Aspect Agreement and Light Verbs in Chinese: The Sources of Distributivity

Abstract

In this article I distinguish two types of sentence final particles (SFPs) and two types of predicates in Chinese in terms of the aspectual features [±dynamic]. I assume that aspect in Chinese projects a maximal projection, AspectP, which determines the temporal properties of predicates. It is argued that the predicates and the SFPs in Chinese sentences must agree in the [±dynamic] features in syntax. It is also argued that Chinese has two light verbs: the static light verb slv and the dynamic light verb dlv. These two light verbs, in conjunction with the lexical verbs, determine the event structures of the predicates in Chinese, and furthermore serve as the basis for the syntactic agreement of the aspectuality between the SFPs and the predicates. In this article I also compare the SFPs and predicates in Chinese and Japanese. Based on empirical evidence, I propose that Japanese lacks syntactic aspect agreement, in sharp contrast with Chinese.