中英文處所詞倒置之比較 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學語言學研究所碩士論文 National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of Linguistics Master Thesis. 指導教授：何萬順. 博士. 政治大. Advisor: Dr. One-Soon Her. 立. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 中英文處所詞倒置之比較. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. Comparison of Locative Inversion in Mandarin and English. Ch. engchi. 研究生：黃郁玲. i Un. 撰. Student: Yu-ling Huang 中華民國九十九年七月 July, 2010. v.

(2) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v.

(3) COMPARISON OF LOCATIVE INVERSION IN MANDARIN AND ENGLISH. BY Yu-ling Huang. 立. 政治大. sit. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Nat. n. er. io. A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Institute of Linguistics al i vthe n inC Partial Fulfillment of hengchi U Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. July 2008.

(4) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. ii. i Un. v.

(5) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. Copyright © 2008 Yu-ling Huang All Rights Reserved iii. v.

(6) Acknowledgements 誌謝辭研究所的三年期間，前兩年是一邊教書一邊修課，雖然辛苦，但身兼教師和學生的雙重身分，也讓我學會重新以學生的角度來看待教學，瞭解學生的需求，在教學方面能更上一層。研究所修習的最後一年，感謝羅東高中的行政團隊以及我最親愛的英文科同仁們，因為有你們的包容及支持，我才能留職停薪，以專職. 政治大而這篇論文的完成，最主要得歸功於指導教授何萬順老師辛苦的指導。在論立. 學生的身份順利完成學位。. ‧ 國. 學. 文撰寫的過程中，老師總會在百忙之中撥空審閱，並不厭其煩的給我許多建議。面臨到瓶頸及困難時，老師總是一次又一次的給予無私的指導，以及不間斷的鼓. ‧. 勵。從整個論文的架構方向到理論細節，老師總是提供最寶貴的意見。撰寫論文. sit. y. Nat. 的一年期間，有榮幸擔任老師的教學助理，不但在學術上得到許多知識，也得到. n. al. er. io. 許多人生的哲理與啟發。回頭再看研究所的三年，過程雖然辛苦，但豐富充實，也讓我人生更邁向另一個階段。. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 另外要感謝的是，在語言所的求學過程中，多位老師辛苦的教導，感謝蕭宇超老師，黃瓊之老師，徐嘉慧老師，詹惠珍老師，以及萬依萍老師，因為有您們的諄諄教導，學生才得以獲得語言學的專業知識。也要感謝論文口試的委員們，政大的張郇慧老師，謝富在博士，以及師大的徐東柏老師，感謝你們花費許多時間審閱學生的論文，並給予許多寶貴詳盡的建議，讓這篇論文得以更加豐富完整。另外，也要感謝羅東高中英文科的李昭宜老師、張瀅蕙老師、以及江景峯老師，感謝他們在百忙之餘抽空幫我蒐集論文的語料。在政大求學的過程中，除了老師的指導之外，最難忘的就是和同學之間的情誼，首先特別要感謝的是蔡雨倫同學，因為前兩年在職進修的緣故，對修課或規. iv.

(7) 定公告不甚瞭解，雨倫總是不嫌麻煩通知我重要的消息或待辦事項，還有彼此之間的打氣鼓勵，總讓我在遭遇挫折之際又能重新燃起信心，我永遠不會忘記你的這份情誼。此外還要感謝碩班的同學們，佩霖、復真、麗婷、綠茜、冠琄、昆翰、光中、惠鈞、筱茜、芮華、翠屏、依庭、琬茹、旺楨、郁賢，感謝你們三年來的鼓勵及陪伴。也要感謝婉婷學姐以及學弟裕台，謝謝你們的關心和鼓勵，和你們一起上課及課堂報告讓我獲益良多。尤其最要感謝的是所上的惠鈴助教，平時就像大姐姐一樣的關心我們，提醒我們許多所上的重要公告，不管是修課或論文，也都會以學姐的身份給予我們建議。當在為論文擔心的時候，總是親切的給予支持和鼓勵，真的很謝謝您。. 治政最重要的，我要感謝我的父母黃仁祥先生以及游素月女士，謝謝他們支持我大立念研究所的決定，這一路以來做我的強力後盾。感謝爸爸在我需要宜蘭台北兩地 ‧ 國. 學. 奔波時，總是不辭辛勞地開車接送，也要感謝媽媽在我口試時為我煩心許多的小. ‧. 細節，在我疲累時精心熬煮了許多補品。還有許許多多的日子裡，你們總是替我. sit. y. Nat. 分憂解勞，讓我能無後顧之憂的追求我的夢想。還要感謝我可愛的妹妹和弟弟：. io. er. 郁音和立維，在我需要時當我的最佳聆聽者，讓我得以充飽電後重新出發。此外，我要特別感謝我親愛的老公游文仁先生，感謝你一直以來的包容和支. al. n. iv n C 持，總是在我身旁默默的陪伴我，鼓勵我。無論工作再累再辛苦，你總是不忘陪 hengchi U. 我出門散心，感謝有你的呵護，我才能順利完成我的學業。也要感謝我的婆婆游何阿敏女士對我的疼愛，讓我在著寫論文時不需為家務煩心，還為我準備許多補品。最後還要感謝我家的狗寶貝多多，你是我完成學業最大的動力之一。感謝有你們，我的研究所生活是幸福的。謹以此論文獻給我的父親黃仁祥先生、母親游素月女士，以及我的先生游文仁先生，以表達我最誠摯的感謝。. v.

(8) Table of Contents. Acknowledgements ................................................................................. iv Table of Contents..................................................................................... vi Chinese Abstract ................................................................................... viii English Abstract ....................................................................................... x Chapter 1. Introduction....................................................................................... 1 2. Literature Review ............................................................................. 9. 立. ‧ 國. ‧. Transformational Grammar..........................................................................9 2.1.1. Coopmans’ Analysis (1989) ..............................................................9 2.1.2. Li’s Analysis (1990)........................................................................12 2.1.3. Radford’s Analysis (2004) ..............................................................14 2.1.4. Remarks on Transformational Grammar ........................................18. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. Lexical Functional Grammar ......................................................................18 2.2.1 Bresnan and Kanerva (1989) ...........................................................19 2.2.2. Huang and Her (1998) and Her (2003) ...........................................25 2.3. Overall Remarks ........................................................................................29. io. 2.2. 學. 2.1.. 政治大. 3.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Locative Inversion in English and Mandarin .............................. 33 3.1.. Argument Structure....................................................................................33 3.1.1. Suppressionist Approach.................................................................34 3.1.2. Resultative Compounds in Locative Inversion ...............................38 3.2. Constituent Structure .................................................................................42 3.2.1. C-structure in English and Mandarin..............................................42 3.2.2. The Preposed Locative Phrase ........................................................42 3.3. Functional Structure...................................................................................45 3.3.1. Literature Review............................................................................45 3.3.2. Bresnan’s Analysis (1994) ..............................................................46 3.3.3. The Preposed Locative Phrase in Mandarin ...................................48 3.4. Information Structure.................................................................................49 vi.

(9) 3.4.1. The Aspect Zai and Zhe ..................................................................50 3.4.2. Information Packaging....................................................................55 3.4.3. Sentential Information Cohesion ....................................................57 3.4.4. Contextual Information Cohesion...................................................62. 4.. Teaching Implications .....................................................................69 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5.. 5.. The Application of LFG to Language Teaching ........................................69 Contrastive Analysis ..................................................................................71 Argument Structure....................................................................................73 Constituent Structure and Functional Structure .........................................78 Information Structure.................................................................................82. Conclusion ........................................................................................89 5.1. 5.2.. Summary ....................................................................................................89 Further Research ........................................................................................91. 政治大. References................................................................................................93. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. vii. i Un. v.

(10) 國. 立. 政. 治. 大. 學. 研. 究. 所. 碩. 士. 論. 文. 提. 要. 研究所別：語言學研究所論文名稱：中英文處所詞倒置之比較指導教授：何萬順. 博士. 研究生：黃郁玲. 立. 政治大. 論文提要內容：（共 1 冊，14,604 字，分 5 章 14 節）. ‧ 國. 學. 本篇論文主要是採用詞彙功能語法以及篇章功能語法來檢視處所詞倒置的. ‧. 結構在中英文裡的表現，分別從四個層次來檢視，包括了語意結構、詞組結構、. Nat. io. sit. y. 句法功能結構、以及信息結構。首先，能進行處所詞倒置的動詞必須要是帶有一. er. 個客體及一個方位詞的論元結構，或是帶有一個由主事者和客體所組成的複合論. al. n. iv n C hengchi U 元以及一個方位詞的論元結構。其次，在詞組結構中，英文的前置處所詞是屬於介系詞，而中文裡的前置處所詞是屬於名詞。再者，前置的處所詞在中文裡是位於主詞的位置，但在英文裡是句法功能結構上的主詞。最後，在句子的信息結構上，考量到信息編排的方式，後置的名詞傾向是無定的名詞而非代名詞，而且傾向是比前置的處所詞還要長的詞組。就篇章信息而言，處所詞倒置必須考慮到對前的連結及對後的連結。另外在文體修飾上為了對仗的效果也會促使處所詞倒置的產生。. viii.

(11) 透過對比分析，本篇論文有系統地比較英文和中文在處所詞結構的表現，主要目的在於為學習英文的中文講者提供教學上的啟發。而將理論語法運用在教學語法上，也顯示出這兩者語法之間的關連性以及合作性。一方面理論語法可以提供教學語法一個強而有力的理論後盾；另一方面，教學語法也提供了理論語法研究的動機。總的來說，將理論語法運用在教學方面，不僅對語言教學有助益，對語言學研究的領域上也有相當的幫助。. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. ix. i Un. v.

(12) Abstract. This paper examines locative inversion construction by adopting Lexical Functional Grammar and discourse grammar. The examination concerns both English and Mandarin, from four structure levels, a-structure, c-structure, f-structure, and. 政治大. information structure. First, a locative inversion verb takes an a-structure of <theme. 立. ‧ 國. 學. locative> or <agent-theme locative>. Second, in c-structure, the preposed locative belongs to PP in English but to NP in Mandarin. Third, whereas the preposed locative. ‧. phrase is in the subject position in Mandarin, the one in English is only a functional. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. subject in f-structure. Finally, in information structure, given information packaging,. i Un. v. the postposed theme is inclined to be an indefinite nominal instead of a pronoun and. Ch. engchi. to be a longer constituent than the preposed locative phrase; in contextual information, a linking device, used either anaphorically or cataphorically, is necessary for locative inversion, and stylistic parallelism further facilitates the occurrence of locative inversion. With the systematic comparison of English and Mandarin, this paper aims to provide pedagogical suggestions in regard to English learning for Mandarin speakers, by virtue of the use of Contrastive Analysis. The application of theoretical grammar to x.

(13) the language teaching field indicates the correlation and cooperation between theoretical grammar and pedagogical grammar. On the one hand, the theoretical grammar provides a firm and reliable theoretical support for language teaching; on the other hand, the pedagogical grammar is the motivation to the research of theoretical grammar. All in all, the application of theoretical grammar to language teaching contributes not only to the language teaching filed but also to the linguistic research.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. xi. i Un. v.


(15) Chapter 1 Introduction The locative inversion construction concerns a postposed logical subject and a preposed locative argument, deriving from a canonical form (the un-inverted one). A typical example of English locative inversion is presented in (1). (1) a.. John sat on the stage.. (canonical form). b.. On the stage sat John.. (locative inversion). 政治大 It is well assumed that (1a) and (1b) bear the same truth value—equivalent meaning in 立. ‧ 國. 學. truth condition (Rochemont and Culicover 1990)—but diverge in discourse. ‧. information in regard to the focus; the focus in (1a) is the locative ‘on the stage’ while. sit. y. Nat. the focus in (1b) is the NP ‘John’. In regard to the assumption that they are. n. al. er. io. derivationally related, numerous studies have focused on their relationship and how. Ch. i Un. v. and why a locative inversion is formed from its corresponding canonical form.. engchi. English is not the only language in which the locative inversion construction exists; in fact, it exists in many other languages, such as French, Chichewa, and Mandarin, etc. A Mandarin locative inversion example is shown in (2), corresponding to the English one in (1). (2) a.. 張三. 坐. 在. 台上。. Zhangsan zuo zai tai-shang. Zhangsan sit at stage-top ‘Zhangsan sat on the stage.’. 1.

(16) 2. (2) b.. 台上. 坐. 著. 張三。. tai-shang zuo zhe Zhangsan. stage-top sit ASP Zhangsan ‘On the stage sat Zhangsan.’ Locative inversion and the relation to its canonical form involve numerous and sometimes conflicting issues. In regard to the relation between a locative inversion and its canonical form from the perspective of traditional transformational grammar, locative inversion is the surface structure (SS) which is derived from a canonical. 政治大. locative phrase by constituent movement, but it is with no change in meaning to its. 立. canonical form. That is, a locative inversion has the same D-Structure as its canonical. ‧ 國. 學. form. However, a contrast of (3a) and (3b) reveals the inherent difference between. ‧. them, which leads to the assumption that the relation between locative inversion and. y. Nat. n. b.. al. John intentionally sat on the stage.. Ch. engchi. *On the stage intentionally sat John.. er. io. (3) a.. sit. its canonical form may be more than purely variants in the S-Structure.. i Un. v. The second issue is relevant to the feature of a verb as a locative inversion verb. It is widely accepted, and in fact well-established, that locative inversion verbs are unaccusative verbs, or passive verbs taking the same property as unaccusative verbs. Under the framework of transformational grammar, unaccusative verbs are commonly described as intransitive verbs taking no external theta-role but rather an internal one which is realized as the subject in S-Structure, as in (4) and (5), respectively..

(17) 3. (4) a.. 張三. 坐. 在. (unaccusative verb). 台上。. Zhangsan zuo zai tai-shang. Zhangsan sit at stage-top ‘Zhangsan sat on the stage.’ b.. 台上. 坐. 著. 張三。. tai-shang zuo zhe Zhangsan. stage-top sit ASP Zhangsan ‘On the stage sat Zhangsan.’ (5) a.. 一幅. 畫. 掛. 在. yi-fu hua gua zai one-CL painting hang at ‘A picture was hung on the wall.’ b.. 牆上. 立. 掛. (passive verb). 牆上。 qiang-shang. wall-top. 政著治一幅大畫。. ‧ 國. hua. painting. 學. qiang-shang gua zhe yi fu wall-top hang ASP one-CL ‘On the wall was hung a picture.’. ‧. Given this, verbs other than unaccusative and passive verbs are not allowed to be. Nat. io. sit. y. locative inversion verbs. Take unergative verbs, for example; unergative verbs are. er. intransitive verbs taking no internal theta-role but rather an external one, which is. al. n. iv n C contrary to unaccusative verbs. h Therefore, e n g cfrom h i theUperspective of transformational grammar, unergative verbs are not permitted to undergo locative inversion, as in (6). (6) a.. 張三. 在. 房裡. 工作。. Zhangsan zai fang-li gongzuo. Zhangsan at room-inside Work ‘Zhangsan worked in the room.’ b.. *房裡. 工作. 著. 張三。. *fang-li gongzuo zhe Zhangsan. room-inside work ASP Zhangsan * ‘In the room worked Zhangsan.’ Nevertheless, some unergative verbs undergo locative inversion, also, as shown.

(18) 4. in (7). (7). 操場上. 跑. 著. 一群. 學生。. caochang-shang pao zhe yi-qun xue-sheng. playground-top run ASP one-CL student ‘On the playground are running a group of students.’ The verb pao ‘run’ is traditionally classified as an unergative verb in reference to its agent role, otherwise termed as external argument, which is not supposed to undergo locative inversion. However, the exception of example (7) seems to imply that those. 政治大. traditionally classified as unergative verbs are also allowed to undergo locative. 立. inversion.. ‧ 國. 學. The third issue is the lexical category of the preposed locative phrase, which. ‧. performs differently across languages. As shown in (8), the preposed locative phrase. y. Nat. al. er. io. sit. is NP in Chichewa (Bresnan and Kanerva 1989) and in Mandarin (Li 1990), but is PP. n. in English. Since the subject position is restricted to nominal phrases (Bresnan 1994),. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. the English PP seems illegal in this position (but actually it is legal), which thus induces the necessity to undertake various analyses to solve this problem. (8) a.. M-mi-têngo 18-4-tree. mw-a-khal-a 18 SB-PERF-sit-IND. a-nyăni. 2-baboon.. (Chichewa). ‘In the trees are sitting the baboons.’ (Bresnan and Kanerva, 1989:3) b.. 地上. 坐. 著. 一群. 小孩。. di-shang zuo zhe yi-qun xiaohai. ground-top sit ASP one-CL Child ‘On the ground are sitting the children.. (Mandarin).

(19) 5. (8) c.. On the ground are sitting the children.. (English). Another issue is the inconsistent analysis of grammatical relation in locative inversion. Some consider the postposed NP to be a subject due to its agentive role, whereas some perceive it as an object due to its postverbal position. As to the preposed locative phrase, some suggest it as a subject (Bresnan and Kanerva 1989, Her 2003), while others suggest it as a topic (Coopmans 1989).. 政治大. Last, but not least, locative inversion may be concerned with more than purely. 立. syntactic analysis. A syntactically well-produced locative inversion can also be. ‧ 國. 學. ineligible. As in (9), the degree of eligibility decreases from (9a) to (9b), and (9c) is. 一個. io. tai- shang zuo zhe stage- top sit ASP ‘On the stage sat one person.’. n. al. b.. c.. ?台下. 坐. Ch. 人。. yi-ge Ren. one-CL person. e n g張三。 chi. 著. i Un. ?tai- shang zuo zhe stage-top sit ASP ‘On the stage sat Zhangsan.’. Zhangsan. Zhangsan. # 台下. 我們。. 坐. 著. # tai- shang zuo zhe stage-top sit ASP ‘On the stage sat us.’. y. 著. sit. 坐. er. 台下. Nat. (9) a.. ‧. the least eligible.. v. women. We. Nevertheless, in certain environments, (9c) gains eligibility, as evidenced in (10)..

(20) 6. (10). 在. 美輪美奐. 的. 表演廳裡，. 台下. 坐滿了. zai at. mei-lun-mei-huan beautiful. de biao-yan-ting-li, tai-xia DE concert-hall stage-down. zuo-man-le sit-full-ASP. 欣賞. 音樂. 的. 人，. 台上. 坐著. 身穿. xin-shang appreciate. yin-yue music. de DE. ren, man. tai-shang stage-top. zuo-zhe sit-ASP. shen-chuan body-wear. 中國服. 的. 我們。. zhong-guo-fu Chinese-clothes. de wo-men. DE We. ‘In a beautiful concert hall, while below the stage many people were sitting to appreciate the music, on the stage sat we ourselves wearing Chinese clothes.’. 政治大. The contrast between (9c) and (10) reveals the necessity of taking another level of. 立. ‧ 國. 學. grammar into account—that is, the discourse grammar.. The purpose of this paper is thus to investigate the questions which are raised. ‧. above on locative inversion and to establish a complete analysis of locative inversion,. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. for in both English and Mandarin. By comparing locative inversion in the two. i Un. v. languages, the similarities and differences will be illustrated, and this analysis may be. Ch. engchi. used to develop systematic and effective teaching materials for the use of language learners when learning this construction. The remainder of this paper will be organized into four chapters. Chapter 2 is a review of the literature on locative inversion, and by comparing the different theories, a more rational and complete selection of the components of locative inversion will be adopted as the framework of this paper. Based on this framework, Chapter 3 will discuss locative inversion, in both English and Mandarin, from four perspectives:.

(21) 7. a-structure, c-structure, f-structure, and information structure, and seek to solve the problems mentioned in Chapter 1. Chapter 4 is the application of the theoretical discussion in Chapter 3 to language teaching. Finally, conclusions on the topic of locative inversion in English and Mandarin will be presented in Chapter 5.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v.


(23) Chapter 2 Literature Review 2.1. Transformational Grammar Numerous studies adopt the framework of transformational grammar and treat locative inversion as a result of derivation, with the internal and external argument being moved to the peripheral positions (Rochemont and Culicover 1990). Diverse. 政治大. analyses of locative inversion are proposed in line with this basic derivational. 學. 2.1.1.. 立. ‧ 國. principle, as follows.. Coopmans’ Analysis (1989). ‧. Under the framework of transformational grammar, Coopmans assumes that. Nat. io. sit. y. locative inversion verbs are restricted to unaccusative verbs, requiring a subject. n. al. er. originating as a VP-internal argument in D-Structure, as exemplified in (11). (11). Ch. engchi. Down the hill rolled the baby carriage.. i Un. v. Coopmans (1989:729). Traditional treatment of locative inversion is to prepose the VP-internal argument to the subject position, and then postpose it to the sentence-final position. (12a) shows an example of the traditional treatment of locative inversion in transformational grammar: the VP-internal NP originates in the VP-adjoined position, which is moved from the object position to the subject position to inherit Case, and then, triggered by the fronted complement PP, it is postposed to the presentational focus position. 9.

(24) 10. (12) a. PPj. [ ei. [V ei. INFL. ej ] VP NPi ] s. (Coopmans, 1989: 731). CP C (PP) Down the hill. S=TP T’. ei. V roll. 立. NP the ball. PP down the hill. 政治大. ②NP→spec-TP ③NP→focus position. 學. ‧ 國. ①PP→C position. (NP) the ball. VP. T=INFL will. ‧. Dissatisfied with the traditional account provided for locative inversion,. Nat. io. sit. y. Coopmans suggested that the VP-internal NP is never moved to the subject position,. al. er. but directly moved to the VP right-adjoined position where the NP can then be. n. iv n C U the fronted PP, it is h e nin g(12b). checked for presentational focus1, as shown c hAsi for topicalized to the C position. To meet EPP, the empty subject position is occupied by an empty expletive.. 1. According to Coopmans (1989) and Rochemont (1968), the VP right-adjoined position is called the ‘presentational focus position’..

(25) 11. (12) b.. PPj [ e. [[V NP ei. INFL. ej ] VP. ]VP ] s. (Coopmans, 1989: 731). CP S=TP. C (PP) Down the hill. T’. e. VP. T=INFL will. (NP) the ball. VP V roll. NP the ball. PP down the hill. 政治大 ①PP→C position 立. ②NP→focus position. ‧ 國. 學. One of the pieces of evidence which Coopmans uses to argue for (12b) rather. ‧. than (12a) is the effect of locative inversion on control, as seen in (13).. sit. y. Nat. al. n. b.. er. io. (13) a. Two sheiks lay near the oasis [without PRO talking].. i Un. v. *Near the oasis lay two sheiks [without PRO talking].. Ch. engchi. (Coopmans, 1989:732). The VP-internal NP, ‘two sheiks’, can control the PRO in (13a) but not the one in (13b), which evidences that ‘two sheiks’ is not preposed to the subject position, in that a subject should be able to control the PRO in a without-clause while a VP-internal argument cannot. Overall, Coopmans assumes that there is no Subject Postposing involved in locative inversion, and accounts for the validity of unaccusative and passive verbs in locative inversion as relating to their non-external-argument property..

(26) 12. 2.1.2.. Li’s Analysis (1990). Li indicated that locative inversion verbs in Mandarin are seemingly ‘ergative’ (unaccusative) verbs, which take only one internal argument, but assign no theta role to the subject position. Since an internal argument originates in a Caseless preverbal position where it obtains a theta role, it is then either moved to the non-theta-marked subject position, or to the postverbal position where Mandarin usually assigns Case, as seen in (14a), (14b), and (14c).. 立. 那個. 人i. [在床上. nage that. ren man. zai at. ti. 躺著]。. (Li 1990: 139). chuang-shang tang-zhe. bed-top lie-ASP. 學. ‧ 國. (14) a.. 政治大. ‘That man is lying on the bed.’. ‧. CP. y. Nat. T’. n. al. T. er. io. (NP) 那個人. sit. TP. C. Ch. e n g c hVPi. i Un. v. VP PP 在床上. NP 那個人. V 躺著. NP→spec-TP In (14a), the internal argument nage ren ‘that man’ is generated in the preverbal position ti, and is assigned a theta-role but no Case. To obtain Case, nage ren is moved to the subject position, where it is assigned Case but no theta-role, to meet the.

(27) 13. requirement of the Case Filter. On the other hand, to obtain Case, nage ren can also be moved to the postverbal position, as in (14b), since Chinese tends to assign Case to the right (the postverbal) position. (14) b. e. [(*在) 床上 ti. 躺著. 人 i]。. 一個. zai chuang-shang tang-zhe yige at bed-top lie-ASP one ‘On the bed is lying a man.’. ren. man. 政治大. However, this movement leaves the subject position, the Case position, unfilled. In. 立. ‧ 國. 學. order not to violate the Case Filter, the locative zai chuang-shang ‘on the bed’ is triggered to move to the subject position, as shown in (14c).. ‧. io. sit. y. Nat. 躺著一個人 j。 (14) c. 床上 i ti tj chuang-shang tang-zhe yige ren. bed-top lie-ASP one man. n. al. er. ‘On the bed is lying a man.’ CP. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. TP. C. T’. (NP) 床上. VP. T VP PP 在床上. ②PP→spec-TP. NP 一個人. (NP) 一個人 V 躺著. ①NP→postverbal position.

(28) 14. After being moved to the subject position, the locative phrase is assigned a nominative Case, which induces the disappearance of the Case marker zai. 2.1.3. Radford’s Analysis (2004) Radford (2004) suggested that unaccusative verbs can practice locative inversion, as exemplified in (15a) and (15b), being the canonical form and the inverted form, respectively.. 治 2004: 355) 政 (Radford 大. The ball will roll down the hill.. 立. CP. ‧ 國. 學. TP. T’. ‧. vP. Nat. T will. io. v φ +roll. n. al. y. DP The ball. VP. sit. C. φ. er. (15) a.. iv V’ n C htheDPball engchi U V roll. ② spec-VP →spec-TP. PP down the hill. ① V→v. The subject ‘the ball’, as an argument of the lexical verb ‘roll’, originates within VP which is headed by a null light verb phrase termed as ‘vP’2. In the transformational process, the null v first triggers the movement of the lexical verb ‘roll’ to v position,. 2. Radford claimed that the null light verb is similar to the causative verb ‘make’ in English..

(29) 15. and then, the argument ‘the ball’ is moved to spec-TP to meet the Extended Projection Principle (EPP)3. This process serves to develop the canonical form of the unaccusative verb. However, there is another way to meet EPP—that is, to move the PP ‘down the hill’ to spec-TP, but keep the noun phrase ‘the ball’ in its original position—the VP-internal position; this process thus forms the locative inversion, as shown in (15b).. 政治大. (15) b. Down the hill will roll the ball.. 立. 學. TP. ‧. T’. PP Down the hill. io. n. al. y. sit. Nat. vP. T will v. VP. er. C. φ. ‧ 國. CP. φ +roll. Ch. i e n g ctheDP hball. i Un. v. V roll. V’ PP down the hill. ① V→v ② PP→spec-TP While the account Radford proposed appears applicable in the case of unaccusative verbs in English locative inversion, he fails to mention the possibility that 3. The Extended Projection Principle refers to the idea that every clause requires a subject. In Carnie (2002), the definition of EPP is illustrated as follows: All clauses must have subjects. Lexical information is syntactically represented. (Carnie, 2002:175).

(30) 16. non-unaccusative verbs may also undergo locative inversion. Take unergative verbs, which require an external argument, for example. We can speculate that a tree model of an unergative verb, based on Radford’s tree model for transitive verbs, may be created as in (16a). (16) a. A man will (intentionally) roll down the hill. CP. v’. DP a man. Nat. v. io. ② spec-vP→spec-TP. VP. φ +roll DP. n. al. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. vP. T will. Ch. y. 立. T’. DP A man. 政治大. er. φ. sit. TP. C. e n g c h i VU roll. v ni. V’ PP down the hill. ① V→v In that the agent-oriented adverb ‘intentionally’ has undergone grammatical modification, it therefore follows that the argument ‘a man’ must be an agent role and which role, according to Radford, originates in spec-vp position—the external argument of the light verb. Similar to the movement process of unaccusative verb, the unergative verb is moved to the null v position, as seen in (16a), and then the agentive.

(31) 17. argument ‘a man’ is moved to spec-TP to fulfill the EPP principle. Again, another way to meet the EPP is to move the PP to the spec-TP, as illustrated in (16b). (16) b. *Down the hill will a man roll. CP TP. C. φ. T’. PP Down the hill T will. 立. vP. 政治大 v’ DP a man. VP. 學. ‧ 國. v. φ +roll. ‧. DP. PP down the hill. n. al. ① V→v. er. io. sit. y. Nat. V roll. V’. C h ② PP→spec-TPU n i engchi. v. As evidenced in (16b), after the movement, the outcome is not that one that would be produced by a typical locative inversion at all. Given this, Radford’s analysis seems unable to explain all cases of locative inversion verbs. Another flaw in Radford’s analysis is that moving PP to the subject position violates the Case Filter. Since a subject position is restricted to be occupied by a nominal phrase (NP), a prepositional phrase is not supposed to occupy the subject.

(32) 18. position. 2.1.4.. Remarks on Transformational Grammar. If we compare the three analyses above, we find that their core similarity is in regard to their view of locative inversion verbs as unaccusative verbs, which take only one VP-internal argument. They diverge chiefly in the ways of constituent movement. While Coopmans and Li suggest both left-hand and right-hand movement in locative. 政治大. inversion, Radford is only concerned with a left-hand movement of PP to the subject. 立. position, the spec-TP. The different treatments of locative inversion result in various. ‧ 國. 學. identifications of the grammatical relation of the PP complement; the preposed PP in. ‧. Radford’s analysis is a subject, but a topic in Coopmans’ analysis, as he proposed an. Nat. io. sit. y. empty expletive subject. Li’s analysis, though similar to Coopmans’, claims that the. al. er. PP complement in Mandarin turns to NP after being preposed, and thus occupies the. n. iv n C h etontheginconsistent subject position in the inverted form. Due c h i U accounts of locative. inversion, we will seek to try another approach to analyze locative inversion—that of Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG).. 2.2. Lexical Functional Grammar Dissatisfied with only the two levels of structures in transformational grammar,. LFG suggests the coexistence of three parallel and independent levels to form a.

(33) 19. sentence: argument structure (a-structure), functional structure (f-structure), and constituent structure (c-structure), which are correspondingly linked to each other. The linking grammar is termed the Lexical Mapping Theory (LMT), and deals with the mapping relations between thematic roles and grammatical relations (Huang and Her 1998). In a mapping process, the thematic role of an argument (semantically) will first be mapped to a corresponding syntactic argument structure (syntactically), and. 政治大. form an a-structure. Then, the a-structure will be mapped to the grammatical relations. 立. (SUBJ, OBJ, etc) in f-structure, and finally be linked to the category of lexicon in. ‧ 國. 學. c-structure.. ‧. With this framework, the proposed analysis sheds new light on a syntactic. Nat. io. sit. y. account of the locative inversion construction; the representative accounts are to be. er. presented in the following.. n. al. 2.2.1. i n C U Bresnan and Kanerva h (1989) engchi. v. According to Bresnan and Kanerva (1989), LMT is composed of four components, as illustrated in (17). (17) Components of LMT a.. (Bresnan and Kanerva 1989: 23-27). the universal thematic hierarchy: ag> ben > go/ exp > inst > th/ pat > loc. b.. classification of grammatical functions: 1.. ± r (restricted thematically) and ± o (objective):.

(34) 20. SUBJ. [－r －o]. OBJ. OBLθ [＋r －o]. [－r ＋o]. OBJθ [＋r ＋o]. 4. 2. markedness hierarchy: SUBJ > OBJ/OBLθ > OBJθ c.. lexical mapping principles: 1.. intrinsic classifications (IC’s) th/pat Æ [－r];. 2.. agÆ [－o]. morpholexical operations: e.g., passive: θˆ Æ ψ5. 3.. 政治大. default classifications (DC’s):. 立. θˆ Æ [－r]; all others Æ ＋r. ‧ 國. 學. 4. monotonicity condition: feature assignment must be feature-preserving well-formedness conditions (WF):. ‧. The Subject Condition: Every lexical form must have a subject.. 2.. Function-Argument Biuniqueness: Each expressed role must be. y. Nat. 1.. al. er. io. mapped to a unique function, and conversely.. sit. d.. n. iv n C U hierarchy, descend h e nbased The hypothesis assumes that thematic roles, g conhai universal from agent, through beneficiary, recipient/experiencer, instrument, patient/theme, to location, as in (17a). Then, as shown in (17b), Bresnan and Kanerva classify syntactic functions based on two binary features: [r] (thematically unrestricted) and [o] (objective). SUBJ and OBJ are the most unmarked and thematically unrestricted, while OBLθ and OBJθ possess the most marked and thematically restricted feature. 4. OBLθ represents multiple oblique functions, including OBLgo, OBLinstr, and so on. Likewise, OBJθ represents secondary objects, including OBJth, OBJben, and so on. 5. θˆ. refers to the highest thematic role, usually termed as thematic subject or “logical subject”..

(35) 21. Furthermore, considering the objective features of OBJ and OBJθ, the natural classes of grammatical functions and the markedness hierarchy are formed in (17b). The lexical mapping principles in (17c) illustrate the relation between thematic roles and grammatical functions, by classifying intrinsic features to the thematic roles. As to morpholexical operations, adding or suppressing thematic roles can affect lexical argument structure; one of the examples is passivization, which suppresses the. 政治大. highest thematic role in the lexical a-structure, as in (17c2). After applying. 立. morpholexical operations, if any, the default classification applies, which is the. ‧ 國. 學. generalization that the highest thematic role will be the subject and the lower roles. ‧. will be non-subject. Note that the default operations apply only to those roles which. Nat. io. sit. y. are not specified a conflicting feature, which is called the monotonicity condition in. al. er. that it aims to preserve the existing value. Finally, two well-formedness conditions on. n. iv n C h e ningthe lexical forms should also be observed i U principle; every sentence must c hmapping have a subject, and every argument must be mapped to a unique function, and vice versa.. To account for locative inversion in Chichewa and English, Bresnan and Kanerva propose an intrinsic feature and an additional default role classification for a locative role, as presented in (18c) and in (19a), respectively..

(36) 22. (18) Intrinsic role classifications (IC’s): a.. agent encoding: ag Æ [－o]. b.. theme/patient encoding: th/pt Æ [－r]. c.. locative encoding: loc Æ [－o]. (19) Default classifications (DC’s): a.. locative default: <[f] loc>, loc Æ[－r]. b.. the highest role: θˆ Æ [－r]. c.. all other roles: θ Æ [＋r]. 政治大. In (19), the locative role is classified as unrestricted when the theme role is focused. 立. ‧ 國. 學. and thus bears the feature focus, symbolized by [f], which is applied before other defaults. The locative default is only applied in the thematic structure where, for. ‧. example in Chichewa and English, takes only a theme or patient as the highest role.. sit. y. Nat. io. al. n. Chichewa and English.. er. Examples in (20) demonstrate how this theory treats locative inversion in. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. (20) a. A-lendo-wo a-na-bwer-a Ku-mu-dzi. 2-visitor-2 those 2 SB-REC PST-come-IND 17-3-village. ‘Those visitors came to the village.’ bewera < IC’s: DC’s:. WF’s:. th [－r]. loc > [－o] [＋r]. ‘come’. --------------------------------------O/S OBLloc S OBLloc. In (20a), IC is applied first, and the theme and the locative role are assigned [－r] and.

(37) 23. [－o], respectively, as their intrinsic features. After that, the rule DC is applied and the locative role is assigned a [＋r] feature due to its non- θˆ property. However, if the theme role is assigned a focus feature, the locative default should be applied, with the assignment of a [－r] feature to the locative, rather than the assignment of another default rule, as shown in (20b). Ku-mu-dzi Ku-na-bewera 17-3-village 17SB-REC PST-come-IND ‘To the village came those visitors.’ bewera <. 立. IC’s:. [－r]. [－o]. ‧ 國. [f] [－r]. ‧. -------------------------------------O/S S O S. Nat. io. sit. WF’s:. 政治大 th loc > ‘come’. 學. focus DC’s:. a-lendo-wo. 2-visitor-2 those. y. (20) b.. al. er. Though Bresnan and Kanerva’s theory seems to account for locative inversion in. n. iv n C U as noted by Huang and Her Chichewa and English, it leaveshsome e nproblems g c h i unsolved (1998). The first problem is that it cannot be applied to Mandarin locative phrases which are realized as not only an oblique and a subject, but also as an object, as exemplified in (21a) to (21c). 蝙蝠掛在 (21) a. 千隻 qian-zhi bianfu gua zai thousand-CL bat hang at ‘Thousands of bats hang in the tree.’. 樹上。 shu-shang. Tree. (OBLloc).

(38) 24. 掛了千隻 (21) b. 樹上 shu-shang gua le qian-zhi tree hang ASP Thousand-CL ‘Thousands of bats hang in the tree.’. 蝙蝠掛樹上。 c. 千隻 qian-zhi bianfu gua shu-shang. thousand-CL bat hang tree ‘Thousands of bats hang in the tree.’. (SUBJ). 蝙蝠。 bianfu. Bat. (OBJ). The use of intrinsic role classification to encode the locative as [－o] seems to be. 政治大. unworkable in Mandarin since it cannot predict the object status but only the. 立. alternation between subject and oblique. A further problem is that Bresnan and. ‧ 國. 學. Kanerva imply that a locative, if co-occurring with a focused theme, can be mapped to. ‧. the subject in all languages. The assumption that locative inversion is universal. y. Nat. al. er. io. sit. wrongly predicts its existence in non-configurational languages, like Korean and. n. Japanese. Example (22) is from Japanese (Huang and Her 1998).. Ch. engchi. (22) a. Herikoputa ga yama no ue helicopter NOM mountain POSS Top ‘A helicopter landed on top of the mountain.’ b. Yama no ue ni herikoputa mountain POSS top LOC Helicopter ‘On top of the mountain landed a helicopter.’ c.. i Un. v. ni orimashita. LOC land. ga NOM. orimashita. land. * Yama no ue ga herikoputer o orimashita. mountain POSS top NOM helicopter ACC land ‘On top of the mountain landed a helicopter.’. Even though the locative phrase and the subject exchange their position which leads.

(39) 25. to different information focus, as seen in (22a) and (22b), their grammatical functions do not change, as seen in (22c), which result is unlike that in the predication made by Bresnan and Kanerva. This counterexample of locative inversion in Japanese seems to imply that locative inversion is not part of a Universal Grammar and not all human languages undergo locative inversion. Finally, as to the focus rule [f], since it is applied between IC’s and DC’s, it is. 政治大. assumed to involve a morpholexical operation. Nevertheless, the application of focus. 立. to morpholexical operation is inappropriate in that morpholexical operation only. ‧ 國. 學. includes adding, suppressing, and binding roles, and does not include a discourse. y. Nat. Huang and Her (1998) and Her (2003). io. sit. 2.2.2.. ‧. notion such as focus.. al. er. In order to redress the flaws in Bresnan and Kanerva’s argument on locative. n. iv n C h postulate inversion, Huang and Her (1998) i U lexical mapping account, which e n g cahrevised is further modified in Her (2003) as a simplified LMT. The result of the application of simplified LMT is to enlarge the universality of intrinsic role and default classifications and to leave language-specific inversion within the morphosyntactic operation. Thus, it is different from the conventional version of LMT, proposed by Bresnan and Kaverna (1989), in several aspects. First, it argues against the underlying specification of all argument roles, but proposes that.

(40) 26. they be unspecified, underspecified, or fully specified when assigned syntactic features, as seen in (23), where all non-patient/theme roles are unspecified. The treatment of all non-patient/theme roles as unspecified, instead of [－o] in conventional LMT, enables them to be mapped to OBJ, and explains the link of the locative in Mandarin to SUB, OBLθ, and OBJθ. (23). (Simplified) Semantic Classification of A-structure Roles for Function (SC): a. b.. patient/theme: θ—[－r]. 治政 secondary patient/theme: θ—[＋o] 大立 ‧ 國. 學. Second, the simplified LMT allows morphosyntactic operations in addition to. ‧. morpholexical operations. One of the examples of a morphosyntactic operation is. sit. y. Nat. locative inversion, where information is only allowed to be added but not be deleted. n. al. (24). er. io. or changed, without leading to any change in the semantic meaning.. ni C h (DM): Default Morphosyntactic Operation U engchi θÆ [＋r]. v. θ≠ θˆ. In morphosyntactic operation, as seen in (24), the default feature [＋r] will be assigned to all roles except the logical subject θˆ and the theme/patient role for they have been assigned a [－r] feature from SC; see (23). Considering (23) and (24), the logical subject, θˆ , or the patient/theme role, is supposed to be the unrestricted function—SUBJ or OBJ, whereas the other roles are.

(41) 27. mapped to either OBLθ or OBJθ in that they bear a [＋r] feature. Another modification, proposed by Bresnan (2001)6, is to integrate the two mapping principles and the two well-formedness conditions into a unified mapping principle (UMP), of which a modified version is presented in Her (2009b), as (25). (25). The Unified Mapping Principle (UMP):. (Her 2009b: 3). Map each role in a-structure to the highest compatible * AF7 available+. *An AF is compatible iff8 it contains no conflicting features.. 政治大. +An AF is available iff it is not fully specified by a role and not linked to a higher role.. 立. ‧ 國. 學. The UMP maintains the principle that the most prominent thematic role is mapped to the SUBJ in function. Note that the UMP poses no restriction that an argument. ‧. function (AF) must be mapped to a role; however, it still obeys a strict one-to-one. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. argument-function linking principle as in the same way that the θ-Criterion does.. i Un. v. With the simplified LMT, Her further illustrates how the account is workable in. Ch. engchi. the case of locative inversion. A locative inversion verb requires two roles, theme and. 6. Bresnan (2001) proposes two mapping principles and two well-formedness conditions, which are the revision to Bresnan and Kanerva (1989). (1) Mapping Principles: a. Subject roles:. 7 8. (i) θˆ [-o] is mapped onto SUBJ when initial in the a-structure; otherwise: (ii) θ [-r] is mapped onto SUBJ. b. Other roles are mapped onto the lowest compatible function in the partial ordering of the markedness hierarchy of argument functions: SUBJ > OBJ/OBLθ > OBJθ (2) Well-formedness Conditions: a. Functional-Argument Biuniqueness: Each a-structure role must be associated with a unique function, and conversely. b. The Subject Condition: Every predicator must have a subject. AF represents argument function. ‘iff’ refers to ‘if and only if’..

(42) 28. locative, and their functions alternate between the canonical form and the inverted form: theme as the subject in the canonical form while locative as the subject in the inverted form. To explain the alternation, Her revises Huang and Her’s (1998) morphosyntactic operation and proposes a locative inversion rule, as described in (26). (26). Locative Inversion (LI) (Mandarin, English, Chichewa…): < (θ) ψ. x. y. >. [＋o]. [－r]. x=th, y=loc. 政治大. 立. ‧ 國. 學. This rule illustrates the assignment of the features [＋o] and [－r] to the two roles, respectively, and the optional θˆ must be suppressed. Note that the locative inversion. ‧. rule is language-specific; that is, it occurs in Mandarin, English, Chichewa, etc., but. sit. y. Nat. io. er. not in some non-configurational languages like Japanese or Korean. The following. n. al. i Un. v. (27) is the demonstration of how this rule applies to Mandarin locative inversion. Ch. under the simplified LMT framework. (27) a.. engchi. (Her 2003: 11). 約翰. 坐. 在. 台上。. Yuehan John. zuo sit. zai tai-shang. at stage-top. ‘John is sitting on the stage.’ zuo/sit <. x [－r]. y. >. SC: DM: [＋r] --------------------------------------------------S/O OBLθ/OBJθ UMP: SUBJ OBJθ. x=th, y=loc.

(43) 29. 坐著約翰。 (27) b. 台上 tai-shang zuo zhe Yuehan. stage-top sit ASP John ‘On the stage was sitting John.’. zuo/sit. <. y. SC:. x [－r]. >. LI:. [＋o]. [－r]. x=th, y=loc. DM:. -------------------------------------------------OBJ S/O UMP: OBJ SUBJ. 政治大. In the demonstration of (27a), the SC rule applies first, assigning the patient/theme. 立. role [－r] feature, and then the DM rule assigns a [＋r] feature to all the non- θˆ roles.. ‧ 國. 學. Likewise, in (27b), the SC also applies first, but next comes the application of the. ‧. Locative Inversion rule (LI) which assigns [＋o] and [－r] to the two roles,. y. Nat. al. n. features, [－r], that SC and LI have assigned.. 2.3.. Ch. engchi. er. io. sit. respectively. Then, the DM is blocked as its [＋r] feature conflicts with the existing. i Un. v. Overall Remarks Comparing the two different theories above, traditional transformational. grammar uses only two levels to form constituent structure: one level (the underlying level) to account for the lexical role structure of verbs, and the one (the surface level) to arrange the syntactic functions of these roles.9 The grammatical functions/relations. 9. The traditional transformational grammar here refers to the version adopted by Coopmans (1989), Li (1990), and Radford (2004), but not the modern version of transformational grammar..

(44) 30. are not independent but rely on the constituent structure. For example, the subject is the position higher than the verb in hierarchy structure. The two levels are related by syntactic movement operations which are restricted by syntactic principles (such as the Projection Principle, Case theory and the θ-Criterion) so as to preserve the information of the applied movement. In addition, transformational grammar is barely concerned with lexicon in grammar but only with the derivation or movement rules.. 政治大. This thus induces the need for many arbitrary rules to generate locative inversion.. 立. They sort of develop them an ad hoc manner—case by case—so there is no coherence. ‧ 國. 學. to the analyses.. ‧. However, LFG has no distinction between D-structure and S-structure, unlike. Nat. io. sit. y. transformational grammar, Instead, there is only a one-level constituent structure. And. al. er. grammatical functions are abstracted from the constituent structure and presented as. n. iv n C heng values or attributes in the functional structure. Functional c h i Ustructure appears as an. underlying structure in transformational grammar; however, it involves no movement but only mapping theory, which means that it is non-derivational grammar. Moreover, LFG takes great account of lexicon. In argument structure, the thematic role is mapped to its correspondent syntactic argument function in accordance with the universal hierarchy of prominence. The mapping principle of LFG seems rational in taking universal hierarchy into consideration, and produces results which are not as.

(45) 31. arbitrary as derivational rules. In view of this, the present paper will account for locative inversion under the framework of LFG, and the discussion will be with regard to the three level structures LFG takes: a(rgument)-structure, c(onstituent)-structure, and f(unctional)-structure, respectively. In addition to syntactic LFG grammar, the discussion will also include the discourse grammar—the information structure. Thus, in the next chapter, locative. 政治大. inversion will be discussed from these four structures (argument, constituent,. 立. functional, and information structures), mainly focusing on examples from the two. ‧ 國. 學. languages, English and Mandarin.. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v.


(47) Chapter 3 Locative Inversion in English and Mandarin 3.1.. Argument Structure While it is well-established that locative inversion verbs bear unaccusativity, the. definition of unaccusativity varies from one theory to another. Take traditional movement theory and LFG, for example. Under the framework of syntactic movement. 政治大. theories, unaccusativity exists only in unaccusative verbs and passive verbs, which. 立. take an internal argument (logical object) but no external one (logical subject) in. ‧ 國. 學. D-Structure. However, this definition cannot explain why some classified unergative. ‧. verbs, taking an external argument in D-Structure, undergo locative inversion as well,. Nat. sit. al. 洞裡. Ch 跳進. e n g一隻 chi. dong-li tiao jin yi-zhi cave-inside jump-in one-CL ‘Into the cave jumped in a rabbit.’. er. Into the room walked an old man.. n. b.. io. (28) a.. y. as shown in (28): (28a) presenting an English example while (28b) a Mandarin one.. iv n U 兔子。 tu-zi. Rabbit. To explain this exception, we resort to another theory—LFG to re-define unaccusativity. Instead of defining the unaccusativity within the framework of constituent hierarchy or grammatical relation, LFG defines unaccusative verbs by means of argument structure; locative inversion verbs are those unaccusative verbs taking the a-structure of <theme locative> (Bresnan and Kanerva 1989). Under this 33.

(48) 34. assumption, such verbs as called unergative verbs in GB theory actually perform unaccusativity in possessing an a-structure of <theme locative>. Return to example (28a). Since the verb ‘walk’ can be interpreted as requiring a theme role, ‘an old man’, and a locative role, ‘into the room’, simultaneously, it can be a locative inversion verb without violating the unaccusativity principle. Although the account <theme locative> seems workable for (28), it is not applicable in example (29).. On the stage (*intentionally) sat John.. 學. b.. 立. John (intentionally) sat on the stage.. ‧ 國. (29) a.. 政治大. ‧. In (29), the verb ‘sat’ is a locative inversion verb in that it has the inverted form in. Nat. io. sit. y. (29a). However, being modified by an agent-oriented adverb ‘intentionally’, it is. al. er. predicted that the verb ‘sat’ takes an agent role, which is incompatible with Bresnan. n. iv n C and Kanerva’s definition for a locative h inversion e n g verb: c h ithatUit should take an. a-structure of <theme locative>. In this case, the strict a-structure <theme locative> for a locative inversion seems to be unsatisfactory and inappropriate.. 3.1.1.. Suppressionist Approach. To solve the problem in example (29), Her (2004, 2007, 2009b) suggests suppressionist approach. Given the approach of suppressionist theory, all semantic interpretations of an argument will be taken into consideration, while, at the same.

(49) 35. time, the strict one-to-one argument-function linking (or θ-Criterion) is still maintained when the thematic role is mapped to a syntactic argument. According to Her (2004, 2007, 2009b), in the intrinsic thematic structure, a verb may take two composing roles, agent and theme, in a composite role, agent-theme. When the composite role is mapped to its correspondent grammatical function, triggered by the one-to-one θ-Criterion that one role can only be assigned to one argument, one of the. 政治大. composing roles is suppressed, which allows the other to be linked to the grammatical. 立. 約翰. 坐. 在. 台上。. 學. (30) a.. ‧ 國. function. See the example in (30).. (Her 2009b: 11). io. SC: DM:. x-y. z. >. x=ag, y=th, z=loc. er. zuo/sit <. sit. y. Nat. i.. ‧. Yuehan zuo zai tai-shang. John sit at stage-top ‘John is sitting on the stage.’. al. n. [＋r] iv n C hengchi U --------------------------------------------------------UMP:. S/O/ OBLθ/OBJθ SUBJ. OBLθ/OBJθ OBLθ. OR ii. zuo/sit <. x-y. SC: DM:. [－r]. z. >. x=ag, y=th, z=loc. [＋r]. -------------------------------------------------------S/O OBLθ/OBJθ UMP: SUBJ OBLθ In the canonical form of (30a), the verb zuo ‘sit’ is assumed to take a composite.

(50) 36. role of <agent-theme> and a locative role <locative>, which leads to an a-structure of <agent-theme locative>. If the suppression rule is then applied, the a-structure will be either < agent-theme locative> or < agent-theme locative>, which leads to a separate meaning but the same grammatical relation is maintained. In the case of applied suppression, in (i), the SC rule assigns no features while DM assigns a [＋r] feature to the locative role. Based on UMP, the theme is linked to the more prominent SUBJ,. 政治大. and similarly, the locative to the less marked OBLθ. On the other hand, in (ii), SC. 立. assigns a [－r] feature to the theme role <z>, and DM assigns a [＋r] feature to the. ‧ 國. 學. locative role <y>. And again, the UMP guarantees the most prominent OBLθ and. ‧. SUBJ to the locative and the theme role, respectively. The two mapping processes. Nat. sit. 坐. 台上. 著. er. io. (30) b.. al. n. theme role.. y. imply two readings in the sentence (30a), Yuehan ‘John’ can be either an agent or a. iv n C約翰。 h e n g(Her i U 11) c h2009b:. tai-shang zuo zhe Yuehan. stage-top sit ASP John ‘On the stage was sitting John.’ zuo/sit. <. x-y. SC:. [－r]. LI:. [＋o]. z. >. x=ag, y=th, z=loc. [－r]. DM:. -------------------------------------------OBJ S/O UMP: OBJ SUBJ As for the inverted form (30b), only the suppression of the agent is allowed: the.

(51) 37. a-structure of <agent-theme locative>. The theme role is assigned a [－r] feature from SC, and then the LI rule assigns feature [＋o] and [＋r] to <y> and <z>, respectively. After the UMP, the <z> role is mapped to the SUBJ while the <y> role is the OBJ. The inverted form in (30b), contrary to (30a), only induces one reading that Yuehan ‘John’ is a theme role. This new account challenges the conventional concept that locative inversion. 政治大. verbs are restricted to a strict a-structure of <theme locative>, but suggests that some. 立. locative inversion verbs take also an a-structure <agent-theme locative>, which is. ‧ 國. 學. evidenced in the contrast between (31) and (32).. sit. di-shang. ground-top. al. er. io. i v yi-die n GuyiC tang Zhe he chi U Intentionallyn glie ASP one-CL 故意. n. * 地上. y. Nat. b.. 地上。. ‧. 鈔票故意躺在 (31) a. * 一疊 yi-die chao-piao guyi tang zai one-CL bill intentionally lie at ‘A pile of bills is lying on the ground.’ 躺. 著. 一疊. di-shang ground-top ‘On the ground is lying a pile of bills.’. 鈔票。 chao-piao. bill. 醉漢故意躺在地上。 (32) a. 一個 yi-ge zui-han Guyi tang Zai di-shang. one-CL drunk intentionally lie at ground-top ‘A drunk is lying on the ground.’ 故意躺著一個醉漢。 b. *地上 *di-shang guyi tang zhe yi-ge zui-han. ground-top intentionally lie ASP one-CL Drunk *‘On the ground is intentionally lying a drunk.’ Given that the volitional adverb guyi ‘intentionally’ can only modify an agent role, the.

(52) 38. sentences that bear this adverb must have an agent role. In this case, it can be inferred that the canonical form (31a) and its inverted form (31b) have the same a-structure <theme locative>. However, in (32), the canonical form (32a) and the inverted form (32b) seem to differ in a-structure: the former taking <agent locative> or < theme locative > while the latter < theme locative >. This is also true in English, as in (33) and (34).. b.. b.. A man intentionally shot through the window.. 學. (34) a.. 政治大 *Through the window intentionally shot a bullet. 立 *A bullet intentionally shot through the window.. ‧ 國. (33) a.. *Through the window intentionally shot a man.. ‧. The examples from (31) to (34) suggest the possibility that locative inversion and its. sit. y. Nat. io. n. al. er. canonical form may not necessarily have the same truth value; sometimes the canonical form may have two distinctive readings.. 3.1.2.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Resultative Compounds in Locative Inversion. Another supporting argument for the suppressionist theory concerns the resultative compound in Mandarin locative inversion, as exemplified in (35), provided by Li (1995). (35). 這場. 饑荒. 餓死了. 很多. 人。. zhe-chang jihuang e-si-le henduo ren. this-CL famine hungry-dead-ASP many people ‘Many people starved to death in this famine.’.

(53) 39. In Li (1995), this sentence is interpreted as a resultative compound inversion. The compound verb e-si in (35) is composed of two verbs: e ‘hungry’, indicating the cause, and si ‘death’, the result; the former is termed as Vcaus and the latter as Vres. Vcaus and Vres both assign theta roles to the object position, but none to the subject, leaving the subject position unoccupied by roles from either Vcaus or Vres. On the other hand, although acting like the cause of the starvation of the people, the argument zhe-chang. 政治大. jihuang ‘this famine ‘ cannot be directly linked to either Vcaus or Vres. However, the. 立. position, which violates the principle of θ-Criterion.. 學. ‧ 國. argument receiving no theta roles from the compound verb turns to fill the subject. ‧. To solve the problem, we can alternatively interpret this sentence as a locative. Nat. io. sit. y. inversion: attaching yu ‘in’ to the subject zhe-chang jihuang ‘this famine’ and. er. rephrase the sentence as in (36). Yu, in Mandarin, can refer to the time, place, or the. al. n. iv n C event of the cause. In this case, h ‘this e nfamine’ g c hcani beUviewed as a location, and (36) is a canonical form of a locative inversion while (35) is the inverted form. (36). 很多. 人. 餓死. 於這場. 饑荒。. henduo ren e-si yu zhe-chang jihuang. many people hungry-dead in this-CL Famine ‘Many people starved to death in this famine.’ Applying the suppressionist theory, the mapping process of locative inversion in (35) and its canonical form in (36) will be illustrated in (37a) and (37b)..

(54) 40. 人餓死於這場饑荒。 (37) a. 很多 henduo ren e-si yu zhe-chang jihuang. many people hungry-dead in this-CL Famine ‘Many people starved to death in this famine.’. e ‘hungry’ <x > si ‘dead <y z> e-si ‘hungry-dead’ <x-y z> i.. <. x-y. SC: DM:. [＋r] -------------------------------------S/O OBLθ/OBJθ SUBJ OBLθ <. 政治大. 立. x-y. z. >. [－r] [＋r]. -------------------------------------S/O OBLθ/OBJθ SUBJ OBLθ. n. sit er. io. al. y. Nat. UMP:. >. ‧. SC: DM:. z=loc). 學. OR ii.. z. y=th. [－r]. ‧ 國. UMP:. (x=th. i Un. v. In the canonical form (37a), the causing verb e takes a theme and a locative role. Ch. engchi. <x z>, while the resulting verb si takes a theme role <y>; when forming a compound, the compound e-si then takes an a-structure <x-y z> with a composite role. After applying the suppression rule, the a-structure that the compound verb takes turns to either <x-y z> or <x-y z>, and either of them will lead to the same reading, <theme locative>. In the process of operation, the theme recieves a [－r] feature from SC, and the locative receives a [＋r] from DM. Based on UMP, the theme is linked to the more prominent SUBJ, and similarly, the locative is mapped to the less marked OBLθ..

(55) 41. 饑荒餓死了很多人。 (37) b. 這場 zhe-chang jihuang e-si-le henduo ren. this-CL famine hungry-dead-ASP many people ‘Many people starved to death in that famine.’ e ‘hungry’ <x > e-si. z>. ‘hungry- dead’ <x-y z>. i.. <. x-y. SC:. [－r]. LI:. [＋o]. DM:. (x=th z. y=th. z=loc). >. [－r]. --------------------------------------OBJ S/O OBJ SUBJ. UMP:. <. x-y. SC:. [－r]. LI:. [＋o]. DM:. z. >. [－r]. y. Nat. ---------------------------------------OBJ S/O OBJ SUBJ. ‧. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大. 學. io. sit. UMP:. al. er. OR ii.. si ‘dead <y. n. The inverted form in (37b) has the same a-structure after suppression. However,. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. after receiving a [－r] feature from SC, the locative inversion rule (LI) is applied, assigning [＋o] and [－r] features to the theme and the locative role, respectively. DM cannot assign the [＋r] feature since it is contradictory to the [－r] feature which has been assigned to the < x-y > and <z> roles. Again, by UMP, the locative chooses the more prominent SUBJ while the theme has only one choice, the OBJ. Since the interpretation of locative inversion allows the phrase ‘this famine’ to fill the subject position, it is suggested that the sentence in (35) is acually a locative inversion instead.

(56) 42. of a resultative inversion.. 3.2.. Constituent Structure. 3.2.1. C-structure in English and Mandarin After examining the argument structure of locative inversion, this section will move on to investigate its constituent structure. Under the framework of LFG, the. 政治大. discussion of c-structure here focuses only on the lexical category of arguments and. 立. no grammatical functions are involved.. ‧ 國. 學. As noted, locative inversion verbs require two arguments, a postposed theme role. ‧. and a preposed locative one. As to the former, much of the research proposes a. Nat. io. sit. y. consistent definition for it—that it is a noun phrase, which is true both in English and. al. er. in Mandarin. At the same time, however, the lexical category of the preposed locative. n. iv n C h e nand phrase varies across languages. Take English h i U for example; the former g cMandarin,. treats the locative as a prepositional phrase, while the latter treats it as a noun phrase. The following section will discuss the different categories of locative phrase in the two languages.. 3.2.2.. The Preposed Locative Phrase. The preposed locative phrase of locative inversion in English is always accompanied by a preposition like ‘in’, ‘at’, ‘on’, a directional preposition like ‘into’,.

(57) 43. ‘onto’, or an adverb like ‘away’, ‘above’, etc., as exemplified in (38). (38) a.. On the stage sat a man.. b.. Into the pool jumped a man.. c.. Away flew the birds.. Due to the fact that a locative phrase in English is obliged to be accompanied by a preposition, it is defined as a preposition phrase (PP). Contrary to the PP category in English, the preposed locative phrase in Mandarin. 政治大 seems more like a noun phrase than a preposition phrase, in that it is composed of no 立. ‧ 國. 學. preposition but a localizer. The literature has indicated the phenomenon that in. ‧. Mandarin, the preposed locative phrase requires no preposition (Huang 1982, Chao. sit. y. Nat. 1961, Wang 2005); and few, if any, are qualified apart from zai ‘at’ and cong ‘from’. n. al. er. io. (Teng 1975)10, as seen in (39) and (40). (39). (?在). 空中. Ch. 飄. 著. epiao hi n g c zhe. (?zai) kong-zhong in air-inside float ASP ‘In the sky is floating a falling-leaf.’ (40). (從). 洞裡. 跳出. iv n 一片 U. 一隻. cong dong-li tiao-chu yi- zhi from cave-inside jump-out one-CL ‘From the cave jumped out a tiger.’. yi-pian one-CL. 落葉。 luo-ye. falling-leaf. 老虎。 lao-hu. Tiger. However, the existence of these prepositions in Mandarin locative inversion is still under question for two reasons. First, these prepositions tend to be omitted, and even 10. Teng (1975) claims that locative prepositions include 1) zai ‘to be located’ (to indicate Base), 2) cong ‘from’ (to indicate Source), and 3) dao ‘to’ (to indicate Goal)..

(58) 44. need to be obligatorily deleted in some cases. Huang (1982) attributes the omission to their highly-verb-like aspect11, which is in conflict with the stative property of locative inversion. What is more, (40) is not a typical locative inversion on closer examination, for there is no corresponding canonical form, as shown in the ungrammaticality in (41). (41). * 一隻. 老虎. 跳出. 從. yi- zhi lao-hu tiao-chu cong one-CL tiger jump-out from ‘A tiger jumped out from a cave.’. 洞裡。 dong-li. cave-inside. 政治大. 立. ‧ 國. 學. In view of this, it seems that the preposition in locative inversion in Mandarin tends to be omitted rather than be present, which provides evidence for the nominalization of. ‧. the preposed locative phrase in Mandarin (Hou 1977). Another argument for the. sit. y. Nat. io. er. nominal property of the preposed locative is the obligatory requirement of localizer. n. al. i Un. v. nouns, like li ‘inside’, pang ‘beside’, hou ‘back’, qian ‘front’, wai ‘outside’, shan ‘up’,. Ch. 12. and xia ‘down’, etc (Huang 1982).. engchi. Considering the absence of a preposition and the. appearance of a localizer—that the locative phrase is headed by a noun but not by a preposition—it is suggested that the preposed locative in Mandarin is categorized as a noun phrase. In summary, the preposed locative phrase belongs to different categories in. 11. Huang (1982) indicates that some prepositions in Mandarin are evolved from intransitive verbs, and thus inherit verb-like features, such as zai ‘in/at’, cong ‘from’, xiang ‘to’, cao ‘to’, and dao ‘to’, etc. 12 Chao (1961) regards them as post-positional particles while Tang (1988) claims they are localizers. See Huang (1982)..

(59) 45. English and Mandarin; in the former it is a preposition phrase (PP), while in the latter it is a noun phrase (NP).. 3.3.. Functional Structure. 3.3.1.. Literature Review. While there is a generally-accepted understanding of the position of c-structure. 政治大. in locative inversion, the literature on grammatical relation lacks consistent and. 立. complete arguments. The preposed locative is regarded as a subject (Li 1990, Huang. ‧ 國. 學. and Her 1998, Her 2003, Levin and Rappaport 1995) or a topic (Coopmans 1989),. ‧. and the postposed theme is suggested as a subject (Rochemont and Culicover 1990) or. Nat. io. sit. y. an object (Coopmans 1989, Bresnan and Kanerva 1989, Li 1990, Huang and Her 1998,. al. er. Her 2003). Some of these proposals are based on the word order SVO (the preposed. n. iv n C locative as a subject), some are h based i Ucategory of the preposed locative e nongthe c hlexical (where the preposed locative is a topic but not a subject), and still others are based on the verb-agreement rule (the postposed theme as the subject). Recent literature is nearly all consistent in claiming that the postposed theme is an unaccusative object, which is true both in English and Mandarin. In light of this, this section will not focus on the postposed theme; instead, we will focus on the preposed locative phrase, the other argument in locative inversion, in respect to its.

(60) 46. grammatical relation.. 3.3.2. Bresnan’s Analysis (1994) Bresnan’s analysis of the preposed locative phrase in English will be adopted to resolve the inconsistent interpretations of its grammatical function. In c-structure, the sentence-initial position of a preposed locative phrase implies its subject grammatical status. Nevertheless, as a preposition phrase in English, the. 政治大. preposed locative, is unqualified to fill the nominal subject position in c-structure, as. 立. described in (42), which illustrates the mapping restriction between c-structure and. ‧ 國. ‧. If C is a c-structure position restricted to subjects or objects, then C is. y. Nat. (Bresnan 1994:104). io. al. sit. nominal.. er. (42). 學. f-structure.. n. In accordance with the mapping constraint in (42), only nominals can fill the subject. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. and object position of phrase structure. However, in English, the preposed locative is not nominal and thus is unable to fill the subject position. To tackle this problem, we examine the c-structure and f-structure of the preposed locative phrase in English, respectively, as presented in (43)13.. 13. The figure in (43) is adapted from Bresnan (1994: 105: figure 3)..

(61) 47. (43). On the stage sat a man.. TOP SUBJ TENSE PRED OBJ FOC. [‘on the stage]. S PP. S. on the stage. VP. past ‘sit <SUBJ, OBJ>’ ‘a man”. NP. VP V. a man. sat. In the figures in (43), the right-side figure represents the c-structure of the sentence in. 政治大. (43) while the left-side figure represents the f-structure. In c-structure, the topicalized. 立. PP stays in the CP- specifier position but not in the subject position, or termed as the. ‧ 國. 學. VP-specifier. In f-structure, the preposed PP, though filling the TOP discourse. ‧. function, cannot meet the requirement of the three principles in f-structure, including. Nat. io. sit. y. the Completeness Condition, the (Extended) Coherence Condition, and the. al. er. Uniqueness Condition. As to the Completeness Condition, the subject function is. n. iv n C U h erole. required to be filled by a thematic Coherence Condition n gAndc hthei (Extended) demands that the topicalized PP, the discourse function or non-argument function, be identified with an argument position such as SUBJ or OBJ. Finally, the Uniqueness Condition prohibits the topicalized PP from being identified with each of the arguments except for SUBJ since all of them (except the subject function) have assigned values. Considering this, the only way to meet the three principles simultaneously is to link the topicalized PP to the subject function in f-structure, as in.