as a matter of fact, Mandarin LIC does not have any sense of CAUSE and agentive interpretation.

Thus, Lin (2001, 2008) assumes that the light verb EXIST or OCCUR has the locative DPs generated at the subject position in a locative subject sentence.

Although Lin’s analysis seems to be able to account for the majority of locative subjects in Mandarin Chinese, there are still some problems that arise under his proposal. First, Lin (2001) proposes that all kinds of action verbs in Mandarin Chinese can be conflated with the light verb EXIST and take a locative subject in an unselective way. This claim is too strong in some sense. As Li and Thompson (1981)

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observe, the majority of verbs which can occur in Mandarin LIC are limited to certain class of verbs, such as posture verbs and placement verbs. We also find that action verbs such as mai ‘buy’ and diu ‘lose’ are not allowed in Mandarin LIC, as shown below.

(89) a. *Taibei mai-le yi-dong fangzi

Taipei buy-PER one-CL house

Lit. ‘There is a house bought in Taipei.’

b. *Xuexiao-li diu-le yi-ben shu.

school-inside lose-PER one-CL book

Lit. ‘There is a book lost in the school.’

Therefore, as can be seen in (89), contrary to what is expected under Lin’s (2001) analysis, not all action verbs can enter Mandarin LIC.

Second, Lin (2008) indicates that the occurrence locative subject licensed by the light verb OCCUR denotes the location where an event occurs. Under Lin’s (2008) classification, the preverbal locative DPs in (90) would be labeled as occurrence locative subjects because they denote the location where the event occurs. Lin’s (2008) proposal would wrongly predict these examples to be correct.

(90) a. ?Wuzi-li da-zhe xiaohai.

house-inside hit-DUR children

Lit. ‘In the house is hitting children.’

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b. ?Keting-li zheng he-zhe jiu.

Living.room-inside right drink-DUR wine

Lit. ‘In the living room is drinking wine.’

The sentences like (90) are acceptable only when they are interpreted as dropping the agent. As we expect, the preverbal locative DPs in (90) cannot occupy grammatical subject positions, as shown in (91).

(91) a. *Wuzi-li yinggai da-zhe xiaohai.

house-inside should hit-DUR children

Lit. ‘In the house should be hitting children.’

b. *Keting-li bei renwei zheng he-zhe jiu.

Living.room-inside BEI think right drink-DUR wine

Lit. ‘In the living room was thought to be drinking wine.’

In (91a), the locative DP wuzi-li ‘house’ cannot undergo subject raising. In (91b), the locative DP keting-li ‘living room’ cannot undergo short passivization. Therefore, as discussed in 3.1.1, the examples like (92), labeled as occurrence locative subjects under Lin’s analysis, fall under the canonical type of Mandarin LIC under our analysis.

(92) a. Hai-shang chen-le henduo-sao chuan.

sea-top sink-PER many-CL boat

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‘On the sea sank many boats.’

b. Jianyu-li pao-le liang-ge fanren.

prision-inside run-PER two-CL prisoner

‘From the prison run two prisoners.’

Third, HLL (2009) questions whether these light verbs are part of UG. If they are part of UG, how is the English-Chinese contrast in a verb’s argument structure accounted for? If they are not part of UG, then proper constraints should be imposed on the utilization of light verbs. In sum, the light verb analysis cannot capture the fact that only certain classes of verbs can enter Mandarin LIC and that only a locative DP argument can lands in grammatical subject position. Therefore, we can infer that the locative subject is not solely selected by a light verb and that the root meaning of a verb still plays an essential role in determining its arguments.