Transitive Unaccusative Verb Constructions in Mandarin - Essay Example

1. Introduction This paper investigates the transitive unaccusative1 verb constructions in Mandarin. In Mandarin exits a type of constructions in which the verb is an unaccusative verb but used in a transitive way. pengyou lai le. → Wo lai le pengyou. Friends came Prt I came Prt friends. (My friends came.) fuqin si le. → name si le fuqin. Father died Prt Tom died Prt father. (Tom’s father died.) qianbi diao le . → name diao2 le qianbi. Pen dropped Prt Tom dropped Prt pen. (Tom’s pen dropped.) There are also causative unaccusative verb constructions in English. But even judging simply from the meaning of the sentences, we would know that the Mandarin ones and the English ones have different syntactic structures. The car broke. → Mary broke the car. The ice melted. → The sun melted the ice. The pot cracked. → Mary cracked the pot. So, it raises questions that: 1. What is the derivation of Mandarin transitive unaccusative verb constructions? 2. How is the unaccusative verb converted into transitive? And we have two hypotheses: 1. The Mandarin constructions can be analysed in a VP shell as the English ones. 2. There is a light verb in the structure as in English. The paper is structured as follows: we will first try to analyse the construction by Hale and Keyser’s syntactic configurational approach to event structures in section 2, but there are problems with this approach; then we will turn to Huang’s light verb in section 3, and get the derivation of the structure; section 4 will examine the validity of the analysis; limitations will be pointed out in section 5. ______________________________ 1. Perlmutter (1978) and Bwzio (1986) suggested that the class of intransitive verbs is non-homogenous, and it is composed of two subclasses: unaccusative and unergative verbs. This paper focuses on unaccusative verbs. The cases of unergative verbs are different with unaccusative, which will be discussed in Section 4. 2. diao (drop) is intransitive in Mandarin 2. The syntactic structure of the transitive unaccusative verb construction in Mandarin 2.1 Observation and Hypothesis In English, some unaccusative verbs can be converted into causative verbs. The car broke. → Mary broke the car. The ice melted. → The sun melted the ice. The pot cracked. → Mary cracked the pot. In Mandarin, we also notice that some unaccusative verbs can be converted into causative. For this alternation, an additional verb has to be inserted into the construction, forming a verbal compound. qianbi diao le . → name peng-diao le qianbi. Pen dropped Prt Mary swiped-dropped Prt pen (Mary swiped the pen and the pen dropped.) pengyou lai le. → wo jiao-lai le pengyou. Friends came Prt I called-came Prt friends (I called friends and they came.) fuqin si le. → name qi-si le fuqin. Father died Prt. Tom angered-died Prt father (Tom angered father and father died.) In Mandarin, there also exits an alternation of unaccusative verbs into transitive verbs (here we do not limit it to causative verbs, because we do not know its syntactic representation yet) without inserting a verb. (1) a) pengyou lai le. → b) Wo lai le pengyou. Friends came Prt I came Prt friends. (My friends came.) a) fuqin si le. → b) name si le fuqin. Father died Prt Tom died Prt father. (Tom’s father died.) a) qianbi diao le . → b) name diao le qianbi. Pen dropped Prt Tom dropped Prt pen. (Tom’s pen dropped.) We make a hypothesis that the syntactic configurational approach to event structures for the transitivity alternation in English (Hale and Keyser 1991, 1993, 1997, 1998, 1999) can apply to the structure of transitive unaccusative verb constructions in Mandarin. Next, we will give the reason for this hypothesis, and check our hypothesis by Mandarin data. 2.2 Theory The body of research created by Hale and Keyser (1991, 1993, 1997, 1999) implies that relevant syntactic configurations predetermine event structures the event structures of VPs and NPs’ thematic status inside them. Hale & Keyser state that deriving of English deadjectivals and denominals subjected to complex syntactic structures; thereby, the rules of UG, such as ECP, affect the relevant derivations. Basically, Hale & Keyser’s assumption implies that syntactic means affect derivation of lexical units, while syntactic operations insure derivation of the argument structures. Hale &Keyser virtually exc luded the notion of thematic roles, suggesting them to be mere interpretations acquired by the nominals due to syntactic configurations (which, in their turn, are influenced by projections and categories). According to Hale & Keyser (1993), the structure in (2) is associated with what is commonly known as the causative predicate. ( 2 ) Hale & Keyser’s theory characterizes lexical categories with elementary semantics; thereby, a verb (V) represents an event (e). As far as the structure incorporates two projections of the VP, its semantic interpretation results in such a way that one event entails another, i.e. e1 → e2, and this forms causative relation. In this case, the NP holds the position of the higher VP’s specifier and thus is viewed as the agent of a causative event (for it refers to an individual fulfilling the implication). Other types of thematic relations are observed in diverse syntactic configurations. For instance, the construct of theme might be linked to the inner subject implied by a complex predicate (i.e. the NP holding the specifier position for a VP, which is located lower in the structure). Based on this analysis, the unaccusative-causative alternation in English is derived in this way (Lin 2001): The window broke. → Mary broke the window. (3a) (3b) In this derivation, an event structure is directly correlated with the syntactic structure that realizes it. As we have mentioned before, unaccusative-causative alternation in Mandarin requires inserting an additional verb into the construction. According to Huang (1992), the verbal compounds actually derive from multiple VP structures. (4a) pengyou lai le. Friends came Prt (4b) → wo jiao-lai le pengyou. I called-came Prt friends (I called friends and they came.) (4c) → wo jiao pengyou lai le. I called friends came Prt (I called friends and they came.) ( 4 ) As shown in (4), the VP structure is headed by an unaccusative verb in the underlying subject construction - the lower VP. It is the structure of (4a). For the sake of the unaccusative verb’s causativization, the higher verbal phrase adheres to inchoative-resultative verbal phrase. The V heading this higher VP is contrived by an action verb that determined an argument. According to Huang (1992), the lower verb can optionally adhere to the higher verb, resulting in a V-V compound. Moreover, it is notable that all of them are syntactic: the relevant structures are syntactic, and the merging operation attaches a lower - underlying - syntactic structure to that remaining on the surface. When the event structure is an inchoative predicate as (4a), there is only one VP structure; when the event structure is a causative predicate as (4b), there are two VP layers in the syntactic structure. 2.3 Analysis Now we will follow the causative accusative verbs structure from Hale & Keyser and Huang to analysis the structure in (1). Here we take (1-3) as an example. a) qianbi diao le . → b) name diao le qianbi. Pen dropped Prt Tom dropped Prt pen Diao (drop) is an unaccusative verb in Mandarin, as can be seen in (1-3a). But it can also be used as a transitive verb, as in (1-3b), with an additional external agent argument. As stated in (2), an agent is defined as a DP in the specifier position of a VP that takes a VP complement. So, to derive the transitive use of diao, we need to merge an extra VP layer with an agent DP. ( 5 ) As shown in (5), the lower VP in the underlying structure is headed by the verb diao (drop) with a subject qianbi (pen). If the lower V diao (drop) incorporates with the upper V, the structure is derived. So, we assume a light verb is in the position of the higher V. But, here comes the problem. First, Hale & Keyser assumed the syntactic structure determines the event structure. Then, the event structure in (5) would be: Tom dropped a pen. But the meaning of the sentence is: it happened to Tom that his pen dropped. Neither Tom is the agentive, nor is drop converted into causative. Furthermore, light verbs in the configurational approach are just empty VP shells that do not have substantial thematic functions. Then, the structure (5) is not valid, since one of the arguments cannot be assigned the theta-role. Therefore, the light verb in syntactic configurational approach to event structures fails to account for the transitivity alternation of unaccusative verbs in Mandarin. We need to find another approach to the light verb. 3. Light verb in the transitive unaccusative construction in Mandarin 3.1 Hypothesis Different researches have different approaches to the analysis of light verb. Hale & Keyser’s light verb basically functions as an empty place holder in the syntactic structure, with elementary semantics only. But this approach fails in the transitive unaccusative structure in Mandarin. While Huang’s light verb has concrete thematic contents and serve substantial roles, not being just empty positions, we assume it apply to the Mandarin structure. 3.2 Theory 3.2.1 Hale & Keyser’s light verb As we illustrated in section 2, Hale and Keyser proposed that syntactic configurations entered by predicates determine their event structures and thematic status NPs acquire inside them. Derivation of lexical items can be insured by syntactic means, while that of the verbal argument structures is insured with help of syntactic operations. Hale & Keyser (1991, 1993) analyse a few kinds of English derived verbs – including deadjectivals and denominals – within the abovementioned theoretical framework. Hale & Keyser insisted on syntactic nature of conflation. As far as Lexical-syntax is considered an independent grammatical component, it might host applicable structures, i.e. Lexical Relational Structures (hereafter referred to as LRS), and necessary operations. When it is appropriate, lower heads such as an A (Adjective) or a N (Noun) move and adhere to the higher Vs, consequently turning into a conflated verb. Having considered analyses of Hale & Keyser, one can conclude that – in their theoretical framework – event structures are represented by syntactic structures. Light verb represents a semantically ‘empty’ V contained in the structure of VP, which serves as an ingredient of LRS representations. According to Hale and Keyser’s assumption, the light verb is deprived of clearly identifiable thematic functions, though it has elementary semantic implications. However, major significance is granted to relations between other syntactic categories and light verbs. 3.2.2 Huang’s light verb syntax Huang (1997) followed Hale and Keyser’s proposal that some verbs project the LRS in the lexicon, but he had a different proposal on the light verb and the relation between the syntactic structure and the event structure. According to Huang, everybody knows that the dictionary entry of a verb invariably includes its meaning along with several ‘paraphrases’ of the lexical unit. He envisioned high level of structuration observed in form and content of ‘paraphrases’. In other words, Huang stated thst the lexical meaning of a verb can be broken up into one or several ‘pure verbs meanings’ shared with a variety of other verbs, added certain idiosyncratic characteristics, which make out the former from other verbs. And the structure of these components of meaning is organized in a rather restrained manner. Similarly, Jackendoff (1990) cultivated the idea of viewing semantics from the compositional perspective. This view implies that components of lexical meaning are assembled in the Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS). Proceeding with the same line, Hale and Keyser (1991, 1993) developed the assumption on the nature of the lexeme’s LRS as a syntactically appropriate aspect of LCS, insisting on lexical decomposition as an integral factor of LRS’s construction. (6 ) Huang (1997) followed the proposal of Hale and Keyser implying that LRS is projected in the lexicon by some verbs. However, he didn’t agree the higher abstract verb, or the light verb, to be an empty category. Huang’s viewpoint states that the latter acquires a meaning of causative, because it involves the VP complement denoting the event that occurs. A verb ‘cause’ itself implies the meaning of causative, holds the place of the higher abstract verb and performs the function of an eventuality predicate. Therefore, the light verb cannot be called an empty position anymore, for it is a pure verb comprising the eventuality predicate. Furthermore, the x argument acquires a theta-role of an agent, for it functions as a specifier for a causative pure verb. Since pure verbs comprising the LRS Given that the pure verbs that structure the LRS act as eventuality predicates, the proposal of Huang implies that the LRS then assumes functions of an event structure. To summarize Huang’s light verb syntax, light verbs are viewed as eventuality predicates possessing concrete and clearly outlined thematic functions; moreover, they are integral factors in shaping of eventualities. In Mandarin, light verbs are full-fledged syntactic entities functioning as building blocks in sentence forming and arguments’ introduction to the structure of sentences. In a word, light verbs are eventuality predicates represented by pure verbs, and it is the eventuality predicates represented by pure verbs that determine the event structures. 3.3 Analysis 3.3.1 Light verb in the structure: Eventuality predicate Huang (1997) assumed that maybe all types of verbs have an event structure in the lexicon in which they are embedded under an abstract ‘pure verb’ of some kind. All activity verbs are complements to a predicate akin to DO. Inchoative predicates are embedded under BECOME or OCCUR. Statives are embedded under BE or HOLD. Causatives are embedded under CAUSE. Activity ku cry [x DO [x ku]] Inchoative pang become fat [BECOME [x pang]] Stative. xihuan like [HOLD [x xihuan y]] (Huang 1997:54) Lin (2001) suggested that that there can be other aspects that compose eventuality -- there can be someone who does it, causes it, experiences it, gets affected by it, suffers it, etc. Also, an eventuality can be situated in some location, at some point of time; it can be carried out with some mode or manner, or accomplished with the aid of some instrument. An eventuality can be in progress, involve a change of state, or simply exist. All these aspects can contribute to the composition of an eventuality. They are all potentially light verbs. Now, let’s turn to our constructions in question. (7-1) Wo lai le pengyou. I came Prt friends. (7-2) name diao le qianbi. Tom dropped Prt pen (7-3) name si le fuqin. Tom died Prt father All these sentences share a same type of meaning, i.e. someone experienced an event. The subject is not agentive. It is an experiencer of the event. And the predicate is not causative, for example, in (7-2), it is not ‘Tom dropped the pen’ in which Tom caused the pen to drop. It should be ‘Tom experienced the event that a pen dropped’. The reason that ‘drop’ is not converted into causative use is that ‘drop’ has an event structure associated with it in which it is embedded as the complement of the eventuality predicate that is represented by the light verb EXPERIENCE. 3.3.2 Derivation of the structure According to Huang (1997), eventuality predicates can be empty in terms of phonetic representations. However, basic rules of grammar require these empty categories to be lexically authorized with help of S-structure. Therefore, this means that the verb related to the complement that is embedded the deepest is to be elevated to the position, which is usually occupied by the eventuality predicate. Huang made the following assumption: in the mapping process between S- and D-structures, head movements play the role of regular syntactic processes and LRSs can be projected directly to D-structures. Let’s take (7-1) as an example to analysis the derivation of the causative unaccusative structure. (7-1) Wo lai le pengyou. I came Prt friends. As we have discussed before, we assume that there is an underlying eventuality predicate that is represented by the light verb EXPERIENCE. The action of ‘experience’ sets up an interrelation involving at least two components, i.e. the Experiencer and Experiencee, and from them the light verb EXPERIENCE is assumed as a two-place predicate. Experiencer is associated with an animate object like a human being or an animal. On the other part, the Experiencee is associated with events. Thus, once a two-place predicate EXPERIENCE s-selects an Experiencer such as human beings or animals, then it c-selects a DP; when s-selecting an Experiencee such as an event, the predicate EXPERIENCE c-selects a VP or IP. In the example (7-1), an Experiencer ‘wo’ (I) is s-selected by the twofold predicate EXPERIENCE, whereafter the predicate c-selects a DP, which becomes the structural realization for the Experiencer subject. EXPERIENCE s-selects ‘peng you lai le’ (friends came Pref) (an event) and then it c-selects a VP, the structural realization for the event complementing component. Therefore, the LRS presented in (7-1) should appear as it is illustrated in (8), where the Experiencer subject ‘wo’ (I) is selected by the light verb EXPERIENCE as the specifier, while the VP ‘peng you lai le’ (friends came Pref) becomes the complement. The verb ‘lai’ (come) has an attached time marker and a constituent of function categories - ‘le’ (Perf) (the morpheme). Thus, the time marker ‘le’ assumes the syntactic position of the inflection and therefore does not demonstrate the structure. (8) The LRS characterizing the light verb EXPERIENCE maps to D-Structure, whereby the ‘empty’ (light) verb assumes the theta-role of the specifier ‘wo’ (I); while the verb ‘lai’ (come) assumes the theta-role of its specifier peng you (friends). The contingency predicates can be empty categories in terms of phonetics (Huang 1997). Fundamental grammatical rules require lexical authorization of the empty categories with help of S-Structure. Thereby, the verb lai (come) in the imbedded complement adheres to the contingency predicate EXPERIENCE, and the D-Structure shown in (8) will map to the S-Structure illustrated in (9). Once ‘lai’ (come) adheres to the light verb EXPERIENCE, one might presume it to obtain the ability to choose two arguments and assume the usage of ‘experience’. This peculiarity accounts for transformation of the unaccusative verb into the transitive verb. (9) 4. Discussion 4.1 Examination of Huang’s light verb In our analysis of the derivation of the structure, we adopted the Huang’s proposal that light verbs are eventuality predicates represented by pure verbs, and head movement operates as normal syntactic process, in the mapping between D- and S-Structure. Let’s now check the validity of applying this assumption for our construction. Huang (1997) suggested that syntactic evidence for the event structures comes from constructions in which the verb appears away from its expected position, in a position outside of its maximal VP. In such construction the verb can be seen to have raised into a position by an abstract eventuality predicate. Huang showed that certain sentences such as (10) involving event quantification provide strong evidence for the existence of an abstract eventuality predicate. (10) ta kan le san tian shu . He read-Pref three day book. The sentences in (11) also involve event quantification. So we can use them to check the existence of the light verb. We take (11-1) as an example. (11-1) Wo lai le san ci pengyou. I came Prt three times friends. (11-2) name diao le liang ci qianbi. Tom dropped Prt twice pen. According to the Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (Baker 1988a), the expression of frequency quantification ‘san ci’ (three times) in (11-1) must be higher than the VP ‘peng you lai le’ (friends came) in the underlying syntactic structures, as they take the whole predicate in their scope of modification. However, in the surface form, the expression of frequency limitation occurs in the structure featuring a concrete noun ‘peng you’ (i.e. friends), which doesn’t denote an event, forming a component with the latter. To explain the evident syntax-semantics mismatch, one should look at the example (11-1), where the sentence is derived from a construction like (12), where the lower verb transfers from the VP to the position of the predicate of the higher eventuality EXPERIENCE. (12) In this structure, the quantity expression ‘san ci’ (three times) modifies ‘peng you lai le’ (friends came). Thus, this D-Structure is analogous in form to the English sentence ‘He experienced three times friends coming’. After the verb ‘lai’ (come) incorporates to the higher eventuality predicate EXPERIENCE, the sentence comes to the surface form. 4.2 The puzzle of transitive alternation of unergative verb Studies of Perlmutter (1978) and Bwzio (1986) include the assumption of heterogeneity of intransitive verbs’ class; they distinguish subclasses of unergative and unaccusative verbs. Within the frames of GB approach, at D-structure, unergative verbs have an external argument or subject (instead of direct object), while unaccusative verbs typically hold a direct internal argument or direct object (instead of subject). The contrast of unaccusative and unergative verbs is universal and suitable for all sorts of natural languages, and strongly supported by Mandarin: Unaccusative verbs: ‘po’ (break), ‘si’ (die), ‘lai’ (come), ‘dao’ (collapse) Unergative verbs: ‘xiao’ (laugh), ‘ku’ (cry), ‘ke sou’ (cough), ‘you yong’ (swim) The structure under study in this paper is about the unaccusative verbs. We have shown that the unaccusative verbs can assume transitive usage when incorporate to the eventuality predicates that are light verbs. So, we wonder whether the unergative verbs can also be alternated under the light verb hypothesis. Let’s see some examples. (13) name ku le. → * name ku le name. Tom cried Pref. Mary cried Pref Tom. → name nong ku le name Mary caused cry Pred Tom name xiao le. → * name xiao le name. Tom laughed Pref. Mary laughed Pref Tom. → ? Mary nong xiao le name Mary caused laugh Pred Tom name ke sou le. → * name ke sou le name. Tom caughed Pref. Mary caughed Pref Tom. → * name nong ke sou le name Mary caused caugh Pred Tom The examples in (13) show that unergative verbs cannot be alternated into transitive use by incorporating to a light verb such as EXPERIENCE. However, they can be alternated into causative when incorporating to a spelled-out light verb CAUSE, but only in certain cases. It raises questions that why some verbs can incorporate to a light verb, and under what circumstances the incorporation can occur. Thus, the lexical decomposition and D-Structure of unergative verbs needs further exploration. 5. Conclusion and limitations This paper analyses the transitive unaccusative verb constructions in Mandarin. We first tried to use Hale and Keyser’s syntactic configurational approach to event structures. However, we could only put the construction into a VP shell according to the syntactic configurational approach. This approach failed to solve the problem of assigning the theta-role and the transitivity alternation of unaccusative verb, since it proposed that the syntactic structure determines the event structure, and light verbs are just empty VP shells that do not have substantial thematic functions. So, we turned to Huang’s light verb which suggested that light verbs are eventuality predicates with concrete thematic functions, and the eventuality predicates determine the event structures. Under this hypothesis, we got the derivation of the Mandarin transitive unaccusative verb constructions. After that, we examined the validity of applying Huang’s light verb assumption for this construction. We found that event quantifications provide evidence for the existence of the abstract eventuality predicate. However, there are certain limitations in the analysis. First, we assumed that the light verb in this construction is represented by a pure verb ‘EXPERIENCE’ in the event structure. But it is only an inference from the meaning of the sentence. We did not give evidence to prove it. Second, the data, i.e. the types of the unaccusative verbs in the analysis are insufficient. To justify the verb movement to the light verb, more data are needed. In addition, there is a puzzle about the transitive alternation of unergative verbs. The questions that why some unergative verbs can incorporate to a light verb, and under what circumstances the incorporation can occur were not answered. Therefore, further study is required to investigate the transitive unaccusative (and unergative) verb constructions in Mandarin. Read More