Subject NP of the sentence structure

國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

by an achievement term happens at a single moment but sentence (56b) has the meaning that he keeps winning the competition for the half hour and this is contradicted by the inherent meaning of the term ‘wins a competition’. Therefore, sentence (56b) is ungrammatical. In sentence (57a), there is a state term 知道了ㄧ件 事情 zhi1dao4le5 yi2jian4 shi4qing2 ‘know one thing’, and as shown by (57b), it is

also ungrammatical to use a state term in such a sentence construction. According to Jackson (1990) and Vendler (1957)’s classification, there is a consistent result, which is that only activity terms and accomplishment terms can have the construction with Theme in the subject position and two complements, Experiencer and Extent, after the verbs, such as (54b) and (55b).

4.2 Subject NP of the sentence structure

Sybesma (1999) noted that given different types of noun phrase as an object, duration can be placed before or after the object in a sentence. Five types of noun phrases are listed to illustrate, which are dummy NPs, bare NPs, NPs overtly marked for definiteness (defNPs), NPs overtly marked for indefiniteness (indefNPs), and pronouns. The first kind of distribution is termed as that of V-Obj-Dur-sentences.

Examples are presented as follows with the five kinds of NPs.

(58) a. 我 吃飯 兩個 小時 了 (dummy object)

‧

wo3 chi1fan4 liang2ge5 xiao3shi2 le5

I eat-food two-CL hour LE

‘I have been eating for two hours.’

b. 我 吃 土豆 兩個 小時 了 (bare NP object) Wo3 chi1 tu3dou4 liang2ge5 xiao3shi2 le5

I eat potato two-CL hour LE

‘I have been eating potatoes for two hours.’

c. 我 看 這個 電影 兩個 小時 了 (defNP object) wo3 kan4 zhe4ge5 dian4ying3 liang2ge5 xiao3shi2 le5

I look this-CL movie two-CL hour LE

‘I have been watching this movie for two hours.’

d. 我 打 他 兩個 小時 了 (pronominal object) wo3 da3 ta1 liang3ge5 xiao3shi2 le5

I beat him two-CL hour LE

‘I have been beating him for two hours.’

e. *我 打 一個 人 兩個 小時 了 (indefNP object) wo3 da3 yi2ge5 ren2 liang3ge5 xiao3shi2 le

I beat one-CL person two-CL hour LE

‘*I have been beating one person for two hours.’

The second kind of sentence pattern are referred to as that of V-Dur-Obj-sentences, presented as follows.

(59) a. 我 吃了 兩個 小時 飯 了 (dummy object) wo3 chi1le5 liang2ge5 xiao3shi2 fan4 le5

‧

‘I have been eating for two hours.’

b. 我 吃了 兩個 小時 土豆 了 (bare NP object) wo3 chi1le5 liang2ge5 xiao3shi2 tu3dou4 le5

I eat-ASP two-CL hour poato LE

‘I have been eating potatoes for two hours.’

c. *我 看了 兩個 小時 這個 電影 了 (defNP object) wo3 kan4le5 liang2ge5 xiao3shi2 zhe4ge5 dian4ying3 le5

I look-ASP two-CL hour this-CL movie LE

‘*I have been watching this movie for two hours.’

d. *我 打了 兩個 小時 他 (pronoun object) wo3 da3le5 liang3ge5 xiao3shi2 ta1

I beat-ASP two-CL hour him

‘*I have been beating him for two hours.’

e. *我 打了 兩個 小時 一個 人 (indefNP object) wo3 da3le5 liang3ge5 xiao3shi2 yi2ge5 ren2

I beat-ASP one-CL person two-CL hour

‘*I have been beating one person for two hours.’

When the duration precedes the object, the element 的 de can be inserted between the duration phrase and the object, but only for dummy and bare NPs.

Sybesma (1999) concluded that basically there are three sentence patterns where a durative expression can appear postverbally. The first one is called

‧

V-Obj-Dur-sentence where the duration phrase is following the object, and only indNP cannot occur in this kind of sentence. The second pattern is called V-Dur-Obj-sentence, where pronoun, defNP, and indefNP are not allowed to occur.

The third kind is the order with duration preceding the object and with the element de inserted between them. Only dummy NPs and bare NPs can occur in the third sentence pattern.

Concerning the different types of noun phrases, three kinds of noun phrases can occur as Theme in the construction discussed in this thesis, as illustrated below.

(60) a. 這本 書 寫了 他 三 年

‧ 國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

book write-ASP him three year

‘*It took him three years to write books.’

The definite NP (60a), indefinite NP (60b) and pronoun (60c) can occur as the subject in such sentence structure, while the bare NP (60d) cannot do so. The three kinds of NP display the feature of incremental theme proposed by Dowty (1991). Huang, Li &

Li (2009) illustrated the concept of incremental theme in Chinese with the following example.

(61) a. 吃 蘋果 chi1 ping2guo3 eat apple ‘eat apples’

b. 吃 ㄧ個 蘋果 chi1 yi2ge5 ping2guo3 eat one-CL apple ‘eat an apple’

c. 吃 ㄧ筐 蘋果 chi1 yi4 kuang1 ping2guo3 eat one-CL apple ‘eat a basket of apples’

Incremental theme concerns not only the verb, but also the semantic features of the noun phrases because the verb in the above sentence is the same but the noun phrases

‧ 國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

are different. In (61b), the noun phrase is an indefinite NP, and it can be used to measure the progress of the apple-eating event. Because an apple has a physical boundary itself, the NP ㄧ個蘋果 yi2ge5 ping2guo3 ‘an apple’ can set the beginning and the end for the progress of the apple-eating event, evaluating how much the progress is accomplished. Therefore, the NP ㄧ個蘋果 yi2ge5 ping2guo3 ‘an apple’

is an incremental theme in this sentence. In (61c), the NP ㄧ筐蘋果 yi4 kuang1 ping2guo3 ‘a basket of apples’ also provides a way to measure the event and thus an

incremental theme. However, the bare NP 蘋果 ping2guo3 ‘apple’ in (61a) is generic, which can be singular or plural, so it cannot provide any measurement for the event of apple-eating.

In sentence (60), the defNP (60a), indefNP (60b), and pronoun (60c) can be considered as Incremental Theme because they set boundaries for the event, while the generic NP in (60d), which is not an incremental theme, cannot provide any measurement of the event. The fact that Incremental Theme can occur in this construction as the subject is consistent with the discussion in the previous section that accomplishment terms can be constructed in such a way because the object in an accomplishment event is an incremental theme. It can be concluded, based on the analysis of verb types and noun phrases of the subject, that only activity and accomplishment verbs can occur in such a construction and the subject NP has to be

‧ 國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

an indef NP, def NP, or pronoun.