Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.3 The Hybrid Analysis
2.3.1 Liu (2011)
Liu’s (2011) proposal is composed of five assumptions. First of all, he analyzes the marker
bi as a prepositional subordinator, which forms a pre-predicate adjunct phrase with the post-bi
constituent(s). Secondly, he claims that bi does not carry the meaning of comparison; instead,
it only functions to introduce the standard constituent(s). The meaning of comparison is
provided by the degree adverb geng ‘even more’ or the covert comparative morpheme ( ).
Thirdly, a phrasal bi-comparative is defined to have only one standard constituent, and it does
not involve any comparative deletion operation. On the other hand, the definition of a clausal
bi-comparative in Liu (2011) requires that there be more than one standard constituent, and
that the standard clause obligatorily undergo comparative deletion as well as involve a degreeoperator-variable binding relation in syntax. Fourthly, in both types of bi-comparatives, the
standard constituent(s) have to be minimally c-commanded by its counterparts in the main
clause, and they have to parallel in category and semantics. Moreover, the post-bi clause must
be parallel to the minimal clause containing the bi-phrase in the basic syntactic structure.
Fifthly, in a clausal bi-comparative, the elided constituents must be e-given (Merchant, 2004)
in order to reconstruct the content of the ellipsis site.
Under the hybrid analysis, the two examples in (103) and (104) represent the phrasal
bi-comparative and the clausal bi-bi-comparative respectively.
(103) a. Zhangsan bi Lisi kaixin
Zhangsan BI Lisi happy
‘Zhangsan is happier than Lisi.’
b. [TP [NP Zhangsan] [DegP [bi [NP Lisi]] [DegP [AP kaixin]]]
(104) a. Zhangsan jintian zai jiali bi Lisi zuotian zai xuexiao kaixin
Zhangsan today at home BI Lisi yesterday at school happy
‘Today Zhangsan is happier at home than Lisi was yesterday in school.’
b. [TP Zhangsan [jintian zai jiali [CP Opi [C’ [C bi] [Lisi zuotian zai xuexiao [DegP [Deg xi]
[AP kaixin]]]]] [DegP kaixin]]]
As we can see, the structure of (103a) in (103b) involves only one standard constituent Lisi
after the prepositional subordinator bi, and there is no comparative deletion or degree
comparison in this sentence. Therefore, Liu (2011) categorizes (103) as a phrasal
comparative, and he also suggests that what are compared in a Mandarin phrasal
bi-comparative are two individuals in terms of certain dimension. On the other hand, Liu claims
that the clausal bi-comparative in (104) contains a degree operator Opi and a degree variable
x
i, which indicates that what are compared in the clausal comparatives are the maximal degreeconcerning the matrix predicate and the maximal degree concerning the embedded predicate.
In addition, as shown in (104b), the embedded predicate is obligatory elided under comparative
deletion; otherwise, the sentence will turn out to be ungrammatical.
To illustrate his fourth assumption, i.e., the parallelism requirement, Liu (2011) provides
the example in (105), which is a clausal bi-comparative with an embedded standard.
(105) *Zhangsan jintian [bi [Lisi renwei [Wangwu zuotian kaixin]]] kaixin
Zhangsan today BI Lisi think Wangwu yesterday happy happy
According to the fourth assumption above, the post-bi clause must be parallel to the minimal
clause containing the bi-phrase in the basic syntactic structure. In this example, the post-bi
clause is Lisi renwei Wangwu zuotian kaixin ‘Lisi think Wangwu yesterday happy’, which is a
sentence with an embedded clause; however, the minimal clause containing the bi-phrase is
Zhangsan jintian kaixin ‘Zhangsan today happy’, which is a sentence without any embedded
clause. It is obvious that the example in (105) violates the parallelism requirement; therefore,
the bi-comparative with an embedded standard in (105) is ruled out.
Liu (2011) further presents two pieces of evidence for his hybrid analysis. One is the ba
disposal construction, and the other pertains to the focus intervention effect. Both of them are
used to support the view that bi-comparatives with more than one standard constituent should
be treated as clausal comparatives. Consider the ba construction first, as shown in (106) below.
(106) a. Zhangsan ba qian bi ba shengming kan-de zhong
Zhangsan BA money BI BA life regard-DE important
‘Zhangsan regards money as more important than (he does) life.’
b. Zhangsani ba qian [Opj [bi Proi [baP [ba’ ba [vP shengming [VP kan de tj zhong]]]]]]
kan-de zhong
According to previous studies, such as Whitman & Paul (2005), Li (2006), and Huang et al.
(2009), on the ba disposal construction, Liu (2011) assumes that the verb ba selects a light verb
phrase as its complement. Hence, the sentence in (106) actually contains a ba-phrase with the
elided predicate kan de zhong ‘regard-DE important’ after the prepositional subordinator bi.
Since the disposal ba does not form a constituent with the following NP, as shown in (106b),
it is impossible for us to adopt the phrasal analysis to account for the sentence in (106). Only
with the clausal analysis can (106) be well-explained.
The second piece of evidence comes from the focus intervention effect in an
object-preposing construction. An example is given in (107a), with its structure provided in (107b).
(107) a. *Zhangsan (xianzai) shuxue bi Lisi (yiqian) wuli xihuan Zhangsan now math BI Lisi past physics like Intended: ‘Zhangsan likes math more than Lisi liked physics.’
b. Zhangsan xianzai shuxuei [[CP Opj [C’ [C bi] [Lisi yiqian [FocP wulik [OpF [DegP [Deg xj]
[AP xihuan tk]]]]]]] xihuan ti]
As shown in (107b), the two objects shuxue ‘math’ and wuli ‘physics’ come from the two
post-verbal positions. This indicates that there should be two tokens of the predicate xihuan ‘like’.
Therefore, a clausal analysis rather than a phrasal analysis is needed. Besides, according to Liu
(2011), the degree variable xj is c-commanded by the focus operator OpF, which will wrongly
reset the semantic value of the degree variable. Then, this resetting process leaves the degree
operator with nothing to bind, which violates the focus intervention effect. Thus, the
ungrammaticality of (107a) can be explained.
Finally, Liu (2011) also adopts the hybrid analysis to cope with the problem of the lack
of subcomparatives faced by the clausal analyses. The example in (108) shows an
ungrammatical sentence containing a subcomparative.
(108) *Zhe-tiao he xianzai [bi [na-tiao he guoqu shen]] kuan
this-CL river now BI that-CL river past deep wide
Intended: ‘This river is wide than that one was deep.’
Based on the fourth assumption in Liu (2011), the minimal c-commanding condition, the
ungrammaticality of (108) can be explained. This condition says that the standard constituent(s)
have to be minimally c-commanded by its counterparts in the main clause, and they have to
parallel in category and semantics. Unfortunately, the predicate shen ‘deep’ in the bi-clause
cannot find any c-commanding counterpart in the matrix clause, which results from the
pre-verbal status of the bi adjunct phrase. As a result, the subcomparative sentence in (108) is
ungrammatical.