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The syntactic variety and semantic unity of the V de resultative construction in Mandarin Chinese

  • Wenshan Li EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 28. Mai 2024
Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
Aus der Zeitschrift Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics Band 60 Heft 2

Abstract

The V de resultative construction has been an intriguing issue in Chinese linguistics. Theories have been put forth regarding what the morpheme de (here called de result to avoid confusion) does in this construction. In this article, the preexisting theories are empirically questioned. It is shown that the presence of de result is not obligatory when the result predicate takes some special forms. A procedural account is proposed of how the typical V de result construction and its variants deliver the same logical form although they involve different functional morphemes. As a bonus, this account provides an improved model explaining the phenomenon that the V de result construction can have multiple readings.

Keywords: Chinese resultatives; syntactic variety; semantic unity; Dynamic Syntax
Corresponding author: Wenshan Li, School of Chinese Language and Literature, 66271 Xi’an International Studies University, Chang’an District, Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, P.R. China, E-mail:

Funding source: The National Social Science Fund of China

Award Identifier / Grant number: 21BYY152

Appendices

The definitions of the theoretical tools are based on those in Kempson et al. (2001), Cann et al. (2005), and Gregoromichelaki (2006).

Term types:

  1. e: individual entity (or general entity)

  2. es: situation entity

  3. eext: extent entity

  4. t: proposition

Functor types:

  1. X 2→X 1 (For i∈{1, 2, …, n}, X i is a term type): one-place predicate

  2. X 3→(X 2→X 1) (For i∈{1, 2, …, n}, X i is a term type): two-place predicate

  3. X 4→(X 3→(X 2→X 1)) (For i∈{1, 2, …, n}, X i is a term type): three-place predicate

Operators indicating structure relationships between tree nodes:

  1. ⟨ ⟩ is the existential operator, meaning ‘there exists a node that …’

  2. [ ] is the universal operator, meaning ‘all nodes that …’

  3. ⟨↑⟩: the mother node of the current node

  4. ⟨↓⟩: the daughter node of the current node

  5. [↓]: all nodes below the current node

Numerals 0 indicating an argument and 1 indicating a functor:

  1. ⟨↑0⟩: the mother node of a current argument node

  2. ⟨↑1⟩: the mother node of a current functor node

  3. ⟨↓0⟩: the daughter argument node of a current node

  4. ⟨↓1⟩: the daughter functor node of a current node

Tree node modalities combined for illustration:

  1. ⟨↑0⟩⟨↑0⟩: the grandmother node of a current argument node

  2. ⟨↑0⟩⟨↓1⟩: the functor sister daughter node of a current argument node

Operators representing procedural actions:

  1. MAKE(): creating a new node

  2. GO (): moving the pointer to some node from a current node

  3. PUT (): annotating a current node with some information

  4. ABORT: terminating a parsing process

General deductive rules:

LOCAL *ADJUNCTION

IF Tn(n), ?t
THEN MAKE(⟨↓*⟩⟨↓0⟩);
GO(⟨↓*⟩⟨↓0⟩);

PUT(⟨↑0⟩⟨↑*⟩Tn(n), ?∃x.Tn(x), ?e)
ELSE ABORT
            *ADJUNCTION
IF Tn(n), ?t
THEN MAKE(⟨↓*⟩);
GO(⟨↓*⟩); PUT(⟨↑*⟩Tn(n), ?∃x.Tn(x), ?e)
ELSE ABORT
             THINNING
IF α:X, ?X (where X is a type)
THEN α:X
ELSE ABORT
             COMPLETION
IF α:X (where X is a type)
THEN GO(⟨↑ i ⟩); PUT(⟨↓ i ⟩α:X) (where i = 0 or 1)
ELSE ABORT
             ELIMINATION
IF ⟨↓0⟩α:X, ⟨↓1⟩β:X→Y (where X, Y and X→Y are types)
THEN β(α):Y, ⟨↓0⟩α:X, ⟨↓1⟩X→Y
ELSE ABORT
             UNIFICATION
IF ⟨↑*⟩Tn(n),?∃x.Tn(x), α:X∧⟨MOD⟩Tn(n),?X

(where MOD is a composition of fully specified tree node modality operators and X is a type)
THEN ⟨MOD⟩Tn(n), α:X
ELSE ABORT

  1. Research funding: This work was funded by The National Social Science Fund of China (Award No.: 21BYY152).

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Received: 2023-06-14
Accepted: 2024-04-10
Published Online: 2024-05-28
Published in Print: 2024-06-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Metaphors across cultures
  4. Complexity trade-off in morphosyntactic module: suggestions from Japanese dialects
  5. The syntactic variety and semantic unity of the V de resultative construction in Mandarin Chinese
  6. A multi-dimensional analysis of corporate blogs
https://doi.org/10.1515/psicl-2023-0042
Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel
Chinese resultatives; syntactic variety; semantic unity; Dynamic Syntax

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Metaphors across cultures
  4. Complexity trade-off in morphosyntactic module: suggestions from Japanese dialects
  5. The syntactic variety and semantic unity of the V de resultative construction in Mandarin Chinese
  6. A multi-dimensional analysis of corporate blogs
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