Abstract
Although there have been various studies on the Chinese ba-construction, this article presents some unconventional views. Most studies do not treat ba as a verb. This article argues that ba is a verb, although it has some non-typical verbal properties. Firstly, the argument establishes that it is a verb based upon the “gradient” analysis, which has not been applied to ba before. Secondly, having been treated as a verb, ba shows special properties of its own such as marking subordination. Apart from this non-traditional view, ba is shown to be highly transitive, which is also a verbal feature. Different from previous analyses, this article argues that ba is a radial category showing various associated meanings. Finally, ba is shown to produce blending with other verb complements, such as the resultative construction, through its ability to create mental spaces.
Highlights
The ba-construction in Chinese has been widely studied and most research has focused on the form of the structure and its constraints
This paper has argued that ba is a verb, based upon the concept of Subsective Gradience and behaviour constructions, and its signals subordination, i.e. taking a clausal complement, witnessed by the typological work such as Cristofaro (2003) and Dixon (2010)
Following Huddleston and Pullum et al (2002), we abandon the traditional distinction between simple sentence and complex sentence, and recognise the ba-construction as a clausal sentence, which shows strong transitivity in terms of syntactic and semantic parameters—taking a complement clause and manifesting meaning such as impingement or change of state
Summary
Among the widely discussed grammatical constructions in Mandarin Chinese is the ba-construction, exemplified in (1). The ba-construction has been widely studied and is given various names. It is called the “disposal” construction by e.g. Wang (1954) or Chao (1968). Some regard it as an “ergative” construction The Chinese ba as a Verb: A Constructional-Cognitive Approach. The ba-construction, though extensively studied by linguists, is still as interesting as ever, partly because it apparently differs from the canonical SVO word order of Chinese, and partly because the ba-construction presents challenge to different theoretical frameworks. We will make use of the constructional-cognitive insights, wherever appropriate
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