The Syntactic Status of Comparative Marker Gen/He

It is well known that Gen and he can be used as either prepositions or

coordinators in Mandarin. Example (49) is slightly adapted from Zhang (2005).

(49) Zhangsan gen Lisi gen Wangwu xue le henduo dongxi.

Zhangsan GEN Lisi GEN Wangwu learn ASP many thing Reading A: ‘Zhangsan and Lisi learned many things from Wangwu.’

Reading B: ‘Zhangsan learned many things from Lisi and Wangwu.’

As Zhang (2005: 358) puts it: “In Reading A, only Wangwu can be the source, whereas Lisi cannot, though both are introduced by gen. In Reading B, the complex Lisi gen Wangwu is the source. Within the complex, gen does not introduce either another source or a goal. This means that this gen is a coordinator.” An insightful point in Zhang (2005) is that gen/he is a preposition in nature when it introduces either another source or a goal. On the other hand, gen/he does not introduce either another source or a goal when it is a coordinator.

More interestingly, the comparative standard marker, in many languages, is a morpheme that typically introduces goal phrases (like ‘to’ or ‘for’), or a morpheme with a meaning roughly equivalent to ‘from’ (see Staseen (1985) and Kennedy (2005b) for discussion). Example (50) is borrowed from Kennedy (2005b: 3).

(50) a. Nihongo-wa doitsgo yori muzukashi. JAPANESE Japanese-TOP German from difficult

‘Japanese is more difficult than German.’

b. Sapuk ol-kondi to l-kibulekeny. MAASAI is-big the-deer to the-waterbuck

‘The deer is bigger than the waterbuck.’

c. Jazo bras-ox wid-on. BRETON

he big-PRT for-me ‘He is bigger than me.’

With this connection in mind, shifting our attention to CEs, it is interesting to note that the situation for the categorial status of gen/he in CEs is on a par with that of gen/he in the normal circumstances such as example (49). To be more specific, in Chinese Equatives, gen/he is a preposition when it functions as a comparative marker introducing the comparative standard; otherwise, it is a coordinator. Example (51) illustrates this point.

8 In fact, this sentence also has another reading concerning Zhangsan and Lisi and Wangwu are equally tall. Such a reading resembles the sentence internal reading (see discussions in section 3.2) in that the comparative standard is identified within the sentence (i.e., without referring to previous context).

However, this internal reading differs from other readings (in (51a)) in that the comparative standard does not refer to any particular individuals/objects in the sentence. For the sake of convenience, I demonstrate this point by presenting the English examples:

(i) a. John and Bill read the same book.

b. John read the same book as Bill (did).

Note that (ia) and (ib) both involve the internal reading. Crucially, while the latter identified the book that Bill read as the comparative standard in the sentence; in the former, the comparative standard is identified reciprocally. Regarding the complexities of the internal reading and its licensing conditions in English, I refer the reader to Dowty (1985), Carlson (1987), Moltmann (1992), Beck (2000), and

b. Zhangsan gen Lisi gen Wangwu yiyang hen gao.

Zhangsan GEN Lisi GEN Wangwu same very tall

Reading A: ‘Zhangsan and Lisi are the same as Wangwu in that they are (very) tall.’

Reading B: ‘Zhangsan is the same as Lisi and Wangwu in that they are (very) tall.’

Reading C: ‘Zhangsan and Lisi and Wangwu are the same as some contextually salient individual in that they all are (very) tall.’

As for (51a-b), in Reading A, only Wangwu can be the comparative standard, whereas Lisi cannot, though both are introduced by gen. In Reading B, the complex Lisi gen Wangwu is the comparative standard.¹⁰ Within the complex, gen does not introduce another independent comparative standard. This means that this gen is a coordinator.

Additional support for the prepositional nature of a comparative marker comes form the distribution of the distributive operator dou in the sentence. It is observed that the distributive operator dou syntactically can not occur within the coordination complex (i.e., between the first conjunct and the second conjunct), even though the first conjunct is in principle semantically distributable. Consider the contrast indicated in (52a-b) and (53a-b).

tall, too.’

In contrast, their counterparts in English do not need the adverbial elements too or also.

(ii) John is one hundred and eighty centimeters tall. Bill is equally tall.

Honestly, I have no explanation for this contrast at this moment.

10For Reading B, there is a variation on the judgments among native speakers. Imaginably, it is pragmatically trivial to mention a comparative standard containing two individuals that both are identical in any contextually relevant respects. Leaving this issue aside, the crucial point here is that the comparative marker (introducing the comparative standard) is preposition in nature, and this is at least supported by Reading A and many other pieces of evidence.

(52)a Na wu ge xuesheng gen/he Lisi (dou) shi Taiwanren.

That five CL student and Lisi DOU is Taiwanese b. Na wu ge xuesheng (*dou) gen/he Lisi shi Taiwanren.

That five CL student DOU and Lisi is Taiwanese

‘The five students and Lisi are Taiwanese.’

(53) a. Na wu ge xuesheng gen/he Lisi (dou) hen gao.

That five CL student and Lisi DOU very tall b. Na wu ge xuesheng (*dou) gen/he Lisi hen gao.

That five CL student DOU and Lisi very tall ‘The five students and Lisi are (very) tall.’

On the other hand, in the situation that gen/he serves as a comparative marker, the distributive operator dou can occur between the target of comparison and the standard of comparison in Chinese Equatives, as shown in (54).

(54) a. Na wu ge xuesheng (dou) gen/he Lisi yiyang hen gao.

That five CL student DOU with Lisi same very tall

‘The five students are the same as Lisi in that they are (very) tall.’

b. Na wu ge xuesheng (dou) gen/he Lisi yiyang gao.

That five CL student DOU with Lisi same tall ‘The five students are equally tall as Lisi.’

In brief, as all the contrasts suggested above, gen/he in Chinese Equatives serves as a preposition when it functions as a comparative marker introducing the comparative standard. In the next section, following the Generalized Control approach

(Huang 1984 and many subsequent works), I propose that the clausal complement of yiyang involves control structure, and the syntactic antecedent of pro is the matrix subject (which is also semantically the target of comparison).