Chapter 4 The Syntax of the Taiwanese Kah Construction
5.2 Extraordinary High Tone Sense in the Taiwanese Kah Construction
5.2.2 The Interpretation of the Taiwanese Kah Construction
The very high degree sense is singled out from the complement in the previous section, and this section tackles the question: which element in the matrix clause is theta-identified by the extraordinary high tone sense.
Following Doetjes (1997), an adjective V1 contains an open g-position. The operator, which unselectively binds the degree variable in the complement, then theta-identifies with the unsaturated g-position, and the open position is saturated, as illustrated by (143).
(143) VP1 (adjective V1) DP V1’ <gi >
V’ < g> CP/NP<d>
A< g>[BECOME]
I sui -kah Opi kanna cit-lui hue She beautiful -become like a flower ‘She is so beautiful just like a flower.’
The framework is also applied to the verbal V1, which contains an open q-position.
Then, the operator denoting the very high degree sense in the complement theta- identifies with the open q-position, as illustrated by (144).
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(144) VP1 (verbal V1) DP V1’ < qi>
V’ < q> CP/NP< d >
V1< q>[BECOME]
Li-e chio -kah Opi paktoo thiann Li-e laugh -become stomach ache ‘Lie laughed so much that he got a stomach ache.’
Crucially, it is V1 that contains the thematic position instead of the main verb -kah ‘become’ since V1 is atelic but -kah is telic. Recall that only atelic predicates are scalar and contain an open or q-position, which is obligatory for the saturation relationship between the extraordinary high tone sense and the main predicate.
As for the main verb -kah, it is a change-of-state verb, so it is telic. Besides, -kah is not iterated in the Taiwanese kah construction because the construction does not have the meaning that the quantity of the changing event expresses a very high degree sense. Instead, the interpretation is that the subject changes into a situation, which denotes an extraordinary high tone sense. Therefore, -kah is not a scalar verb, so it does not contain an open q-position. In terms of V1, the Taiwanese kah construction also requires it to be atelic. Recall that V1 can be an individual-level adjective, stage-level adjective, stative verb, active verb, semelfactive verb, and achievement verb (cf. Section 2.1). Individual-level adjectives, stage-level adjectives, stative verbs, and active verbs are atelic intrinsically, so they are perfectly possible to be V1 in the construction (cf. (11)-(14)). As for semelfactive and achievement verbs, they are telic, but they can be iterated in Taiwanese, as shown in (145).
(145) a. Ong-e ittit sau. (semelfactive)
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Ong-e all-the-time cough ‘Onge kept coughing.’
b. Ong-e ittit su. (achievement) Ong-e all-the-time lose
‘Onge kept losing.’
Iterated verbs can be modified by the adverb ittit ‘all the time’, and semelfactive and achievement verbs can occur with the adverb, as in (142). Therefore, they contain an open q-position, which can be identified with the operator expressing the very high degree sense (cf. (15)-(16)). Significantly, only accomplishment verbs are not allowed to be followed by -kah, as shown in (17) (repeated as (146)).
(146) * Kinann chai cin chennchau, gua ciah-pa-kah beh thoo-a.
Today dish very plentiful I eat-full-KAH going-to throw-up-ASP
‘There is a lot of food today. I eat a lot. I am so full that I am almost throwing up.’
Accomplishment verbs are telic, and they can not be iterated in Taiwanese, as shown by (147).
(147) *Ong-e ittit ciah-pa. (accomplishment) Ong-e all-the-time eat-full
‘Onge kept eating full.’
Accomplishment verbs can not be modified by the adverb ittit, so they can only be telic, and do not have an open q-position. Hence, the saturation of the operator and the
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main predicate is crashed, so (146) is ungrammatical.
Moreover, the interpretation of the Taiwanese kah construction with a covert complement is the same as its overt counterpart. The operator, which unselectively binds the degree variable in the complement, theta-identifies the unsaturated g-position of the scalar adjectival V1 or the q-position of the scalar verbal V1, as shown in (148)-(149).
(148) VP1 (adjectival V1) DP V1’ <gi >
V’ < g> CP/NP<d>
A< g>[BECOME]
I sui -kah Opi Pro She beautiful -become ‘She is so beautiful.’
(149) VP1 (verbal V1) DP V1’ < qi>
V’ < q> CP/NP< d >
V1< q>[BECOME]
Li-e chio -kah Opi Pro Li-e laugh -become
‘Lie got to the state expressing high degree sense from laughing.’
Through the thematic relationship between the operator and V1, the whole sentence including V1-kah and the covert complement denotes an extraordinary high tone sense.
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CHAPTER 6
THEORETICAL CONSEQUENCES
So far, this thesis proposes a unified analysis of the Taiwanese kah construction.
Syntactically, -kah, the main verb, expresses the sense of ‘change-of-state’ and takes a CP, NP, proform, or Pro as its complement. Semantically, the construction must denote an extraordinary high degree sense, which is derived by the theta-identification between the operator in the complement and V1 in the matrix clause. The consequent question is why the Taiwanese kah construction allows a Pro to be its complement.
This section explores the licensing condition and identification convention of the empty category Pro in the construction. Firstly, I will introduce the licensing condition of the null object in Pashto and Italian, and propose a possible explanation of the complement Pro in the Taiwanese kah construction. Secondly, I will explain why -de should be followed by an overt complement in the Mandarin de construction, while -kah can take a null complement in the Taiwanese kah construction.
6.1 The Licensing Condition and Identification Convention of the Null Object in Taiwanese
In addition to Taiwanese, the null object Pro can also occur in Pashto and Italian.
Firstly, according to C.-T Huang (1984: 534-536), a pronoun in the object position can drop if there is a rich system of agreement between the verb and the object. To support his argument, he provides an important piece of evidence from Pashto, a split ergative language spoken in Agahanistan. The agreement system is ergative when
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Pashto expresses past events. That is, the verb agrees with the subject if it is intransitive, but with the object if it is transitive, as illustrated in (150) (Huang 1984, (12)).
(150) a. Jan ra-g-ay. (intransitive) John ASP-come-3msg
‘John came.’
b. Ma mana wə-xwar-a. (transitive) I apple PRF-eat-3fsg
‘I ate the apple.’
The intransitive verb ‘come’ in (150a) agrees with the subject ‘John’, while the transitive verb ‘eat’ in (150b) agrees with the third feminine singular object NP ‘the apple’. Crucially, the arguments which the verbs agree with can drop, as shown in (151) (Huang 1984, (14)).
(151) a. e ra-g-ay. (intransitive) DIR-come-3msg
‘[He] comes.’
b. Ma e wə-xwar-a. (transitive) I PRF-eat-3fsg
‘I ate [it (fem.)].’
The object ‘apple’ can drop if it agrees with the verb ‘eat,’ as in (151b). Therefore, the null object Pro can be licensed and identified by the rich agreement system.
Secondly, Rizzi (1986) argues that Italian also allows null objects, and he
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analyzes them as zero generic pronouns, which always have an arbitrary interpretation [+Masculine, +Plural], as shown in (152) (Rizzi 1986, (25a)).
(152) E un’illusione [PROarb’ sperare [che un buon pranzo possa riconciliare ___arb’’
con se stessi]].
‘It is an illusion [PRO to hope [that a good meal can reconcile __ with oneself.]]’
The null object should follow the licensing condition and the interpretation convention, as stated in (153a) and (153b), respectively.
(153) a. pro is case-marked by X0y.
b. Let X be the licensing head of an occurrence of pro: then pro has the grammatical specification of the features on X co-indexed with it.
The null object Pro can be identified and licensed by the agreement marker as in Pashto, or it can be case-marked by a head and co-index with the grammatical features on the head, as in Italian. However, either mechanism can not be applied to the null object Pro in the Taiwanese kah construction. Consider the following sentences.
(154) a. I cau-kah cin thiam.
He run-KAH very tired
‘He ran so much that he was very tired.’
b. I cau-kah anne.
He run-KAH that
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‘He ran like that’
c. I cau-kah.
He run-KAH
‘He ran a lot/ very fast/ very tired.’
Firstly, there is no agreement marker on the main verb -kah or V1 cau ‘run’. Secondly, Taiwanese does not have any overt case marker on the argument, and neither does the complement in the Taiwanese kah construction, as in (154). Therefore, the null object can not be licensed by the morphological or syntactic mechanism mentioned above.
Alternatively, I propose that the null complement following -kah is licensed by a semantic mechanism, as shown below.
(155) a. Pro is lexical-licensed by X0y.
b. Let X be the licensing head of an occurrence of Pro: then Pro has the semantic specification of the features on X coindexed with it.
The main verb -kah is a verb with lexical contents, and it requires the complement to have an extraordinary high tone sense. Therefore, the object Pro is lexical-licensed by -kah, and has the semantic specification of the degree feature on -kah coindexed with it. Consequently, even without the agreement system and the case-marking of the head, -kah can license and identify with the following complement Pro.
6.2 The Comparison of the Taiwanese Kah Construction and the Mandarin De Construction
Recall that the Taiwanese kah construction allows its complement to be
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phonetically unrealized, but the Mandarin de construction does not, as shown in (5a) and (6a) (repeated as (156)).
(156) a. Cau-kah gua thiam-kah e. (Taiwanese) Run-KAH I tired-KAH
‘I got so tired from running.’
b. *Ta lei-de. (Mandarin) He tired-DE
‘He is so tired.’
However, Taiwanese and Mandarin share many syntactic properties. For example, the two languages are both lack of a rich system of agreement, and overt case markers, as shown in (156). Besides, they are both pro-drop languages, and the NP or CP argument can be replaced by a Pro, as exemplified in (157)-(158).
(157) A: Li kam-cai [CP guakhau tileh lohhoo]i? (Taiwanese) You know outside -ing rain
‘Do you know that it is raining outside?’
B: [NP Pro] cai [CP Proi]-a.
know-ASP ‘I know.’
(158) A: Ni zhidau [CP waimian zai xiayu]i ma? (Mandarin) You know outside -ing rain Q
‘Do you know that it is raining outside?’
B: [NP Pro] zhidau [CP Proi]-a.
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know-ASP
‘I know.’
The subject NP ‘I’ and the complement CP ‘raining outside’ can be dropped in Taiwanese and Mandarin. Therefore, the asymmetry between the Taiwanese kah construction and the Mandarin de construction should be explained.
I propose that there are two differences between the Taiwanese kah construction and the Mandarin de construction: semantics and the lexicon. Semantically, -kah in Taiwanese requires its complement to denote a very high degree sense, but -de in Mandarin does not have the restriction, as exemplified by the contrast in (8)-(9) (repeated as (159)-160).
(159) Taiwanese
a. *I cau-kah siokua-a ban.
He run-KAH a-little-bit slow ‘He ran a little bit slowly.’
b. I cau-kah cin ban.
He run-KAH very slow ‘He ran very slowly.’
(160) Mandarin
a. Ta pao-de youdian man.
He run-DE a little bit slow
‘He ran a little bit slowly.’
b. Ta pao-de hen man.
He run-DE very slow
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‘He ran very slowly.’
Therefore, -kah has a strong semantic feature with which the null object Pro can coindex, but -de does not. Accordingly, -kah selects a complement which denotes more specific meanings than -de, so when the complement is replaced by a Pro, it is easier for the Taiwanese kah construction to recover the meaning than the Mandarin de construction. Hence, -kah can select a null complement, but -de can not.
As far as the difference of the lexicon is concerned, -kah in Taiwanese is more lexical than -de. -kah can be followed by a NP, CP, or a proform anne ‘that’, as shown in (18)-(20) (repeated as (161)).
(161) Taiwanese
a. Ong-e ii ai-kah [CP Proi cit kang bo khuann-tioh i (CP) Ong-e she love-KAH one day no see him to be ciah be khun].
then no eat no sleep
‘Onge, she loves him so much that she can not eat or sleep if she does not see him for one day.’
b. Li chua-kah [NP hit-le boo], lau-len a ! (NP) You marry-KAH that wife useless
‘You married that wife, who is useless.’
c. Ong-e ii ai-kah [CP anne]-o! (proform) Ong-e she love-KAH this-ASP
‘She loves Onge like this.’
However, -de can only take a CP complement, as shown in (162a). In order to take a
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NP or a proform as the complement, -de should be replaced by -dao ‘to’ or -cheng
‘become’, respectively, as illustrated in (162b) and (162c), respectively.
(162) Mandarin
a. Ta ke-de/-dao lian linju dou tingdao-le. (CP) He cough-DE/to even neighbor all hear-ASP
‘He coughed so much that even the neighbors all heard his cough.’
b. Ta-de gongsi fazhan-dao na-ge guimo. (NP) His company develop-to that-CL extent
‘His company has developed to that extent.’
c. Ta pao-cheng nayang / zheyang. (proform) He run-become that this
‘He ran so much and change into that/this situation.’
-kah in Taiwanese can take various complements, so it does not have c-selection with the following complement. However, -de, -dao, and -cheng in Mandarin are more selective with respect to the category of its complement. The contrast above is attributed to how many lexical contents a verb has. A verb with more contents imposes semantic restrictions to the complement, namely the s-selection.
Consequently, a verb with stronger s-selections has weaker c-selections and can take various complements. As for -kah in Taiwanese and -de, -dao, and -cheng in Mandarin, although they are all light verbs, -kah with strict s-selection and lax c-selection is more lexical than the three verbs, which have lax s-selection and strict c-selection. The semantic content which light verbs have is different due to the stage of grammaticalization which each verb undergoes. Since -kah is more lexical, it can take various phrasal complements, even a null one. On the contrary, -de, -dao, and
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-cheng in Mandarin contain lighter semantic contents, so they have strict c-selection with the complement and the complement can not drop.
In addition, it is plausible to argue that light verbs can further be divided into light verbs with more lexical contents, and light verbs with less lexical contents.
According to Kuo (2003), there are two groups of light verbs in Mandarin: the ‘make’
group containing jinxing and zuo, and the ‘give’ group containing jiayi, yuyi and geiyu.
The former group has the semantic restriction, while the latter group does not. As for -kah in Taiwanese, -kah has the semantic restriction to the complement, so it belongs to the former group. However, -de, -dao, and -cheng in Mandarin do not have any semantic restriction, so they belong to the latter group. Therefore, -kah with more lexical contents can lexical-license the null complement, but the verb -de, -dao and -cheng are too light to license it, as shown by the contrast in (163) and (164).7
(163) Ong-e i ai-kah. (Taiwanese)
7 T.-C. Tang (1990) proposes that the Mandarin -de can occur without an overt complement, as shown in (8) (repeated as (i) below).
However, the -de in (i) is not the -de we discuss in the paper. The -de in the Mandarin de construction has two tones, the neutral tone and the second tone 35. On the contrary, the -de in (i) only has the neutral tone. Therefore, the absence of the complement in (i) is beyond the domain of this paper.
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‘He coughed so much.’
b. *Ta-de gongsi fazhan-dao.
His company develop-to
‘His company has developed to that extent.’
c. *Ta pao-cheng.
He run-become
‘He ran so much and change into that/this situation.’
To conclude, the complement can be phonetically unrealized when it is properly licensed by a head, which has strong semantic features, and identified with it. In the Taiwanese kah construction, -kah has strong semantic features, which requires the complement to denote an extraordinary high tone sense, so it can license a null complement and the null object Pro can co-index with the semantic features. However, in the Mandarin de construction, -de does not have strong semantic features, and it does not specify the degree of the following complement; hence, -de can not take a null complement, or it will violate the licensing condition and the identification convention.
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CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSION
This thesis is about the syntax and semantics of the Taiwanese kah construction which contains the form, where the complement is overt, and the form, where the complement is not phonetically realized, and the nature of the null complement following -kah. Chapter 2 presents the syntactic, semantic and phonological properties of the two forms, and concludes that they share most of the properties. Firstly, -kah can be preceded by any type of predicate, except for an accomplishment verb.
Secondly, the sentences, with or without an overt complement following -kah, denote an extraordinary high tone sense, and sentences without an overt complement have almost the same meaning as sentences with its overt counterpart. Hence, the two forms should be treated as the same construction. Nevertheless, there are two differences between the two forms. Firstly, -kah has the inchoative and ‘pure’
causative and ‘causing-with-a-manner’ causative reading when it occurs with an overt complement, while -kah without an overt complement can only have the inchoative reading. Secondly, the tone of -kah is 21q if it is followed by an overt complement;
otherwise, -kah has the citation tone 4q. In chapter 3, I review previous analyses of the Taiwanese kah construction including H.-L. Lin (2003) and C.-A. Wang (2010).
As for Lin (2003), I argue against the diverse approach by the problem of the scope of modification, the phrasal structure of Taiwanese, and the status of -kah. In terms of Wang (2010), I agree with the bi-clausal analysis, but I disagree that -kah is analyzed as a complementizer because of the categories of the complement, the clitic property of -kah, the CP coorination, and the essence of the head-initial complementizers in
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Taiwanese. Chapter 4 focuses on the syntax of the Taiwanese kah construction and the nature of the emptiness following -kah. As for the structure of the construction, I propose a unified analysis of the construction based on C.-T. Huang (2006). The main verb is -kah, which expresses the main event, and V1 which adjoins to -kah expresses the manner of the main event. The complement can be a CP, NP or proform occurring in the overt or covert form. As for the nature of the emptiness following -kah, I prove that it is only phonetically unrealized by the evidences of phrasal structure of adjunct, and the recoverability from the context. Further, I analyze the null complement as a Pro since (i) it should occur in a pragmatic oriented environment just like the empty antilogophor proposed by C.-S. Liu (2004), (ii) it has the arbitrary reading, and the anaphoric reading which refers to the context, (iii) it can cooccur with the overt wh-element, and (iv) it does not trigger the tone sandhi. In terms of the structure of the construction with a covert complement, -kah is the main verb which expresses the inchoative reading, and takes a CP Pro or NP Pro as its complement. V1 is only an adjunct which specifies the manner of the main event. In Chapter 5, I provide the semantic interpretation of the extraordinary high tone sense denoted by the Taiwanese kah construction. In order to single out the very high degree sense from the various complements, an operator in the embedded CP or NP specifier unselectively binds the degree variable of scalar predicates or nouns, or the degree variable which is entailed by the exaggeration expression or metaphorical expression in the complement. Then, an operator with a high degree sense theta-identifies with the open g-position or q-position of V1 (cf. Doetjes 1997), so the Taiwanese kah construction expresses an extraordinary high tone sense. Chapter 6 is about the theoretical consequences. One of the issues is about the licensing condition and identification convention of the null
Taiwanese. Chapter 4 focuses on the syntax of the Taiwanese kah construction and the nature of the emptiness following -kah. As for the structure of the construction, I propose a unified analysis of the construction based on C.-T. Huang (2006). The main verb is -kah, which expresses the main event, and V1 which adjoins to -kah expresses the manner of the main event. The complement can be a CP, NP or proform occurring in the overt or covert form. As for the nature of the emptiness following -kah, I prove that it is only phonetically unrealized by the evidences of phrasal structure of adjunct, and the recoverability from the context. Further, I analyze the null complement as a Pro since (i) it should occur in a pragmatic oriented environment just like the empty antilogophor proposed by C.-S. Liu (2004), (ii) it has the arbitrary reading, and the anaphoric reading which refers to the context, (iii) it can cooccur with the overt wh-element, and (iv) it does not trigger the tone sandhi. In terms of the structure of the construction with a covert complement, -kah is the main verb which expresses the inchoative reading, and takes a CP Pro or NP Pro as its complement. V1 is only an adjunct which specifies the manner of the main event. In Chapter 5, I provide the semantic interpretation of the extraordinary high tone sense denoted by the Taiwanese kah construction. In order to single out the very high degree sense from the various complements, an operator in the embedded CP or NP specifier unselectively binds the degree variable of scalar predicates or nouns, or the degree variable which is entailed by the exaggeration expression or metaphorical expression in the complement. Then, an operator with a high degree sense theta-identifies with the open g-position or q-position of V1 (cf. Doetjes 1997), so the Taiwanese kah construction expresses an extraordinary high tone sense. Chapter 6 is about the theoretical consequences. One of the issues is about the licensing condition and identification convention of the null