V-V Compounds in Chinese: Syntactic Perspective Revisited

Baopeng Ma,Huibin Zhuang,Peicui Zhang

doi:10.1177/2158244020988681

Abstract

This article revisits the formation of the resultative V-V compounds in Chinese. While presenting evidence to show the inadequacies of the lexicalist approach, we instead argue that these compounds are derived via syntactic operations. Meanwhile, the multiple readings of V-V compounds, once claimed to be the strong argumentation of the lexicalist account, are actually the results of such characteristics of Chinese syntax as the object realization, focalization, and topic-prominence. The evidence provided by the lexicalists thus does not constitute an argument against the syntactic account.

Highlights

V-V compounds in Chinese refer to the sequence of two verbal morphemes, which functions as single verbs
In this study, V-V compounds refer to only compound verbs that contain the causative meaning and consist of two predicator-like components such as qi-lei “ride-tired” and chang-ku “sing-cry,” but not those chi-wan “eat-finish,” mai-dao “buy-arrive,” and so on, in which the second verbal morpheme indicates the completeness of the event
As there exists a reason–result inference between the two verbs of V-V compounds in (21–24), and they are linked by de, we propose that the two θ-roles, Reason and Result, are assigned to clauses, that is, in both (21) and (23), the Reason is assigned to Zhangsan zui “Zhangsan was drunk,” and the Result is assigned to the event (Zhangsan) zhan bu qilai “Zhangsan couldn’t stand up.”

Summary

V-V Compounds in Chinese and Two Competing Approaches

V-V compounds in Chinese refer to the sequence of two verbal morphemes, which functions as single verbs. 127): to the syntactic account, the derivation of (7) seems not to be a problem, because in the D-structure, both chi “eat” and huai “bad” have their own independent projections This means that they have separate arguments to bear the θ-roles assigned to them. According to Huang (1988), Zhangsan in (21) and (22) is an experiencer, while in (23) and (24), it is a causee, with zhe ping jiu “this bottle of alcohol” and zhe jian shi “this matter” being their respective causers This kind of analysis is faced with severe problems concerning θ-role assignment. The position they occupy in the structure should be the Specifier of the topic phrase (Spec,TopP) It seems that the semantic frame of a verb in many languages in the world can be changed by a causative morpheme in such a way as an external cause appears as the subject. (46b) excludes this possibility, because meiyou “have-not” occupies a position higher than VP, namely, NegP (cf. Zhuang & Liu, 2011)

A Syntactic Perspective on Baoyu qi-lei-le ma and Taotao zhui-lei-le Youyou

Conclusion