On the Mandarin possessive and existential verb you and its idiomatic expressions

Abstract

Three usages of you3 ‘exist, have’ as a verb are recognized: (1) possessive; (2) existential; and (3) (subjectless) locational. This paper discusses these usages and also the Stative use of you3 in idiomatic expressions such as you3-yi4si ‘interesting’. Semantically, we argue that the possessive and (subjectless) locational usages can both be explained within the concept of ‘exis- tence’, and syntactically you3 always requires both subject and object. We therefore reject the analysis of multiple you3's and formulate a single lexical entry of you3, within Lexical- Functional Grammar. We then discuss the three possible treatments of expressions like you3-yi4si. We provide linguistic data to prove that they cannot be treated as regular verb phrases of [ you3 NP] nor can they be regarded as lexicalized complex verbs listed as separate entries in the lexicon. We argue that it is best to treat them as idioms whose internal syntactic structure is relevant to that of the sentence. We also demonstrate the similarities between English idiom chunks and these Stative, gradeable [ you3-NP] expressions. Finally, we expand the lexical entry of you3 to account for the idiomatic expressions.