TWO TYPES OF strongVstrong-DE CONSTRUCTIONS IN MANDARIN CHINESE.pdfVIP

TWO TYPES OF V-DE CONSTRUCTIONS IN MANDARIN CHINESE Jiewu Wei National Tsing Hua University 1. Introduction This paper intends to study the V-de constructions in Mandarin Chinese. There are two types of them, exemplified in (1-2). (1) Zhangsan pao-de henkuai (depictive) p.n. run-DE fast ‘Zhangsan runs fast. ’ (2) Zhangsan pao-de henlei (resultative) p.n. run-DE tired ‘Zhangsan has run and is tired. ’ They are documented in the literature, according to the meaning of the complements each takes respectively. In (1), the V-de takes a depictive complement henkuai “fast,” while another instance of V-de takes a resultative one henlei “tired” as in (2). Huang (1988) argues that the syntactic structures of (1-2) are the same, in that V-de is the primary predicate in both cases. However, the data here will show that V-de taking a depictive complement may enjoy a different structure than that taking a resultative one. The evidence comes from the various positions of modal adverbs like keneng “possibly” and yiding “certainly” etc, and anaphoric ziji “self”. The analysis suggests that -de may occupy various syntactic positions in Mandarin Chinese in the hope that a unified explanation of the V-de constructions may be developed. The organization of this paper is as follows: in the next section, we will reinforce a light verb analysis in the spirit of Huang (1988). Then more evidence shall be brought up in section three, to argue against a unified analysis of two types of V-de taking a depictive or a resultative complement. Our analysis will be presented in section four, where a sentential subject V-de is assumed. Section five concludes this p