Research Express@NCKU - Articles Digest
Research Express@NCKU Volume 24 Issue 8 - August 30, 2013 [ http://research.ncku.edu.tw/re/articles/e/20130830/2.html ]
Applicatives in Taiwan Southern Min: Benefactives
and malefactives
Hui-chi Lee
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, College of Liberal Arts, National Cheng Kung University
Journal of East Asian Linguistics, Vol. 21, No. 4: 367-386
T
he paper explores the benefactive and malefactive applicatives in Taiwan Southern Min (TSM). The malefactive applicative discussed in the present study is introduced in the adversative passives which appear with the hoo…ka configuration, for example, Hui7-bi2 hoo7 goa2 ka7 i1 phah4 to2 lian3 tui3 ti5 li2 ‘Hui-bi was hit by me and fell down and
rolled to the pond.’ The adversative passive also exists in Japanese, for example, Taroo-ga musuko-ni sin-are-ta ‘Taro’s son died on him.’ Unlike Japanese adversative passives, the additional argument in the adversative passives in TSM is the repeated patient subject,
which always occurs with a pronominal form. Like the malefactive applicative, the TSM benefactive applicative structure is also licensed by the functional word ka. The paper thus explores the syntactic and semantic properties of the ka construction. The present study further postulates a hierarchical order of ka-applicatives, modals and wh-adverbials with respect to their structural height. The ka-applicatives are assumed to be at the lexical layer. In addition, the benefactive ka-phrase is lower than the malefactive applicative. This paper introduces the special sentence pattern in Taiwan Southern Min. The linguistic theory of applicatives can well account for the data in Taiwan Southern Min.
