Download CHAPTER 2 THE ORIGIN OF LIGHT VERBS

CHAPTER 2
THE ORIGIN OF LIGHT VERBS
E.T. hands Elliott the newspaper, and points to the Buck Rodgers comic strip. He
then says "PHONE". Elliott is amazed at this. E.T. walks into the closet and says
"HOME." Elliott confirms that this is E.T.'s home. E.T. then turns, walks to the
window, points to the sky, and says "E.T. HOME PHONE."
"E.T. PHONE HOME" says Gertie.
"E.T. PHONE HOME" says Elliott.
"He wants to call somebody," says Gertie.
--- E.T., directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison. 1
1. Introduction
E.T. tried to contact his home. He put the words home and phone together. E.T. in the
beginning might not know that the setting of the head parameter for English is such that the
complement follows the head, but his utterance was close enough to a correct use of the
denominal so that Elliot and Gertie recognized it. Upon the feedback from Elliot and Gertie,
E.T. might come to know that denominalization is a productive process for word formation
in English. Hale and Keyser (henceforth HK) (1991, 1993) propose that the derivation for
the verb phone from the noun phone crucially makes use of grammatical entities called light
verbs. This thesis is devoted to the role of light verbs in the grammar of human language.
As we will show in later discussions, researchers propose different notions of light verbs,
1 Source: http://www.paradiselost.org/et.html, translated by New Arts Library.
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and the ways that light verbs realize in the syntactic structure can be very different in human
languages. Thus, it is really a non-trivial task for E.T. to figure out what kind of denominals
to use. A linguist with rich imagination could think of the following question: What would
E.T. say when he tries to express the desire to contact his home if his spaceship happened
to land in China, Argentina or Indonesia? What kind of light verb structure would E.T.
figure out in those non-English languages?
This question is more than a fantasy. As a matter of fact, important issues follow if
we examine light verb structures in languages other than English. Just as an example: E.T.
has to say (1a) instead of (1b) if he got lost in China:2
(1)
a.
*E.T. da dianhua hui jia!
*E.T. hit phone back home
*'E.T. phone home!'
b.
*E.T. dianhua hui jia!
*E.T. phone back home
*'E.T. phone home!'
In Mandarin Chinese, nouns such as dianhua 'phone' cannot be denominalized directly into
a verb, unlike English -- E.T. cannot simply put the words jia 'home' and dianhua 'phone'
together; the Chinese people would have a hard time understanding him. For a noun to be
2 In Mandarin Chinese, it has been observe that a sentence cannot contain more than one post-verbal
constituent (Huang 1982, Li 1985, 1990). This is why (1a) must be used instead of (i) below:
(i)
*ET da dianhua jia!
*ET hit phone home
*'ET phone home!'
According to Li (1985, 1990), this restriction has to do with Case -- a verb in Mandarin Chinese can assign
one Case only, hence more than one post-verbal constituent in a sentence induces violation of Case Filter
(Chomsky 1981). Of course, this restriction is one of the important things that ET would have to figure
out if he landed in China or Taiwan.
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denominalized, an overt light verb, da 'hit', must be used.3 In Mandarin Chinese, the light
verb da 'hit' can take a noun to form a predicative expression; see section 3.2.2 for relevant
discussion. An important point emerges from the da construction in Mandarin Chinese: the
formation of the event structure of this construction is syntactically transparent -- there is an
action, represented by the light verb da 'hit', and an object affected by such action, the
nominal that follows da 'hit'. It is clear that the da construction in Mandarin Chinese
represents a particular type of light verb structure distinct from the one that HK propose that
underlies English denominals like phone. Specifically, the light verb structures in Mandarin
Chinese are syntactic, but those in English are lexical.
In view of all this, we argue that the notion of light verb that HK postulate for such
derivations as phone (n) → phone (v) may require some amendments so as to account for
the relevant phenomena in other languages. In particular, we propose that E.T. has to see
whether the light verb in a language is lexical (L-Syntactic) or syntactic (S-Syntactic) before
he engages himself in the task of constructing a phrase structure expressing the will to
perform an action with a phone. Thus we will start our discussion with an examination of
the notion of the light verb.
In this chapter, we look into the origin of the notion of light verb in recent generative
literature, and define it as is employed in this thesis. In section 2, we trace the development
of the notion about the light verb in recent generative works, particularly those in HK (1991,
1993, 1997) and Chomsky (1995, 1998, 1999). The light verb in these works, essentially, is
considered an empty place holder with only elementary semantics. In section 3, we examine
3 The situation is the same in Japanese. For ET to communicate with a Japanese boy, he would have to
say (ia) rather than (1b):
(i)
a.
b.
*ET-wa uti-ni denwa(-o) suru!
*ET-Top home-Dat phone(-Acc) do
*'ET phone home!'
*ET-wa uti-ni denwa!
*ET-Top home-Dat phone
*'ET phone home!'
Just like Mandarin Chinese, Japanese utilizes a light verb, suru 'do', to denominalize a noun into a verb.
Without the overt light verb, the sentence is ungrammatical.
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the cases of Chinese and Japanese, and look at the light verb structures in them. We
propose that there is an important insight, but several problems, in the HK-Chomsky theory
of the light verb and the event structure. The insight in HK's proposal is the hypothesis that
event structures are directly correlated with syntactic structures. The problems include the
following. First, HK-Chomsky's hypothesis that event structures are completely determined
by the syntactic structures cannot account for all cases, since there are examples where an
individual syntactic structure gives rise to more than one possible event structure, such as
the suru construction in Japanese. Second, it is not right, as Chomsky does, to trivialize the
role of L-Syntax in English and consider syntax proper (i.e. S-Syntax) the locus for the
construction of the light verb structure. In section 4, we turn to an alternative conception
about the light verb. We introduce the light verb syntax developed by Huang (1997), which
roots in the generative semantic tradition and regards light verbs as eventuality predicates,
such as CAUSE, DO, BECOME, etc.. In section 5, we further explore the differences
between the light verb structures in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and English. We show
that the light verb structure in English should be located in the component of L-Syntax
representation, in sharp contrast with the light verb structure in Mandarin Chinese, which
should be located in S-Syntax. Japanese stands between the two cases. A parametrization
on lexicalization of the light verb structure is postulated, which states that languages may
differ in the phrase structural level at which lexicalization applies to the light verb structure.
We claim that, in English, lexicalization applies at the highest point of the light verb
structure, hence all the arguments in a sentence are licensed in L-Syntax. In Japanese,
lexicalization applies at a lower point of the light verb structure, excluding the subjectselecting light verb, hence the subject argument is licensed in S-Syntax, and other arguments
licensed in L-Syntax. In Mandarin Chinese, lexicalization applies trivially to the main verb,
and the whole light verb structure is sent to S-Syntax intact, hence all arguments are licensed
in S-Syntax.
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2. Light verbs in the current generative framework
The use of the term light verb in the generative framework dates back to Grimshaw and
Mester's (1988) discussion of the suru construction in Japanese. Suru is a verb in Japanese
with the general meaning of 'do'. In many cases it is compounded with a nominal and forms
a verbal expression. When suru is used in such construction, it doesn't contribute any
substantial meaning to the whole verbal expression. The meaning and valence of the
resulting verbal expression are determined exclusively by the noun with which it is
compounded. Below are some examples (Jacobsen 1992):
(2)
a.
Rengoogun-ga teki-o hooi-si-ta.
(Transitive)
allied-army-Nom enemy-Acc surround-suru-Past
'The allied army surrounded the enemy.'
b.
Kodomo-ga seityoo-si-ta.
(Intransitive)
child-Nom grow-suru-Past
'The child grew.'
(3)
a.
Untensyu-ga kuruma-o idoo-si-ta.
(Transitive)
driver-Nom car-Acc move-suru-Past
'The driver moved the car.'
b.
Kuruma-ga idoo-si-ta.
(Intransitive)
car-Nom move-suru-Past
'The car moved.'
In all examples in (2-3), suru is compounded with a noun, yielding a verbal expression. But
suru in these examples has no effect on the transitivity property of the verbal expression. In
(2a), the noun is hooi 'surround'; the verbal expression hooi-suru 'to surround' must assume
transitive use and take an object. Intransitive use of the verb hooi-suru will result in
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ungrammaticality. The reverse is true for (2b), where the noun is seityoo 'growth'. The
verbal expression seityoo-suru 'to grow' must assume intransitive use. But there are also
cases where either transitive or intransitive use is permitted, such as idoo 'move' and its
verbal counterpart idoo-suru in (3a-b). These examples show that the crucial factor that
determines the transitivity of the verbal expression in the suru construction is the inherent
property of the noun which suru is compounded with; suru doesn't play any concrete role.
In this sense, suru is said to be a "light verb", as it is semantically light and only plays a
functional role in the structure.4
2.1 The Chomskyan light verb
The term Chomskyan light verb is meant to refer to the notion of the light verb employed by
Chomsky (1995, 1998, 1999), its antecedents in Larson (1988) and Hale and Keyser
(henceforth HK) (1991, 1993), and many of its descendants. On this notion, the light verb
basically functions as an empty place holder in the syntactic structure, with elementary
semantics only (HK 1993). In Chomsky's works (in particular 1998 and 1999), the light
verb is identified as the head of a transitive predicate. It is an item drawn from Lexical
Array (= Numeration in Chomsky's (1995)). It heads a phase, which can be strong or
weak. It also has phi-features, to be checked with the object in object-shifted languages
such as Icelandic. Considering all these, the Chomskyan light verb is fairly like the AGR
categories in earlier (and some current) syntactic frameworks. The crucial thing about the
light verb is that it is both phonetically and semantically light -- it has no phonetic form
(though in some languages it does; see HK (1993) and the cases of Chinese and Japanese
4 For further discussion on the suru construction, see Grimshaw and Mester (1988), Hoshi and Saito
(1993), among many others. In these works, the focus is on "argument transfer" from the noun to suru.
Also see Huang (1997) for discussion on the suru construction from a different perspective (cf. section 2.2,
Chapter 6). The traditional view on the function of suru when it is compounded with a noun is that it
provides a locus for grammatical inflection. See Shibatani (1990) for an introduction.
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to be discussed below), nor independent selectional properties as regular verbs.5 Thus it is
"light" because it is no more than an empty position.
This notion about the light verb roots in Larson's (1988) theory of VP shells.
Though Larson's theory was originally proposed to account for the double object
construction in English, it is readily extendible to other types of phrase structure. This
theory includes two core hypotheses. (i) There can be more than one VP projection in the
syntactic structure of a predicate, and each VP projection is binary. Due to strict binarity of
phrase structure, if a verb carries multiple arguments, the arguments must be distributed over
the different VP shells. (ii) The distribution of arguments in the syntactic structure is
determined by a universal thematic hierarchy (Jackendoff 1972, Grimshaw 1990, among
others). To demonstrate how the theory works, let's look at the verb put, which is well
known for its selection of three arguments, agent, theme, and location.
(4)
a.
*John put a book on the table.
b.
*John put a book.
c.
*John put on the table.
To capture the selectional property of the verb put, it is necessary to posit the thematic roles
AGENT, THEME, and LOCATION in its argument structure (Gruber 1965, Fillmore 1968,
Jackendoff 1972). Furthermore, the realization of these thematic roles in the multiple-VP
structure is governed by the thematic hierarchy (AGENT (THEME (LOCATION))). The
structure of a predicate with put as the main verb, therefore, should include the following
sub-structure:
5 Of course, a light verb v in Chomsky's framework must take a VP as complement. But notice that the
light verb v doesn't select a specifier; in particular, it does not select the subject of the sentence. This point
is clear from Chomsky's statement that the subject "is a property of the v-VP configuration" (Chomsky
1995: 316). In this regard, the selectional ability of the light verb v is extremely impoverished. Thanks to
Terri Griffith (personal communication) for discussion on this point.
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(5)
...
VP
V'
AGENT
V
VP
V'
THEME
V
LOCATION
put
In (5), put projects a VP that takes the theme argument as specifier and the location
argument as complement. There is still a higher VP shell, which takes the put-VP as
complement and the agent argument as specifier. Put then incorporates to the higher V,
resulting in word order AGENT-V-THEME-LOCATION.6 Notice that each thematic role
is associated with a syntactic position provided by a VP shell, either a specifier or a
complement position. Thus, the theory of VP shells actually represents a syntactic means to
express thematic roles in a phrase structure. Because of this, the theory of VP shells, in a
sense, is motivated by thematic considerations.7 But notice that the VP shells only function
as "vehicles" for thematic roles -- the VP shells only realize thematic roles; they bear no
selectional relationship with those arguments. Thus, the VP shells are just place holders for
thematic roles. They don't have substantial semantic properties.
The Larsonian VP shells are inherited in Chomsky's works. The other major source
for the Chomskyan light verb, namely HK's configurational approach to thematic relations
and event structures, is influenced by the Larson's theory of VP shells too. In the following
we will take a close look at HK's proposal.
6 The agent argument still has to move to IP/TP Spec in later derivation. We omit this operation.
7 Larson (1988) suggests that the motivation for the main verb to incorporate to the higher VP shells can
be checking of theta-role features. We will not accept the idea about theta-roles as features to be checked in
syntactic derivations. Rather, we side with Huang (1997) that the thematic status of a nominal expression
is determined by the light verb that selects it. A particular light verb, such as CAUSE, DO, or BECOME,
licenses a thematic expression, causer, agent, or theme, in the specifier position. The thematic hierarchy
that Jackendoff, Grimshaw, Larson and other researchers assume will be represented by the complementation
of light verb projections. For detailed discussions, see Chapter 5.
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2.2 HK's configurational approach to event structures
In a series of works (1991, 1993, 1997, 1999), HK propose that the event structures of
predicates and the thematic status of NPs in them are determined by the syntactic
configurations that they enter in. HK argue that the derivations of denominals and
deadjectivals in English involve complex syntactic structures, and that principles of
Universal Grammar, such as the Empty Category Principle (ECP), govern the relevant
derivations. In a nutshell, HK propose that lexical items can be derived by syntactic means,
and the argument structures of verbs can be derived via syntactic operations.
2.2.1 The proposal
HK's proposal can be summarized as follows. There is no such thing as thematic roles -they are just the interpretations that nominals receive in syntactic configurations, determined
by the categories and projections.
Let's look at some concrete examples. For HK, the structure in (6) is associated
with what is commonly known as the causative predicate:
(6)
VP
NP
V'
V
VP
NP
V'
V
HK assume an elementary semantics for the lexical categories, according to which a V maps
to an event (e). Since the structure in (6) has two VP projections, its has such a semantic
interpretation that an event "implicates" another, e1 → e2, which represents a causation. The
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NP in the specifier position of the higher VP is understood as the agent of the causative
event, as it denotes the individual that carries out the implication.
Other thematic relations can be identified in different syntactic configurations. For
example, the notion of theme can be associated with the inner subject of a complex
predicate, i.e., the NP in the specifier position of the lower VP in the structure (6). Consider
the following examples:
(7)
a.
John put a book on the shelf.
b.
VP
NP
John
V'
V
VP
NP
a book
V'
V
PP
put
P
NP
on
the shelf
The structure in (7b), as we have mentioned, represents a causative predicate. The higher
VP stands for the causing component of the event, with John as the causer. The lower VP
has the interpretation of "change." V maps to an event e, and P maps to a (locational)
"interrelation" r, thus the lower VP in (7b) has such an interpretation that an event (the lower
V) implicates an interrelation, e → r. The NP in the lower VP Spec, a book, is the subject
that "brings about" the change of state, n > (e → r). This NP is understood as a theme.
The complete event structure for (7b), therefore, is e1 → n > (e2 → r).
Based on such a syntactic approach to event structures and thematic relations, HK
propose a syntactic analysis for derived verbs in English. We move to this analysis in the
next subsection.
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2.2.2 Analyses
In HK (1991, 1993), several types of derived verbs in English (cf. Clark and Clark 1979,
Talmy 1985) are analyzed in the theoretical framework introduced above. They are
considered instances of syntactic incorporation (cf. HK 1991, Baker 1988a). These include
denominals (unergatives, locations/locatums) and deadjectivals. In this analysis, HK argue
that conflation (or lexicalization; Talmy 1985, Fodor and Lepore 1999, HK 1999) is
syntactic in nature. An independent component in the grammar, L(exical)-Syntax, is
postulated to host the relevant structures, Lexical Relational Structures (LRS),8 and the
required operations.9 In all relevant cases, some lower head, an N or A, undergoes
(successive) head movement and incorporates to higher Vs, resulting in a conflated verb.
Let's look at the denominals first, which subsume the unergatives and the
locations/locatums. Unergatives are those verbs known as "truly intransitive," such as
laugh, walk, sneeze, etc. However, HK argue that these intransitive verbs are actually
derived from underlyingly transitive structures. As an example, (8a-b) share with (9a-b) the
same LRS representations, though the former are intransitive, the latter transitive:10
(8)
(9)
a.
John walked.
b.
John sneezed.
a.
John took a walk.
b.
John took a sneeze.
8 In HK (1987) this is called the Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS). The difference between the two
terms doesn't seem to matter.
9 HK use the terms "l-syntax" and "s-syntax" in all their works, without capitalization. In our discussion,
we consistently use "L-Syntax" and "S-Syntax" for the same terms. Nothing hinges on this typographical
difference.
10 The difference between (8a-b) and (9a-b) is that the formers involve L-Syntactic derivations, whereas
the latters do not. Mamoru Saito (personal communication) points out that, typically, S-Syntactic LRSs
involve more sense of agentivity. For example, (9a) John took a walk seems to involve a volitional action
that (8a) John walked does not. Right now we don't have a satisfactory explanation for such difference.
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The derivation for the unergatives proceeds as in (10), where the head N of the NP
complement incorporates to V:
(10)
V'
V'
V
⇒
NP
V
sneeze
N
NP
V
N
t
sneeze
Simple transitive
Incorporation
The same analysis applies to the locations/locatums as well. In the following examples,
(11a) shares with (11b) the same LRS representation:
(11)
b.
Mary shelved her books.
a.
Mary put her books on the shelf.
The derivation for (11a) is shown in the following diagram:
(12)
V'
V
V
P
N
shelf
V
V
P
VP
NP
V'
her books V
t
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PP
P
NP
t
N
In this structure, N firstly incorporates to P, and then to the lower V, lastly to the higher V.
The verb shelve, as a result, is a conflated form of the N shelf, the locational P, the lower V
with a theme, and the higher V with an agent.
HK show that the derivation of denominals in English observes grammatical
principles, such as the ECP. In English, for example, conflation doesn't yield sentences like
(13a-b):
(13)
a.
*It cowed a calf.
*(meaning: A cow had a calf or A cow calved.)
b.
*They housed a coat of paint.
*(meaning: They gave a house a coat of paint.)
To derive (13a-b), certain syntactic movements must be performed, which, however, violate
grammatical principles. (13a) involves lowering of the external argument, in violation of the
ECP, and (13b) involves incorporation from the lower VP Spec to the higher V, in violation
of the (rigid) minimality condition (Chomsky 1986b). All this indicates that conflation is a
syntactic process, subject to syntactic principles.
The analysis of the deadjectivals is basically the same as the denominals. Thus
(14a) shares with (14b) the same LRS representation:
(14)
a.
The screen cleared.
b.
The screen got clear.
The derivation for (14a) involves conflation of A to the higher V, as below:
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(15)
VP
NP
screen
V'
V
AP
A
clear
The analysis for the deadjectivals is related to the more general problem of the transitivity
alternation in English. The insight in HK's proposal is, the more complex an event
structure is, the more complex its LRS representation is. It is known that deadjectivals in
English exhibit transitivity alternation, as shown in the following examples:
(16)
a.
The screen cleared
b.
Fred cleared the screen.
(16a) is repeated from (14a), an instance of the unaccusative use of clear. But clear can be
used as a causative verb too, as in (16b), with an additional external agent argument. Recall
that an agent is defined as the NP in the Spec of a VP that takes a VP complement (cf. (6)).
To derive the causative use of a deadjectival like clear, all that needs to be done is to merge
an extra VP layer to a structure like (15), along with an agent NP. This point is shown in
the diagram below:
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(17)


 Causative-agentive
 (Merging an extra VP layer)

VP
NP
Fred
V'
V




 Unaccusative

 (=(15))


VP
NP
V'
screen
V
AP
clear
Generally, HK argue, the unaccusative-causative alternation in English can be accounted for
in the same way. For example, the verb break:
(18)
(19)
a.
The window broke.
b.
Olsen broke the window.
a.
b.
I'
I'
VP
VP
NP
V
NP
window
break
Olsen
V'
VP
V
NP
V
window
break
The most important insight in this analysis is that an event structure is directly correlated
with the syntactic structure that realizes it. We will return to it later.
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In summary, HK propose to represent event structures by syntactic structures.
Light verbs are those empty VP shells that serve as building blocks for the LRS
representations that incarnates thematic relations. As in Larson's theory, they don't have
substantial thematic functions, but only elementary semantics. It is the interrelations among
the light verbs and other syntactic categories that are essential. Many interesting questions
arise with HK's theory, in particular the extension of HK's analyses to other languages. In
the next section we will have a general review on HK's theory and look at Mandarin Chinese
and Japanese. It will be shown that, though HK's structure-based approach to event
structures in highly insightful, the strong configurationism on the event structures, and the
impoverished semantic status of the light verb, cannot account for all the phenomena in
other languages. A more substantial role of the light verb must be assumed in the
construction of phrase structure.
3. Evaluating the HK-Chomsky theory on event structures
In this section we take a further look at the HK-Chomksy's theory on the event structure,
and examine the ways it applies to Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. We observe that,
though HK's proposal on the correlation between the event structure and syntactic structure
receives strong support from Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, there are still conceptual and
empirical problems. Those problems lead to a rethinking on the nature of light verbs and
their roles in phrase structure.
3.1 Event structures and syntactic structures
The most remarkable insight in HK's proposal is the correlation in complexity between the
event structure and the syntactic structure. Mandarin Chinese provides very strong support
for this correlation. Here we will look at the unaccusative-causative alternation in Mandarin
Chinese. Recall that HK analyze the transitivity alternation in English as involving merging
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of an additional light VP layer to the unaccusative VP structure -- to wit, causativity results
from inchoativity (unaccusativity) plus agentivity. All these semantic components are
syntactically represented as VP structures. Notice that, in English, these VP structures are
invisible in the surface syntactic structure. In Mandarin Chinese, however, they are
syntactically overt. This renders support to HK's proposal on the correlation between the
event structures and syntactic structures.
In English, when an unaccusative verb is converted into a causative verb, the subject
can be an agent, an instrument, or a natural force. This point is demonstrated in the
following examples:
(20)
a.
The window broke.
(Unaccusative)
b.
John broke the window.
(Agent)
c.
The wood broke the window.
(Instrument)
d.
The hurricane broke the window.
(Natural force)
On the other hand, we observe that, in Mandarin Chinese, the verb corresponding to break,
namely, po 'break', can only assume unaccusative use. To make it causative, an additional
verb must be inserted into the structure, forming a verbal compound. As a result, the
causative-agentive component and the inchoative-resultative component of the event
structure are realized independently. The following examples illustrate the relevant points:
(21)
a.
*Chuangzi po le.
(Unaccusative)
*window break Prt
*'The window broke.'
b.
*Laozhang po chuangzi.
(Agent, ungrammatical)
p.n. break window
'Laozhang broke the window.'
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c.
*Mutou po chuangzi.
(Instrument, ungrammatical)
wood break window
'The stone broke the window'
d.
*Taifeng po chuangzi.
(Natural force, ungrammatical)
typhoon break window
'The typhoon broke the window.'
(22)
a.
Laozhang da-po chuangzi.
(Agentive)
p.n. hit-break window
'Laozhang broke the window.'
b.
Mutou zhuang-po chuangzi.
(Instrument)
wood strike-break window
'The wood broke the window.'
c.
Taifeng chui-po chuangzi.
(Natural force)
typhoon blow-break window
'The typhoon broke the window.'
A further point to notice on (22) is that, the two verbs in the compound in each sentence can
be separated, exhibiting phrasal characteristics:11
11 As a matter of fact, (23a-c) are somewhat unnatural as independent sentences, since the objects of the
transitive verb da 'hit', zhuang 'strike', and chui 'blow' are not syntactically realized. Structures of (23a-c)
types used to be fully grammatical in ancient Chinese, but in contemporary Mandarin Chinese the same
propositions are usually expressed by structures with verb duplication/copying. See Huang (1988), K. Mei
(1989), T. Mei (1991), among others, for relevant discussions. However, (22a-c) can be acceptable if we
assume that there are phonetically null objects in the sentences. Thus (23a), for instance, becomes fully
grammatical when we spell out the phonetically null object (the material in the brackets):
(i)
Laozhang [yizhi da chuangzi,] da de chuangzi po le.
p.n. [keep hitting the window] hit Ext window break Prt
'Laowang [kept hitting the window, and eventually] hit the window broke.'
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(23)
a.
Laozhang da de chuangzi po le.
p.n. hit Ext window break Prt
'Laowang hit [the window such that] the window broke.'
b.
Mutou zhuang de chuangzi po le.
wood strike Ext window break Prt
'The wood stroke [the window such that] the window broke.'
c.
Taifeng chui de chuangzi po le.
typhoon blow Ext window break Prt
'The typhoon blow [on the window such that] the window broke.'
In view of (23a-c), the verbal compounds, da-po 'hit-break', zhuang-po 'strike-break', and
chui-po 'blow-break' in (22) actually result from multiple-VP structures (cf. Sybesma 1992,
Huang 1992). The structural analysis and the derivation for (22-23) are represented in the
diagram in (24):
(24)
.... VP


 Causative-agentive

V'
V
hit 
strike 
blow 
VP
DP
the window
V'
V
break



 Inchoative-resultative


Optional
Incorporation
The verb po 'break' starts out heading a VP structure in the underlying structure with a
subject -- the lower VP in (24). If that's all it is, the structure surfaces as (21a), Chuangzi
po le 'The window broke'. To causativize po 'break', an additional VP layer, namely the
35
higher VP in (24), is merged to the inchoative-resultative VP. The head V of this higher VP
is projected from an action verb, da 'hit', zhuang 'strike', or chui 'blow', which selects an
agent, an instrument, or a natural force respectively. The structure in (24) underlies the
sentences in (23a-c), as the two V's are separate.12 As proposed by Sybesma (1992) and
Huang (1992), the lower V may optionally incorporate to the higher V, yielding a V-V
compound. Notice that all these are syntactic -- the relevant structures are in Syntax, and the
operation of incorporation maps an underlying syntactic structure to a surface syntactic
structure. Thus Mandarin Chinese provides strong support for HK's proposal on the
correlation in complexity between event structures and syntactic structures. When the event
structure is an inchoative predicate and hence is simple, there is only one VP structure; when
the event structure is a causative-agentive predicate and is complex, there are two VP layers
in the syntactic structure. The composition of the event structure is syntactically
transparent.
3.2 A cross-linguistic perspective: Chinese and Japanese
In this subsection, we look at more constructions in Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. We
find all these constructions support HK's proposal on the correlation between the event
structures and the syntactic structures.
3.2.1 Unergatives in Mandarin Chinese
We begin with the equivalents of English unergatives in Mandarin Chinese. We
will examine if the unergatives in Mandarin Chinese can be associated with transitive
structures along the way that HK propose.13 At this point it is important to keep one thing
12 Notice that in (23a-c) the morpheme de, an extension/resultative marker suffixed to the verb, occurs in
all the sentences. Sybesma (1992) considers it an independent head selecting a resultative complement (cf.
Hoekstra 1990). Here we omit questions related to de for simplification of exposition, but will come back
to it in Chapter 3 and 5.
13 The term "unergatives," in its standard use, has been to refer to those verbs that are "truly intransitive"
(HK 1991, 1993). See discussion in section 2.2.2. In this sense it doesn't seem to be entirely appropriate
to use this term to refer to the kind of expressions to be discussed below, those in (26a-c), since they all
36
in mind that HK point out: in some languages, such as Basque and Tanoan languages,
notions corresponding to unergatives in English are expressed by N-V constructions, the V
being a light verb; for instance, Basque barre egin 'laugh do' (HK 1991, 1993). Thus the
difference between English, on the one hand, and languages such as Basque, on the other, is
that, for an underlying structure as in (25), the light verb V is empty in English , but lexically
realized in Basque :
(25)
V'
V
NP
Now look at the following examples from Mandarin Chinese:
(26)
a.
zou-lu
walk-road
'to walk'
b.
shui-jiao
sleep (v) -sleep (n)
'to sleep'
c.
tiao-wu
jump-dance
'to dance'
The predicates in (26a-c) all have a transitive structure, with a verb taking an NP
complement. But an important fact to notice is that, the NP complements in (26a-c), namely
lu 'road', shui 'sleep', and wu 'dance', in fact are non-referential -- they don't denote any
particular road, stretch of sleep, or piece of dance. So, though (26a-c) are syntactically
have a surface transitive structure. However, since we lack a better term for our purposes, we will be
attaching to the term "unergatives" in the discussion.
37
transitive, semantically they are intransitive. Thus they add one more piece of evidence to
HK's structural analysis on the unergatives. The only special thing about (26a-c) is that the
head V of the predicate is lexically realized, like Basque. It thus appears that HK's analysis
on the unergatives can be carried over to Mandarin Chinese. That is, unergatives can be
derived from underlying transitive structures.14
There is a further interesting point about (26a-c). Though the NP complements in
(26a-c) are non-referential, these examples actually can be expanded into phrases, and, in
that case, the NP complements become referential. In those phrasal structures, the NP
complements behave like true objects. Look at the following examples:
(27)
a.
zou-le hen-chang yi-duan lu
walk-Perf very-long one-stretch road
'to walk for a long distance'
b.
shui-le yi-ge hao-jiao
sleep-Perf one-Cl good-sleep
'to have a good sleep'
c.
tiao-le san-zhi wu
jump-Perf three-Cl dance
'to have three dances'
14 A caveat is in order here. It's not the case that all unergatives in Mandarin are derived from underlying
transitives; the unergative-transitve correlation is just a strong tendency in Mandarin Chinese. There are
unergatives in Mandarin Chinese that are "truly intransitive," such as ku 'cry' and xiao 'laugh'. This is why
we state that unergatives can be derived from underlying transitive structures in the text. Another
important thing related to the unergatives in Mandarin Chinese is that, an unergative doesn't really need to
be followed by a non-referential object to be used unergatively. A time/duration complement may serve the
same function:
(i)
zou-le san tian
walk-Perf three day
'[keep] walking for three days'
It seems that what an unergative really needs is some element that "closes off" it's temporal frame and
pinpoints its telicity. Interesting questions arise in this regard, but we will leave them open.
38
In (27a-c), the verb and the object are separate -- the verb is suffixed with the perfective
aspectual marker -le, and the NP complement is modified by a numeral and a classifier.
This phenomenon is identical to what we have seen earlier about the transitivity alternation
of the unaccusatives in Mandarin, where compounding and expansion into a phrasal
structure are both possible. The analysis here should be the same. That is, for both (26)
and (27), the underlying structure is phrasal, namely, the transitive structure in (25). If the
NP is referential, it stays in-situ and remains such. But if the NP is bare and nonreferential, it incorporates to V, giving rise to a verbal compound.
3.2.2 Denominals in Mandarin Chinese
To test whether there are denominals in Mandarin Chinese, we need to see if nouns can be
freely used as main verbs in sentences. There are interesting questions bearing on this.
Firstly consider the following examples:15
(28)
a.
Laowang jia-zhe zhexie shu.
p.n. shelf-Dur these book
'Laowang shelves these book.'
b.
Laowang lan-zhe zhexie ma.
p.n. corral-Dur these horses
'Laowang corrals these horses.'
15 (28a-b) may sound a little unnatural to some native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. But if the durative
aspectual marker -zhe is replaced by a phase complement (which has a grammatical function similar to the
aspectual marker; see Chao 1968), like hao ''finished, ready' or zhu 'stop', the sentences will be completely
natural:
(i)
a.
b.
Laowang jia-hao zhexie shu le.
p.n. shelf-finished these book Prt
'Laowang shelved these books.'
Laowang lan-zhu zhexie ma le.
p.n. corral-stop these horses.'
'Laowang corralled these horses.'
39
In (28a-b), the location nouns jia 'shelf' and lan 'corral' are used as causative verbs. Thus it
seems that denominal location verbs exist in Mandarin Chinese.
An important fact to notice, however, is that denominal verbs are not really
productive in the grammar of Mandarin Chinese. For one thing, we cannot take any noun in
Mandarin Chinese and use it as a verb:
(29)
a.
*Laozhang ping shui.
*p.n. bottle water
*'Laozhang bottled the water.'
b.
*Laozhang xiang naxie shu.
*p.n. box those book
*'Laozhang boxed those books.'
Considering the ungrammaticality of sentences like (29a-b), it appears that denominalization
of nouns, as in (28a-b), are limited in Mandarin Chinese. In fact, they can be relics from
Archaic Chinese. In Archaic Chinese, deadjectivals and denominals of the English type
were very productive. Later in history, as a result of the weakening of morphology, the
denominals become illegitimate. Thus, we assume that the denominal uses of the nouns jia
'shelf' and lan 'corral' in (28a-b) are historical residues from Archaic Chinese. We will
come back to the case of Archaic Chinese in Chapter 5. In conclusion, denominals of the
English type are only marginally possible in Mandarin Chinese.
The real productive pattern of denominals in Mandarin Chinese is the kind that we
saw in the transitivity alternation of the unaccusatives and the unergatives, namely, lexical
realization of the light verb. In this regard, a construction in Mandarin Chinese deserves
special attention, the construction with the verb da 'hit', which we mentioned in the beginning
of this chapter. This construction has the structure [VP V NP], where da 'hit' occurs in the
position of V. A special point about this construction is that, the verb da 'hit' doesn't really
40
have the meaning of hitting; it only has a vague meaning of "doing". Thus, da 'hit' has
function is to "verbalize" the NP complement it takes. Below are some examples:
(30)
a.
b.
c.
da penti
d.
da gong
hit sneeze
hit work
'to sneeze'
'to work'
da qiu
e.
da qiang
hit ball
hit gun
'to play ball games'
'to shoot'
da diannao
f.
da dianhua
hit computer
hit phone
'to use a computer'
'to make a call'
With the general action sense that da 'hit' takes, all the examples in (30a-d) can be translated
as "do with...." Thus da-penti 'to sneeze' can be understood as "do with a sneeze," da-qiu
'to play ball games' as "do with a ball," etc. Thus, da 'hit' can be seen as a light verb, very
similar to suru in Japanese.
Again, all the examples in (30a-f) can be expanded into phrases:
(31)
a.
da-le san-ge da-penti
hit-Perf three-Cl big sneeze
'to sneeze violently for three times'
b.
da san-chang hao-qiu
hit one-Cl good-ball
'to have three excellent ball games'
41
c.
da-le san-ge xiaoshi de diannao
hit-Perf three-Cl hour Mod computer
'to use a computer for three hours'
d.
da-le san tain gong
hit-Perf three day work
'to work for three days'
e.
da-le san-qiang
hit-Perf three-gun
'to make three shoots'
f.
da san-ge dianhua
hit three-Cl phone
'to make three calls'
The structural analysis and the derivation for (30-31) should be similar: a transitive V-NP
structure underlies these examples, and the NP optionally incorporates to V, as shown
below:
(32)
....
VP
V'
V
da
'hit'
NP
 penti ' sneeze' 
qiu ' ball'



 gong ' work' 
qiang ' gun' 
Optional Incorporation
42
If this analysis is correct, the denominals in Mandarin Chinese are derived through lexical
spell-out of the light verb.
3.2.3 Deadjectivals in Mandarin Chinese
Lexical spell-out of the light verb is also seen in the deadjectivals in Mandarin Chinese.
Mandarin Chinese doesn't permit deadjectivals of the English type, as evidenced by the
following examples:
(33)
a.
*xiao zhe-ge dongxi
*small this-Cl thing
*'to make this thing small'
b.
*kuan na-ge churu-kou
*wide that-Cl entrance
*'to widen that entrance'
c.
*hong zhe-fu hua
*red this-Cl painting
*'to redden this painting'
d.
*liang na-zhan dian-deng
*bright that-Cl light
*'to brighten that light'
In (33a-d), the adjectives xiao 'small', kuan 'wide', hong 'red', and liang 'bright' are intended
as the main verbs of the predicates, but the resulting expressions are all ungrammatical. For
grammatical expressions, we must insert the verb nong 'manipulate':
43
(34)
a.
ba zhe-ge dongxi nong-xiao16
BA this-Cl thing manipulate-small
'to make this thing small'
b.
nong-kuan na-ge churu-kou
manipulate-wide that-Cl entrance
'to make that entrance wide'
c.
hua-hong zhe-fu hua
paint-red this-Cl painting
'to paint this painting red'
d.
dian-liang na-zhan dian-deng
turn-bright that-Cl light
'to turn that light bright'
Again, in (34a-d), the causative-agentive and the inchoative-resultative components of the
event structure are lexically realized separately, conforming to the pattern we saw in earlier
cases. Furthermore, just like unergatives and denominals, the compounds in (34a-d) can be
expanded into phrasal expressions:
(35)
a.
ba zhe-ge dongxi nong de hen xiao
BA this-Cl thing manipulate Ext very small
'to make this thing very small'
16 The morpheme ba is a disposal marker that introduces an affected theme/patient into the predicate. In
most cases the affected theme/patient it introduces corresponds to the object of the verb. Thus the difference
in word order between (33a) and (34a) in the position of the object doesn't matter for our purposes. The
object is preposed in (34a) with the disposal marker ba simply for naturalness of the expression. We will
return to some questions related to the disposal marker ba in Chapter 5. For discussions on the
grammatical status and function of the disposal marker ba, see Huang (1982) and Li (1990), among many
others.
44
b.
ba na-ge churu-kou nong de hen kuan
BA that-Cl entrance manipulate Ext very wide
'to make that entrance very wide'
c.
ba zhe-fu hua hua de hen hong
BA this-Cl painting paint-Ext very red
'to paint this painting very red'
d.
ba na-zhan dian de hen liang
BA that-Cl light turn-Ext very bright
'to turn that light very bright'
The structural analysis and derivation for (34-35) should be the same as the earlier cases,
shown below:
(36)
....
VP
V'
V
nong

 Causative-agentive

AP 
 Inchoative-resultative
A 
Optional Incorporation
In (36), the (light) verb nong 'manipulate' heads a VP that maps to the causative-agentive
component of the event structure. It takes an AP as complement, which maps to the
inchoative-resultative component of the event structure. The head A of the AP complement
can either stay in situ so as to remain phrasal, or incorporate to nong 'manipulate', resulting
in a lexically unitary element.
One more thing to mention about the deadjectivals in Chinese: we have seen that
Mandarin Chinese doesn't permit deadjectivals of the English type, as evidenced by
45
examples (33a-d). An intriguing fact, however, is that Archaic Chinese had a rich and
productive set of deadjectivals. Below are some examples (cf. Wang 1980, Tan 1981,
among others):
(37)
a.
gu tian jiang jiang da-ren yu su-ren ye,
therefore Heaven will fall great-responsibility to that-person,
bi xian ku qi xin-zhi, lao qi jin-gu
definitely first bitter his heart-mind, laborious his muscle-bone
'Therefore, if Heaven is going to assign great responsibility to some
person, His Majesty definitely will first set his heart in bitterness and his
body in laborious state.'
(Menzi [Mencius], 300 BC.)
b.
xin bei qing-xiang, zhi xiao wan-cheng,
heart humiliated official-minister, intention small emperor
ji shou zhi zheng, lun-luan bu-zhi
once give him goverance dark-chaotic not-ruled
'[Those people] dispise the officials and minister as humiliated, and take
the emperor as small; but once they are granted the power to govern, they
only make things chaotic and can't maintain things' order.'
(Yian-tie lun [An essay on salt and iron], 100 BC.)
Many researchers have pointed out that Archaic Chinese permitted liberal derived uses of
lexical items. In (37a-b), we see what have traditionally been known as the causative (shidong) and intentional (yi-dong) uses of adjectives. Nouns in Archaic Chinese could be
freely assume these two uses too:
46
(38)
a.
xiansheng zhi en, sheng si er rou gu ye
your honor Mod mercy live dead and flesh bone
'Your honor's mercy for me is like to bring the dead alive and make the
bone to get flesh again.'
(Zhongshan lang zhuan [A story about the wolf in Zhongshan], 900 AD.)
c.
yi-ren qi zhi, shao-shao bin-ke qi fu
town-people strange it, gradually guest his father
'The people in the town were surpirzed, therefore they [changed their
attitude and] took his father as a guest.'
(Wang Anshi, Shang Zhongyong [Mourning for Zhongyong], 1200 AD.)
Thus, Archaic Chinese actually was more like English, not Mandarin, in the denominals and
deadjectivals. Important questions arise with this observation, and we will come back to
them in Chapter 5.
47
3.2.4 Concluding remarks for the case of Mandarin Chinese
In the foregoing three subsections we looked at the unergatives, denominals, and
deadjectivals in Mandarin Chinese, and showed that they are all susceptible to the HK-style
of structural analysis. This analysis attributes the formation of these expressions to the
function of the light verb -- it is the light verb that converts an NP (unergatives and
denominals) or AP (deadjectivals) into a verbal expression. There is, however, a principled
difference that distinguishes Mandarin Chinese from English. While in English the light
verb is phonetically empty,17 in Mandarin Chinese the light verb is invariably spelled out as
a verb. This difference aside, we have seen that the unergatives, denominals, and the
deadjectivals in Mandarin Chinese support HK's proposal on the correlation between
syntactic structure sand the event structure. In all cases, it is the light verb and the syntactic
configuration it projects that verbalize the expression. So, the light verb determines the
event structure. This proposal also receives support from the causativization of the
unaccusatives in Mandarin Chinese, as we have shown. Unaccusatives in Mandarin
Chinese cannot be used directly as causatives; to make them causative, an additional VP
must be merged to the structure, representing the causative component of the event structure.
The relevant examples are repeated below:
(39)
a.
Laozhang da-po chuangzi.
(Agentive)
p.n. hit-break window
'Laozhang broke the window.'
b.
Mutou zhuang-po chuangzi.
(Instrument)
wood strike-break window
'The wood broke the window.'
17 In English, verbs such as take and make can be considered light verbs, equivalent to da 'hit' and nong
'manipulate' in Mandarin. So this statement is not absolute.
48
c.
Taifong chui-po chuangzi.
(Natural force)
typhoon blow-break window
'The typhoon broke the window.'
In (39), different subjects occur with different action verbs. As a matter of fact, all the action
verbs in (39a-c) can be replaced by the lexical light verb nong 'manipulate' without affecting
the meaning of the sentence in a substantial way. The examples are given below:
(40)
a.
Laozhang nong-po chuangzi.
(Agentive)
p.n. manipulate-break window
'Laozhang broke the window.'
b.
Mutou nong-po chuangzi.
(Instrument)
wood manipulate-break window
'The wood broke the window.'
c.
Taifong nong-po chuangzi.
(Natural force)
typhoon manipulate-break window
'The typhoon broke the window.'
Comparing (39a-c) and (40a-c), we find that the semantic content of the action verb in the
event structure is not really important. What is required is simply an additional VP layer
that brings causativity into the event structure. HK's syntactic approach to event structures
appropriately captures this generalization.
In the next subsection, we will look at another language, Japanese. It will be shown
that Japanese also provides support to HK's proposal.
49
3.2.5 Unergatives, denominals, and deadjectivals in Japanese
For the case of Japanese, we will go through the three constructions that we have been
concerned with -- the unergatives, denominals, and deadjectivals. We will see that, though
the unergatives in Japanese don't seem to involve light verbs, the denominals and
deadjectivals in Japanese exhibit strong effect of the light verb suru.
Firstly we look at the unergatives. Unergatives in Japanese don't seem to be
associated with transitive structures. See the following examples:
(41)
a.
Verb
b.
Noun
warau
'to laugh'
warai
'laugh'
inanaku
'to neigh'
inanaki
'neigh'
odoru
'to dance'
odori
'dance'
neru
'to sleep'
neri
'sleep'
aruku
'to walk'
aruki
'walk'
(41a) are unergative verbs; they are all intransitive. (41b) are their nominalized counterparts.
Generally, in Japanese, a verb can be nominalized by the nominalizing suffix -i, as the
correspondence between (41a) and (41b) shows.18 This correspondence, however, doesn't
seem to involve any syntactic processes. What is more, the suffix -i applies to transitive
verbs too, as the following examples show:
(42)
a.
Verb
b.
Noun
uru
'sell'
uri
'sale'
noru
'ride'
nori
'riding'
naguru
'hit'
naguri
'hitting'
yomu
'read'
yomi
'reading'
18 But those verbs whose roots end with the vowel [e] do not participate in this morphological process.
For those verbs, the roots are themselves the nominalized forms.
50
So, there is no evidence that the unergatives in Japanese are associated with underlying
transitive structures. There is no evidence for the effect of the light verb in the unergatives
in Japanese.
But in the denominals and deadjectivals, we observe strong effects of the light verb
suru. We have introduced the suru construction in the beginning of section 2. Earlier
discussions on the suru construction, such as Grimshaw and Mester's (1988), Hoshi and
Saito (1993), and others, have primarily concentrated on the role of the light verb suru with
Sino-Japanese verbal nouns (cf. Shibatani 1990, Kageyama 1993). But the use of suru is
much more extensive than this.
First of all, suru can take a nominal as complement, and convert it into a verbal
expression. This is a very productive process in Japanese, most noticeably with loan words,
and to a lesser extent with native nouns. Consider the following examples:
(43)
a.
b.
c.
d.
kopii suru
e.
hanasi suru
copy suru
speech suru
'to copy'
'to speak'
deeto suru
f.
mizu-asobi suru
date suru
water-play suru
'to date'
'to play in the water'
paatii suru
g.
o-tya suru
party suru
tea suru
'to have a party'
'to have tea'
pikunikku suru
picnic suru
'to attend a picnic'
51
In (43a-d), the nominal complement that suru takes is a loan word. Particularly striking are
(43c-d), where the NP complements are genuine nouns, not verbs. In (43e-f), the NP
complement of suru is a native -i nominal, derived from a verb. In (43g), the NP
complement is a genuine native noun.19 All the examples in (43a-g) share the structure in
(44):
(44)
VP
NP
V
N
suru
Here the function of suru is purely grammatical: it doesn't seem to contribute any literal
meaning to the VP (but see the discussion in Chapter 6). Therefore, it has exactly the same
status as the light verb V in the unergatives in English, as in (45):
(45)
VP
V
NP
laugh
So there is no substantial difference between suru and the light verb in English. The only
different between the two is that, in the English case (45), the light verb V is phonetically
empty, but in the Japanese case (44), the light verb V is lexically spelled out as suru, just
like Mandarin Chinese. Thus HK's structural analysis of denominals can be well apply to
the Japanese suru construction.
19 Kazue Takeda (personal communication) and Hiroshi Hasegawa (personal communication) informed me
that (43g) is an expression used in the teenagers' sub-cultural speech, and therefore is not a widely used
expression in the language community of Japanese. But the point here is simply to illustrate the
productivity of the NP-suru structures as denominals. The sub-cultural origin of (43g) indicates precisely
that the NP-suru structure is even more productive in less formal speech.
52
The deadjectivals in Japanese exhibit the same effect. In Japanese, adjectives can be
used as causatives via the function of suru, as shown in the following examples:20
(46)
a.
Adjective
b.
Causative
i.
nagai
i.
naga-ku suru
'long'
ii.
'make...long'
isogasii
ii.
'busy'
iii.
'make...busy'
kirei
iii.
'clean'
iv.
isogasi-ku suru (ambiguous)
kirei-ni suru (ambiguous)
'make...clean'
benri
iv.
'convenient'
benri-ni suru
'make...convenient'
In (46a) are some examples of Japanese adjectives, and in (46b) are their causative
counterparts. Again, suru in (46b) functions as a "verbalizer" -- it makes an adjective
causative. The analysis is similar to (44):21
(47)
VP
AP
V
A
suru
In summary, suru, as a light verb, plays a crucial role in converting an N or an A into a
verbal expression.
20 (46b.1-ii) are ambiguous. In addition to the causative readings discussed in the text, they can
alternatively mean "being busy" and 'being beautiful". We ignore these readings. Thanks to Mamoru Saito
(personal communication) for pointing this out.
21 When an adjective in Japanese is used causatively in the suru construction, the -i ending must be
replaced by the adverbial -ku ending, and a -na adjective must be followed by the adverbial -ni ending, as
shown in (46). But this doesn't imply that the adjective is derivationally changed to an adverb. We have no
answer for why the resultative adjectives in (48b) have to take the adverbial endings.
53
There is, however, an important problem here. Compare (47) with (44). In (44), a V
takes an NP as complement. According to HK's syntactic approach to the event structures,
it should be mapped to a simple, non-causative event. This seems right for (44). But (47)
poses a problem. (47) underlies a causative event. This structure, however, is essentially
non-distinct from (44). HK's configurational approach to event structures would predict
(47) to underlie an inchoative predicate. But in fact it does not. For the inchoative use of
the adjectives in Japanese, a different verb, naru 'become', must be used:
(48)
a.
Adjective
b.
Inchoative
i.
nagai
i.
naga-ku naru
'long'
ii.
isogasii
'become long'
ii.
'busy'
iii.
kirei
'become busy'
iii.
'clean'
iv.
benri
isogasi-ku naru
kirei-ni naru
'become clean'
iv.
'convenient'
benri-ni become
'become convenient'
Considering the non-distinctiveness of (44) and (47), the generalization seems to be this:
though syntactic structures are correlated with the event structures, they don't really
determine event structures. There doesn't seem to be a one-to-one correspondence between
the syntactic structure and the event structure. We will return to this point later.
54
3.3 Problems with the HK-Chomsky theory
In this subsection, we will discuss some problems in HK's configurational approach and the
Chomskyan light verb. We will firstly show that HK's configurationism on the event
structures is too restrictive, since one-to-one correspondence between syntactic
configurations and event structures doesn't always hold. Then we will look at the
development of views on the locus where conflation applies, and show that the recent view,
namely, the one that conflation is an operation in Syntax (Chomsky 1995, 1998, 1999, HK
1997, 1999), may not be adequate. In fact, English doesn't exhibit characteristics that
support this view. On the other hand, Mandarin Chinese does.
3.3.1 Event types
Though HK try to provide a set of unambiguous syntactic configurations for event
structures, their primary concern still lies in the transitivity properties of verbs. This point is
particularly clear in their discussions on the transitive nature of the unergatives, and the
transitivity alternation of the locations/locatums and the deadjectivals. The syntactic
configurations are proposed for capturing the transitivity properties of the verbs. However,
HK do not pay much attention to the kind of distinctions that Vendler (1967) proposes for
types of events (though in effect the various event types are all covered in this framework).
In this regard, Rappaport (1999) proposes to base the syntactic configurations directly on
Vendler's event types. Three syntactic configurations -- in Rappaport's term, Aspectual
Structures -- are generated by grammar mapping to particular types of event ((11),
Rappaport 1999: 656):
55
(49)
a.
Activity
b.
Accomplishment/Causative
VP
VP
NP
NP
V'
V
V'
V
NP
VP
NP
V'
V
c.
AP/PP
Achievement/Unaccusative
VP
NP
V'
V
AP/PP
Though Rappaport's theory differs from HK's framework in some aspects (for example,
Rappaport takes (49a-c) to be independent templates given by the grammar, not projected
from lexical items), the theory on the Aspectual Structures can be seen as following the line
as HK's framework.
A problem that immediately arises for such configurationism is that it is too
restrictive. According to this approach, syntactic categories, their elementary semantics, and
the structural configurations in which they occur jointly determine the event structures. But
we know that event types usually straddle syntactic categories. For example, verbs may
denote stative properties, such as know and resemble, or actions, such as run and study.
Also, adjectives may denote permanent properties, such as tall and alike, or episodic states,
such as free and happy. These distinctions are all linguistically significant and manifest in
syntactic constructions, such as in the when clause:
56
(50)
a.
*When Jenny knows French, she likes to show off.
b.
*When Jenny resembles her father,
*she doesn't like the way people look at her.
(51)
c.
*When Jenny runs, no one can catch her.
d.
*When Jenny studies, she locks herself in the room.
a.
*When Jenny is tall, she look down other people.
b.
*When Jenny and Jim are alike, they share each other's cloths.
c.
*When Jenny is free, she goes to the farmer's market.
d.
*When Jenny is happy, she keeps saying jokes.
Kratzer (1988), Bach (1981), and others point out that the when clause in English can only
take a predicate that denotes a stage-level property. From (50-51), we see that both verbs
and adjectives can denote temporary or permanent properties. Thus, it is highly problematic
to hypothesize that all verbs uniformly map to events (e), and all adjectives states (s), as HK
do. Finer distinctions should be made, which may go well beyond what syntactic
configurations can represent.
There is still a more fundamental problem with this approach. Notice that, if
syntactic structures determine event structures, the syntactic structures must be
unambiguous and distinctive from one another. This is indeed assumed in HK's theory.
The problem, however, is that there are cases where different event types are associated with
an individual syntactic configuration. The suru construction in Japanese exemplifies one
such case. We have seen earlier that the light verb suru in Japanese can conjoin with nouns
and adjectives to form denominals and deadjectivals. However, as we have noticed, the
resulting expressions belong to different event types -- for the denominals, the event type is
activity; for the deadjectivals, it is accomplishment or causative. Below are some examples:
57
(52)
a.
paatii suru
'to have a party'
b.
naga-ku suru 'to make...long'
(Denominal, activity)
(Deadjectival, accomplishment)
We assume that (52a) and (52b) have the same syntactic structure as in (53):
(53)
VP
{NP
AP}
V
suru
Since the structure in (53) underlies two different event types, it is ambiguous and nondistinctive. Notice that the distinction in the categories, NP vs. AP, doesn't seem enough to
support a configuration-based theory to event structures in Japanese -- while the structure
[NP V] meets HK's hypothesis as being an activity, the structure [AP V] doesn't, since it has
a simple syntactic structure (with only one VP) and hence should map to an inchoative or
achievement predicate, contrary to the fact. This kind of examples pose a major problem to
HK's (as well as Rappaport's (1999)) configurational approach to event structures. We will
come back to the suru construction again in Chapter 6, where we will provide finer-grained
analyses for the relevant examples.
The same point is observed in Mandarin Chinese, in a special construction that we
call the diminutive construction. Later in section 4.2.4 we will present a detailed analysis for
this construction. There we will see that the syntactic configurations for stative and active
predicates are non-distinctive in the diminutive construction. This kind of examples indicate
that a strict one-to-one correspondence between syntactic configurations and event
structures cannot be held.
58
3.3.2 Conflation
Another problem with the HK-Chomsky theory to the syntactic structures and the event
structures has to do with the grammatical representation at which conflation applies. In the
original formulation of the theory, HK (1991) intend light verbs to be entities in the lexical
component of grammar (the lexical relational structure, LRS), and conflation applies at that
grammatical level. This view, however, is abandoned in the current theory. Chomsky
(1995) adopts HK's configurational approach, but suggests that a separate LRS
representation in Lexicon may not be necessary; the syntactic structures in the core syntax
are LRS representations. With this new conception, light verbs are now considered entities
in Syntax, and conflation applies as a genuine syntactic operation, non-distinct from
Merge.22 In the following, we will retrieve this change and point out that the new
conception that Chomsky (1995) suggests may not be appropriate.
In HK (1991), the LRS representation is taken to be an independent grammatical
component in Lexicon, distinct from the core syntax. So, although the denominal locatum
verb saddle has a complex LRS as in (54a), this LRS undergoes lexicalization and is turned
into an individual verb, with a fixed set of arguments. In Syntax, it projects a structure no
different from those that simple transitive verbs project, as in (54b) (adapted from (24) and
(25), HK 1991: 16-17):
22 In Chomsky (1999), head movement is assumed to be PF operations, and thus is not syntactic any
more. But this doesn't affect our discussion, since the distinction between English and Mandarin Chinese
has to be explicitly made anyway, as the discussion later will point out.
59
(54)
a.
b.
VP
NP
(he)
V'
Lexicalization
V
saddle
t
V'
V
t
NP
V'
V
VP
NP
VP
NP
saddle
PP
< (he), (horse) >
P
NP
t
(the horse)
HK (1991:16) explicitly states:
"But they [= LRS as (54a)] are not d-structures. The 'traces' which appear
in a structure like [(54a)], for example, have no 'reality', so far as we know,
at the d-structure level of representation. Thus, we must make a distinction
between 'l-syntax' (syntax in the lexical representation of items) and 'ssyntax' (the syntax which relates d-structure and s-structure)." [quotations
original]
Thus, conflation is an operation in Lexicon, an instance of L-Syntax. It has nothing to do
with Syntax proper, the S-Syntax. In HK (1993) the same position is held, where the term
"l-syntax" is meant to be "syntax in the lexicon" (footnote 9, HK 1993: 105).
But then Chomsky (1995) kicks in. Chomsky adopts HK's "configurational
approach to theta-theory" and assumes that it is correct (Chomsky 1995: 312, 315).
However, there is an interesting note in Chomsky (1995) on the distinction between the
verbs shelve and put (footnote 18, Chomsky 1995: 214):
60
"Hale and Keyser make a distinction between (1) operations of lexical
conceptual structure that form such lexical items as shelve and (2) syntactic
operations that raises put to [some higher light verb V], attributing
somewhat different properties to (1) and (2). These distinctions do not
seem to me necessary for their purposes..." (brackets added by JL).
Though this comment is far from concrete, a reasonable guess is that Chomsky is
suggesting to abolish the distinction between L-Syntax and S-Syntax. In HK (1991, 1993),
the derivation for the denominal location verb shelve is as (54a-b) above, but the derivation
for a structure with put as the main verb doesn't involve a complex LRS representation -- the
verb put simply merges to the structure in the core syntax:
(55)
VP
NP
he
V'
V
put
VP
NP
V'
the books V
PP
t
P
NP
on
the shelf
The structure in (55) is a genuine syntactic structure in Syntax; put doesn't have a complex
LRS representation in Lexicon. Thus it is an instance of S-Syntax. But the verb shelve has
a complex LRS representation, hence it is a typical instance of L-Syntax. What Chomsky
(1995) suggests here, then, is to move the LRS representation for shelve in (54a) from
Lexicon to Syntax, on a par with (55). There is no lexicalization that turns (54a) into (54b)
any more. Everything is S-Syntactic.
61
HK (1997) seem to adopt this new conception: LSR = Syntax, but ≠ Lexicon. This
point is evidenced by their redefinition of the term "s-syntax" as "the representation at
which lexical items are in construction with the functional projections" (HK 1997:62). If SSyntax is the representation where the output of L-Syntax merges to functional categories
(such as Infl), then L-Syntax should be the part in the structural representation of a sentence
removed of the functional categories, namely, the VP (= predicate). Thus (54a), the LRS
representation for the verb shelve, is now considered a syntactic object. L-Syntax becomes
a label for the set of operations that yield a VP structure in Syntax.
This is the true origin of the Chomskyan light verb. In Chomsky (1998), the light
verb is defined as the head of a transitive predicate, a functional element on a par with C and
T, a member of the "core functional categories" (Chomsky 1998:15). To be concrete, the
light verb is the higher V in (5), repeated from section 2.2.1, which HK (1991, 1993)
postulate as the structure of a causative/agentive predicate:23
23 Here we emphasize that the light verb in the HK-Chomsky theory is the head of a transitive predicate.
But there is evidence that Chomsky (1995) doesn't seem to be very firm on this conception. Chomsky
(1995) proposes to characterize the phrase structure in which the verb seem occurs in the following way
((98), Chomsky 1995: 305):
(i)
I
I
VP1
v
VP2
XP
V'2
seem
YP
Here the light verb v is the head of the whole predicate. But notice that the verb seem is not a transitive
verb of the regular kind, thus it is not clear how the structure in (i) can fit HK's theory. In Chomsky
(1998), however, it is explicitly mentioned that the light verb v is the head of a transitive predicate. It is
not clear how these two different characterizations of the light verb v can be reconciled.
Thanks to Yoshiki Ogawa (personaal communication) and Mamoru Saito (personal
communication) for discussions on the relevant points.
62
(5)
VP
NP
V'
V
VP
NP
light verb
V'
V
In HK's original proposal, (5) is a structure in L-Syntax; the whole structure is invisible in
S-Syntax. But now, in Chomsky's (1998) reformulation of the theory, it is a piece of
syntactic structure. Thus the locus where the light verb exists is now moved to Syntax from
Lexicon. Along the move is the change in the grammatical level at which conflation applies.
In HK's (1991) original theory, it applies at Lexicon. But now in the new theory, it applies
at Syntax.
The above is a brief history of the change in locus where the light verb exists and
conflation applies. Now let's turn to its problem. Given the assumption that the syntactic
structures correlate with the event structures it comes as a theorem that removing the higher
VP layer from a multiple-VP structure should result in a structure that maps to a less
complex event structure. But as HK (1993) notice, this inference is not always borne out.
Consider the following asymmetry that HK point out:
(56)
(57)
a.
*John broke the window.
b.
*The window broke.
c.
*The pigs splashed mud on the wall.
d.
*Mud splashed on the wall.
a.
*John put a book on the table.
b.
*The book put on the table.
a.
*John smeared mud on the wall.
b.
*Mud smeared on the wall.
63
As HK point out, inchoatives are fairly restricted in English; they are permitted with the type
of verbs as break and splash, but not with the type of verbs as put and smear. But this
asymmetry is not expected, since both types of verbs involve multiple-VP structures when
they are used in causative structures:
(58)
VP
Causativity
V'
V
VP
Inchoativity
V'
V
break, splash 


 put, smear 
As both types of verbs share (58) as the LRS representation, it should be possible for both
types of verbs to be removed of the upper VP from the structure. However, as evidenced by
(56-57), only break and splash allows this option; put and smear don't.
HK try to account for this asymmetry in terms of the licensing of the means and
manner component in the semantics of the verbs. We will leave the relevant discussion to
Chapter 3. Here we just want to point out an important fact in Mandarin Chinese and
Japanese: in these two languages, inchoative uses are possible with verbs of put and smear
type.
Consider the following examples from English, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese:
(59)
English
a.
*John put a book on the table.
b.
*The book put on the table.
64
(60)
Japanese
a.
*Haruki-wa tukue no ue-ni issatu no hon-o oi-ta.
*p.n.-Top table Mod on-Dat one-Cl Mod book-Acc put-Past
*'Haruki put a book on the table.'
b.
*Sono hon-ga tukue no ue-ni oi-te aru.
*that book-Nom table Mod on-Dat put-Ger have
*'That book put on the table.'
(61)
Madarin Chinese
a.
*Laozhang fang-le yi-ben shu zai zhuo-shang.
*p.n. put-Perf one-Cl at table-on
*'Laozhang put a book on the table.'
b.
*Na-ben shu fang zai zhuo-shang.
*that book put on table-on
*'That book put on the table.'
(59a-b) recapitulate HK's observation. But a surprising fact is that, in Japanese and
Mandarin Chinese, inchoative uses of verbs like put are generally acceptable, as in (60b) and
(61b).24 This contrast between English, on the one hand, and Japanese and Mandarin
Chinese, on the other, is systematic; it shows up with the verbs of placement in general:
(62)
English
a.
*Tom smeared mud on the wall.
b.
*Much mud smeared on the wall.
c.
*Tom painted a picture on the paper.
d.
*A picture painted on the paper.
24 For the type of sentences as (60b), the existential verb aru 'have' must occur. We will come back to it
in Chapter 6.
65
(63)
Japanese
a.
Yasuo-wa kabe no ue-ni doro-o nut-ta.
p.n.-Top wall Mod on-Dat mud-Acc smear-Past
'Yasuo smeared mud on the wall.'
b.
Takusan doro-ga kabe no ue-ni nut-te aru.
much mud-Nom wall Mod on-Dat smear-Ger have
'Much mud smeared on the wall.'
c.
Yasuo-wa kami no ue-ni e-o kai-ta.
p.n.-Top paper Mod on-Dat picture-Acc paint-Past
'Yasuo painted a picture on the paper.'
d.
Ano e-ga kami no ue-ni kai-te aru.
that picture-Nom paper Mod on-Dat paint-Ger have
'That picture painted on the paper.'
(64)
Mandarin Chinese
a.
Laozhang tu-le ni zai qiang-shang.
p.n. smear-Perf mud at wall-on
'Laozhang smeared mud on the wall.'
b.
Henduo ni tu zai qiang-shang.
much mud smear at wall-on
'Much mud smeared on the wall.'
c.
Laozhang hua-le yi-fu hua zai zhi-shang.
p.n. paint-Perf one-Cl picture at papr-on
'Laozhang painted a picture on the paper.'
d.
Na-fu hua hua-zai zhi-shang.
that-Cl picture paint at paper-on
'That picture painted on the paper.'
66
The question that arises is this. The inchoative uses of the Japanese verbs oku 'put', nuru
'smear', kaku 'paint', and the Chinese verbs fang 'put', tu 'smear', hua 'paint', can be naturally
accounted for on the basis of the correlation between the syntactic structures and the event
structures. Their causative/agentive uses originate from the multiple-VP structure in which
they occur, and their inchoative uses result from the removal of the higher, agentive VP layer
from the structure:25
(65)
Causatiev predicate
Inchoative predicate
⇒
VP
V'
V
Removal of the
boxed VP
VP
V'
Obj
V
' put' 


' smear' 
' paint' 
V'
Obj
VP
V
' put' 


' smear' 
' paint' 
Ironically, this neat analysis only applies to Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, but not to
English. Notice that the analysis represented in (65) is possible only if light verbs are
entities that occur in the core syntax, where only Merge and Move are relevant operations.
If the English verbs shelve, put, smear, and paint are all in Syntax, it is not clear why the
structures that they project cannot be pruned so as to yield inchoative predicates, as in
Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.
It seems that the problem is rooted in the claim that the light verb in English is a
syntactic entity, and conflation applies at Syntax. According to HK, the whole purpose for
25 The term "removal" is just metaphorical; according to the bottom-up fashion of structure building that
current grammatical theories assume, the precise statement for this matter should be: these verbs of
placement in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese can project to the maximal level and stop there, without
needing the merger and projection of an extra light VP.
67
the application of conflation is to yield an argument structure.26 But if the argument
structure of a verb is constructed in Syntax, then, expectedly, we should be able to alter it via
syntactic operations. The solution to this problem for English, it appears, is to bring the
light verb, the structure that the light verb projects, and the application of conflation back to
Lexicon, where the argument structure is fixed once and for all, unalterable by later syntactic
processes. In other words, for a verb such as shelve, the structure in which it occurs in
Syntax must be (66a), rather than (66b):
(66)
a.
b.
VP
Subj
Subj
V'
V
VP
V'
V
Obj
shelve
shelve
VP
Obj
V'
V
t
PP
P
Loc
t
If our claim is correct, Chomsky’s (1995) suggestion turns out to be a wrong move. There
is a need to maintain a lexical representation where the argument structures of verbs are
constructed. The distinction between L-Syntax and S-Syntax is essential. There are
important questions related to this distinction. We will come back to them in section 5.
26 Actually there is another conceptual problem with the HK-Chomsky's syntacticism on the light verb.
In HK (1991), it is explicitly mentioned that "[W]e are accepting -- to some extent, at least -- a viewpoint
represented in the Generative Semantics framework..." (HK 1991: 12). Also, HK note the criticism against
the Generative Semantics framework such as Fodor's (1970), who argues that accomplishment verbs such as
kill cannot derive from underlying expressions like cause to die. HK state: "The arguments do not carry
over to the proposal we are entertaining here, however, since the verbs derived by incorporation in the
lexicon are themselves input to d-structure. Thus, for examples, the verbs shelve and saddle, and the like,
are lexical items in the true sense, and as such, each necessarily involves a single 'even position' (cf.,
Higginbotham, 1985) in its predicate argument structure" (italics, quotation, and reference original).
However, if L-Syntax is abolished and the structures in the core syntax are themselves considered LRSs, the
reason that HK give for the LRSs to be exempted from Fodor's (1970) criticism will not be valid any more
-- the verb kill, shelve, and saddle all involve multiple VP structures, hence more than one event position
(e), in the core syntax. New explanations must be provided so that kill and cause to die, shelve and put on
the shelf, etc., can be distinguished. (See section 4.1 for some related discussion.)
68
3.4 Conclusion
In this section we reviewed the HK-Chomsky theory on the light verb and the event
structure. According to that theory, light verbs are empty place holders. They only have
elementary semantics, and they help to determine event structures with the structural
configurations in which they occur. Originally, light verbs were proposed as entities in
Lexicon. But in later theories they are considered entities in Syntax. It was shown that
some proposals in HK's theory are insightful, in particular the proposal that event structures
are correlated with syntactic structures. We showed that examples from Mandarin Chinese
and Japanese generally support HK's structural analysis on the unergatives, denominals, and
deadjectivals. But we also pointed out several problems in the HK-Chomsky theory. We
provided evidence, the suru construction in Japanese, that event structures cannot be
completely determined by syntactic structures, since there are cases where different event
types are realized by one and the same syntactic structure. We also drew evidence from
Mandarin Chinese and Japanese that the view on the light verb as an entity in Syntax, and
conflation as a syntactic process, poses problems for the case of English, since verbs such
as put, smear, and paint cannot assume inchoative use, but their counterparts in Mandarin
Chinese and Japanese can. All these lead to a rethinking on the nature of the light verb and
the grammatical levels at which it occurs.
4. Light verbs as eventuality predicates
In this section we pursue a different notion of the light verb, which takes the light verbs as
eventuality predicates.27 This conception on the light verb, of course, is not a new one. It
27 There is a common point shared by the HK-Chomsky theory and the theory of the light verbs as
eventuality predicates, that is, the hypothesis that thematic relations are determined by the functions of the
light verbs and hence are derivative. There is, however, a different approach to the thematic relations in
recent generative works, according to which theta-roles are formal features that trigger syntactic movements.
This approach is represented in such works as Lasnik (1995), Boskovic and Takahashi (1998), and
Hornstein (1999). In these works, the traditional view is held that verbs assign theta-roles to their
arguments, and, when there is no argument immediately available for a particular theta-role, such a thetarole serves as a force to attract an NP to the verb. In the framework of light verb syntax that we are going
69
originates from the Generative Semantic framework, and currently is still exploited by
researchers of syntax. In this section, we will firstly characterize the definition of light
verbs, and then look at Huang's (1997) system of light verb syntax.
Before moving on, let's first digress to some theories that assume a similar
conception on the light verb. In recent discussions on the functional categories there are
researchers who argue for conceptions on the light verb with substantial thematic functions.
Bowers (1993) and Kratzer (1996) are good examples.
Let's look at Bowers's (1993) functional head Pr first. It has long been noticed that
the selection of the subject in a sentence is quite different from that of the object (Chomsky
1981, Marantz 1984). The observation, essentially, is the following: while the semantic
interpretation of the verb is dependent on the object, it is typically not dependent on the
subject. This observation led to the classic hypothesis that the subject thematic role is
compositionally assigned (Chomsky 1981; also see HK 1993). But the hypothesis can
actually be even more radical. In this regard, Bowers (1993) proposes that the subject of a
sentence is selected by an independent functional head, which he calls Pr (Predicate).
Among the properties of Pr are: it selects the subject (of the sentence) as its specifier, and it
to defend, thematic relations are not primitives in the grammar. They are relations that hold between a light
verb and a specifier. Here we don't plan to go into a thorough discussion on the relevant questions. We
just want to point out that this approach doesn't seem to be compatible with the examples that we discuss
in this thesis. First of all, as we will see later in Chapter 3-5, the function of light verbs as eventuality
predicates in the Chinese syntax is very clear. A light verb licenses a particular argument in its specifier
position with a thematic interpretation. Thus, a particular thematic relation actually is a predication
relation between a particular eventuality predicate and its subject, and hence there doesn't seem to be a need
to regard thematic relations as formal features. Concretely speaking, a theta-role is not something that a
verb or a light verb assigns; it's a predication relationship. Another problem with the approach that
considers theta-roles formal features, as HK (1993) has pointed out, is that, it is not clear how many of
them are there in the grammar, and how they interact with syntactic processes. A good example that
demonstrates this is the set of phenomena that we call the unselectiveness of subject and object in Mandarin
Chinese, discussed in Chapter 3 and 4. In Mandarin Chinese, an action verb can freely take a agentive,
locative, causative, or some other thematic expression as surface subject; also it can take a theme/patient,
instrument, location, time, or reason as surface object. Serious questions arise if these thematic
expressions receive the corresponding theta-roles directly from the main verb -- for instance, why are there
so many non-standard theta-roles assigned by the regular kind of action verbs in Mandarin Chinese? How are
these theta-roles licensed in phrase structures? Making use of light verbs as eventuality predicates, we can
successfully relate the occurrence of these thematic expressions and their licensing to the typological
characteristics of Chinese, as an analytic and "Davidsonian" language (cf. Chapter 5). The kind of
approaches that regard theta-roles as formal features inherent in the verbs don't seem to be capable of
providing answers with such explanatory depth.
Thanks to Naoki Fukui and Mamoru Saito for relevant discussions.
70
enforces the predication between the subject and the predicate (cf. Rothstein 1983 and
Chierchia 1985). The following example illustrates these points:
(67)
a.
John loves Mary.
b.
IP
NP
I'
I
PrP
NP
John
Pr'
Pr
VP
NP
V'
Mary
V
love
In (67b), the subject John is selected by Pr, and the object Mary is selected by the verb love
(in the Spec of love-VP, as the "secondary subject" of the sentence). The verb love moves
to Pr, which turns the property loves Mary into a function with an open position to be
saturated. Thus, predication between the subject and the VP is made possible by the
function of Pr.
Next we look at Kratzer's (1996) functional head Voice. Though Bowers (1993)
explicitly associates Pr with the selection of subject, he doesn't claim any thematic function
for it. Therefore, from the thematic point of view, the function of Pr as the subject-selecting
head is not made clear in Bowers's theory. In this regard, Kratzer's (1996) proposal can be
viewed as a supplement to Bowers's. Kratzer assumes with Johnson (1991) and Bowers
(1993) on an independent functional head that selects the subject and assigns accusative
Case to the object. (Kratzer follows Johnson (1991) and Bowers (1993) that the object
occurs in the Spec of VP.) Kratzer calls this functional head Voice. Voice is the host of the
71
predicate Agent (cf. Parsons 1990), which introduces an agentive NP into the sentence.28
As an example, the sentence in (68a) has (68b) as a partial structure, and (68c), part of its
semantic derivation:
(68)
a.
Mittie feeds the dog.
b.
.... VoiceP
DP
Mittie
Voice'
Voice
Agent
VP
DP
V'
the dog
V
feed
c.
1.
feed* = λxe λes [feed(x)(e)]
2.
the dog* = the dog
3.
(the dog feed)* = λes[feed(the dog)(e)]
[From (1), (2) by Functional Application]
4.
Agent* = λxe λes [Agent (x)(e)]
5.
Principle of Event Identification:
f
g →
h
<e,<s,t >> <s,t >
6.
< e,<s,t >>
λ xe λ es [f(x )∧g(e)]
(Agent (the dog feed))* =
λxe λys[Agent (x)(e) ∧ feed (the dog) (e)]
[From (3), (4) by Event Identification (5)]
7.
Mittie* = Mittie
28 See Collins (1997a) and Nishiyama (1998) for the functional head Tr, which is similar to Kratzer's
(1996) Voice in semantic function, particularly the ability to introduce an agent subject into the sentence.
72
8.
((Agent (the dog feed)) Mittie)* =
λxe λys[Agent (Mittie)(e) ∧ feed (the dog) (e)]
[From (6), (7) by Functional Application]
The verb feed starts with only one argument in the derivation (68c) (step 1, the event
argument e aside). The predicate Agent, hosted by Voice, introduces the external agent
argument into the sentence (step 4-6). Thus the function of Voice is thematically definite,
since it determines the thematic role of the subject. Notice that, though the semantic
composition starts with the verb feed having only one argument, there is no problem with the
resulting proposition, since the principle of Event Identification guarantees that the event
arguments of two functions (the variable s in f and g in step (5)) will be identified. Thus the
independent selection of the external agent argument by Voice doesn't risk crash in
interpretation. Syntactically, the application of Event Identification is assured by the head
movement of the verb feed to Voice. In this theory, the need for event identification provides
a motivation for the head movement of the main verb.
Though Bowers's (1993) Pr and Kratzer's (1996) Voice are very functional (Kratzer
explicitly claims that Voice is an inflectional head), they resemble the regular kinds of verbs
in the sense that they select nominal arguments independently. So, as "light verbs," they are
substantial in semantic function. This is similar to the conception on light verb that we
adopt in this thesis.
4.1 Eventuality predicates in earlier theories
At this moment, it is worthwhile to take a look at earlier theories on event types and the
eventuality predicates. The notion of light verbs adopted in this thesis in fact is a
descendant of those earlier theories.
Aristotle has been believed to be the first one who classified worldly phenomena
into different categories. In Metaphysics, Aristotle distinguished kineseis ("movements")
73
and energiai ("actualities"), two categories that roughly correspond to accomplishments and
activities/states (Kenny 1963, Dowty 1979). In the contemporary time, as is well known, it
is Vendler (1967) who brought the linguists' attention to the classification of event types.
Since then, many semantic works have been devoted to the relevant issues, such as
Mourelatos (1978), Dowty (1979), Bach (1981), Hinrichs (1985), among many others. The
four event types that Vendler (1967) proposes are states, activities, accomplishments, and
achievements. As Hinrichs (1985) points out, the distinctions among the four event types
lie primarily in their temporal properties. The semantic characterizations of the four event
types are given below in (69), summarizing Mourelatos (1978), Dowty (1979), and Hinrichs
(1985). (70) is a figure of Mourelatos's classification of event types (cited in Hinrichs
1985: 23).
(69)
States:
Atemporal properties.
Activities:
Temporal properties without change of resultant state.
Accomplishments:
Temporal properties with developmental change of
resultant state.
Achievements:
Temporal properties with punctual change of resultant
state.
(70)
Situations
States
Occurrences
(Actions)
Processes
(Activities)
Events
(Performances)
Developments
Punctual performances
(Accomplishments)
(Achievements)
74
Dowty (1979) further formalizes the four event types in terms of predicate calculus (in
Dowty's term, Aspect Calculus), and proposes the aspectual predicates DO, BECOME, and
CAUSE as formatives in the semantic structures of different types of predicates. Below are
Dowty's formulations of simple statives, simple activities, simple achievements, and nonintentional agentive accomplishments (cited from Dowty 1979: 123-124):29
(71)
a.
Simple stative
π n (α1, ...α n )
(e.g. John knows the answer.)
b.
Simple activity
DO(α1,[π n (α1, ...α n )])
(e.g. John is walking.)
c.
Simple achievement
BECOME[π n (α1, ...α n )]
(e.g. John discovered the solution.)
d.
Non-intentional accomplishment
[[DO(α1,[π n (α1, ...α n )])] CAUSE [BECOME [ρm (β1, ...β n )]]]
(e.g. John broke the window.)
Some researchers incorporate these event types into syntactic theory. Since Katz
and Postal (1964) proposed the famous hypothesis that transformations don't alter the
semantics of a sentence, the syntactic theory started to evolve toward the underlying
semantic structure of the sentence, a trend that eventually led to the theory of Generative
Semantics, with the goal to dispense with the deep structure entirely. A famous example is
29 Dowty (1979) lists more than ten (sub)types of event in his Aspectual Calculus, but only the four in
(71a-c) are the most basic. Other (sub)types of event either involve event structures of nominals or make
use of more than one occurrence of the same eventuality predicates. The point here is just to demonstrate
the semantic functions of the major eventuality predicates, DO, BECOME, and CAUSE characterized by
Dowty.
75
McCawley's (1968) analysis that derives the verb kill from the semantic structure cause to
become not alive. In this analysis, the predicates Alive, Not, Become, and Cause compose
the underlying semantic structure of the verb kill. They undergo cyclic Predicate Raising
and form a unitary complex, which is replace by the lexical item kill by the rule of lexical
insertion/replacement. The derivation is represented in the following diagrams:
(72)
⇒
S
Cause x
S
Become
S
Not
Alive
S
S
x
Cause
Become
Not Alive
y
↑
kill
y
Notice that the derivation represented in (72) is strikingly similar to HK's operation of
conflation. Indeed, HK (1991) explicitly state that "...[W]e are accepting -- to some extent,
at least -- a viewpoint represented in the Generative Semantics framework... The Generative
Semantics program was motivated, in part, by a vision of the nature of lexical items which is
essentially the same as ours..." (HK 1991:12). Of course, there has been criticism against
this kind of lexical decompositional approach to verbs in the Generative Semantic
framework, such as Hall (1965), Chomsky (1970), Fodor (1970), and others. An
interesting example comes from Fodor (1970), who, among other things, points out that the
sentence John caused the man to die on Sunday by shooting him on Saturday is acceptable,
whereas *John kill the man on Sunday by shooting him on Saturday is not. This is indeed
a problem to the lexical decompositional approach in the Generative Semantic analysis such
as McCawley's (1968). But HK (1991) defend that criticisms of this kind doesn't carry
over to the case of conflation in L-Syntax, since the output from conflation, as an input to
D-Structure, contains only one event position (cf. Higginbotham 1985). Thus, the proposal
on the distinct components of L-Syntax and S-Syntax by HK makes the Generative
76
Semantic theory free from earlier criticisms and become available again as a framework for
syntactic analysis.
4.2 Eventuality predicates in the syntactic representation
In this section we demonstrate how light verbs, as eventuality predicates, work in the
syntactic representation. We first provide a definition for light verbs. And then we look at a
theory of light verbs in syntax, Huang's (1997) light verb syntax for Mandarin Chinese.
We will see two examples analyzed in this system, the possessive agent construction and the
diminutive construction in Mandarin Chinese. These discussions will provide the basis for
the light verb analyses in the following discussions.
4.2.1 Defining light verbs
Based on the earlier theories on the eventuality predicates, the light verbs are defined as
follows:
(73)
Light verbs
Light verbs are predicates of aspects of eventualities. Syntactically they are verbs,
with or without phonetic realization; semantically they are predicates of aspects
that compose eventualities.
Here we adopt Bach's (1981) Neo-Davidsonian event semantics and use the term
eventualities (cf. Kratzer 1988). Eventualities differ from events in that the formers include
the statives as an independent type of event. We will see below that this choice is supported
by empirical evidence in Mandarin Chinese.
Earlier, we mentioned Hinrichs's (1985) observation that Vendler's (1967) four event
types are distinguished in their temporal properties. Here we suggest that there can be other
aspects that compose eventualities. An eventuality has many different aspects -- there can
77
be someone who does it, causes it, experiences it, gets affected by it, suffers it, etc.. Also, an
eventuality can be situated in some location, at some point of time; it can be carried out with
some mode or manner, or accomplished with the aid of some instrument. An eventuality
can be in progress, involve a change of state, or simply exist. All these aspects can
contribute to the composition of an eventuality. They are all potentially light verbs. Indeed,
in the inventory of light verbs that we postulate for Mandarin Chinese, there are members
like EXIST, PROGRESS, AT, USE, FOR, in addition to those familiar ones, DO, CAUSE,
and BECOME. As we will see in Chapter 3 and 4, these eventuality predicates are both
syntactically and semantically motivated, therefore are empirically grounded in the grammar
of Mandarin Chinese
Of course, it doesn't seem to be reasonable to assume that all potential aspects of an
eventuality could be light verbs. We tentatively hypothesize that only those event-dependent
aspects can be syntactic light verbs (that is, those which are permanent in the description of
eventualities and independent from perspectives; see Dowty 1991).30 Furthermore, it is
clear that not all event-dependent aspects of an eventuality are realized as light verbs in all
languages. For example, though instruments can be introduced by the light verb USE in
Mandarin Chinese sentences (see Chapter 4), they can only be represented by means of
syntactic modification, introduced by prepositions (with or by), in English There are crosslinguistic variations, some of which are systematic and lead to interesting issues. We will
return to them in later chapters.
4.2.2 Light verb syntax in Mandarin Chinese
In the Generative Semantic tradition, eventuality predicates such as DO, CAUSE and
BECOME are conceived as syntactic entities. Though many later works relocate them in
30 In Dowty's (1991) words, event-dependent aspects of eventualities are those "that can be involved in an
event...invariable across different perspectives or ways of viewing an event" (pp.562-3). (Though Dowty's
concern in this quotation is on the thematic roles as justifiable entities in the grammar, we adapt his points
into our framework. Contrasted to event-dependence, to Dowty, is perspective-dependence, which may vary
along with different perspectives of describing an eventuality.
78
the argument structure or in some semantic representation of the verbs (e.g. Dowty 1979,
Kiparsky 1997, Wunderlich 1997, among many others), recently there is a revival of the
generative semantic view, such as Huang (1994, 1997), Kural (1996), as well as HK (1991,
1993) discussed earlier. Of special interest to us is Huang's (1997) lexical decompositional
approach to Mandarin Chinese syntax. Following HK (1993), Huang (1997) assumes that
each verb in a language has an underlying syntactic representation that correlates with its
event structure. But Huang (1997) doesn't follow HK's configurational approach to event
structures. Instead, he assumes that the LRS of a verb is composed of eventuality
predicates. Below are some examples (adapted from (14), Huang 1997: 54):
(74)
a.
ku 'cry'
Activity
[x DO [x ku]]
b.
kan shu 'read books'
Activity
[x DO [x kan shu]]
c.
pang 'become fat'
Inchoative
[BECOME [x pang]]
d.
pang 'fat'
Stative
[HOLD [x pang]]
e.
xihuan 'like'
Stative
[HOLD [x xihuan y]]
f.
qi-si 'to anger someone to death'
Causative
[x DO [x CAUSE [BECOME [y qi-si]]]]
Though Huang (1997) assumes HK's (1993) proposal on the component of L-Syntax, he
nonetheless suggests that "A possibility remains that such structures as those in [(74)] may
be directly projected to D-Structure and that head movement operates as a normal syntactic
process, in the mapping between D- and S-Structure" (Huang 1997: 54). In other words,
79
(74a-f) are not only "logical/semantic" representations for the verbs; they are syntactic
structures. Recall from section 3.3.2 that the current trend in the generative grammatical
theory has been to abolish L-Syntax as an independent component in the grammar and shift
the application of conflation to Syntax (HK 1997, Chomsky 1995, 1998, 1999). Huang's
(1997) suggestion actually has already pointed to that possibility. But also recall from
section 3.3.2 that English in fact doesn't provide evidence for such a shift. On the other
hand, Huang (1997) points out that Mandarin Chinese exhibits syntactic effects so that we
have to "do L-Syntax in S-Syntax." This point is resonant with the observation we obtained
in earlier discussions. Huang (1997) cites a number of syntactic constructions in Mandarin
Chinese to support the syntactic nature of eventuality predicates in Mandarin Chinese
sentences. In the following we will look at one of them, the possessive agent construction.
In addition, we will provide a detailed analysis for another syntactic construction in
Mandarin Chinese, the diminutive construction. From the analyses of these two
constructions, it is clear that, in Mandarin Chinese, the eventuality predicates must be
syntactic entities in S-Syntax.
4.2.3 The possessive agent construction
The possessive agent construction is represented by the following sentences:
(75)
a.
Ni shui ni-de jiao ba.
you sleep your sleep Prt
'You [go ahead and] sleep.'
b.
Ni pa ni-de shan ba
you climb your mountain Prt
'You [go ahead and] climb the mountain.'
80
c.
Ni da ni-de lan-qiu ba.
you play your basketball Prt
'You [go ahead and] play basketball.'
d.
Ni ku ni-de, wo xiao wo-de.
you cry your I laugh my
'You [go ahead and] cry; [as to me,] I [want to] laugh.'
Typically, the possessive agent construction involves a structure of the form [Subj V PossNP], where V and NP constitute a regular transitive predicate, as in (75a-c). But intransitive
verbs can occur in this construction too, as in (75d). Huang (1997) points out two peculiar
characteristics of this construction. First, there is a syntax-semantics mismatch in this
construction. In (75a-c), though the object NP is modified by a possessive, all the object
NPs in (75a-c) do not enter into possession relation with the possessors -- in (75a), the NP
jiao 'sleep' simply cannot be physically possessed by humans; in (75b), the object shan
'mountain' is not meant to be possessed by the subject ni 'you', and in fact mountains do not
belong to the kind of things that can normally be possessed; and, in (75c), the object lan-qiu
'basketball' actually denotes "basketball games" rather than the physically round-shaped
basketball. (75d) is even more problematic: since there's no object in the predicate, it's not
clear what is possessed. Second, only action-denoting verbs can be used in the possessive
agent construction; stative predicates cannot occur in this construction, as shown in the
following examples:
(76)
a.
*Ni xihuan ni-de shuxue ba.
you like your math Prt
'You [go ahead and] like math.'
81
b.
*Ni dong ni-de fa-wen ba.
you understand your French Prt
'You [go ahead and] understand French.'
To account for these two peculiar characteristics, Huang (1997) proposes the following
analysis. The possessive NP is actually the subject of a gerundized clause (an accusativeing type of gerund; see Abney 1987 and L. Liu 1997); this is why it doesn't imply
possession of any kind. The fact that only action-denoting verbs can occur in this
construction is attributed to the eventuality predicate DO in this construction. Only the
active DO, but not the stative HOLD, can take a gerundized clause as complement. This is
why stative predicates are not compatible with this construction. Huang (1997) proposes an
analysis based on head movement to account for the two characteristics in this construction,
as shown below:
(77)
a.
Ni shui ni-de jiao ba.
you sleep your sleep Prt
'You [go ahead and] sleep.'
82
b.
IP
NP
ni
'you'
I'
I
VP
V
DO
IP [+N]
Spec
I' [+N]
I [+N]
ni-de
'your'
VP
V
NP
shui
'sleep'
jiao
'sleep'
In the structure in (77b), the head of the whole predicate is DO. It takes a gerundized IP as
complement. The main verb shui 'sleep' incorporates to DO, yielding the surface structure
in (77a). This accounts for the apparent syntax-semantics mismatch. Note that, with this
analysis, (77a) would be better translated as "You do your sleeping a sleep," (and the
intransitive case of (75d) will be best translated as "You do your crying, [while] I do my
laughing"). The main verb moves up to conflate with DO. Statives are not possible in this
construction, since their licensing eventuality predicate, HOLD, doesn't have the selectional
property of taking a gerundized IP as complement. Notice that, if Huang's (1997) theory is
correct, different light verbs must have different semantic functions and selectional
properties. Therefore, the semantic and syntactic effects of light verbs are substantial in the
formation of sentence structures in Mandarin Chinese.
4.2.4 The diminutive construction
Next let's turn to the diminutive construction. This construction is similar to the possessive
agent construction in some important aspects, but there is a significant difference: in the
83
diminutive construction, both the action verb and the stative verb can be used. Below is a
detailed analysis of this construction. The following are some examples:
(78)
a.
Chou ge yan, xiuxi yi-xia.
smoke GE cigarette rest one-time
'Have a cigarette, and take a rest'
b.
Jie ge bi, hao ma?
lend GE pen good Q
'Would [you] please lend me a pen?'
c.
Xi ge yifu, bu yong hua duo-shao shijian
wash GE cloth no need spend much time
'Doing laundry doesn't take much time.'
d.
Kai ge dian ba.
open GE shop Prt
'[Let's start and] run a store.'
e.
Chuan ge lifu ze-mo tongku ma?
wear GE tuxedo this painful Q
'Is it so painful to wear a tuxedo?'
This construction is characterized by the occurrence of an element, ge (glossed as GE in
(78a-e)), which follows the main verb. The morpheme ge originally functions as a general
classifier for nouns, as the following examples show:
(79)
a.
san-ge waixing-ren
three-GE extraterrestrial
'three spacemen'
84
b.
na-ge da shitou
that-GE big stone
'that big stone'
c.
henduo-ge pingguo
many-GE apple
In addition to the classifier use, ge can also be a measure word for actions:
(80)
a.
jian-le ge mian
meet-Perf GE face
'had a meeting'
b.
jiang ge bu-ting
speak GE not-stop
'keep speaking without stop'
The measure use of ge in (80) can be an extension from its classifier use -- from measure of
individuals to measure of actions. The diminutive use of ge as shown in (78a-e), however, is
even more deviant from its classifier use. Though ge in (78a-e) retains the sense of action
measuring, it further develops a sense of under-valuation, with the implication that the event
denoted by the predicate is not significant in importance. This is why this construction is
typically used in suggestions (as in (78a)), requests (as in (78b)), or comments with
negative implicature (as in (78c-e)). This is also why we call it the "diminutive
construction," since it "diminutizes" the importance of the event.
85
The difference between the measure use and the diminutive use of ge is syntactically
attestable. For example, we can add the numeral yi 'one' to the measure ge, but not to the
diminutive ge:31
(81)
a.
chi yi-ge bao
eat one-GE full
'eat to full'
b.
shuo yi-ge gou
speak one-GE satisfy
'keep speaking until satisfied'
(82)
a.
*chou yi-ge yan
smoke one-GE cigarette
'have a cigarette'
b.
*jie yi-ge bi
borrow one-GE pen
'borrow a pen'
Furthermore, we can insert a dummy element ta '(lit.) he' into the predicate with the measure
ge, which is bad with the diminutive ge:32
(83)
a.
chi ta ge bao
eat he GE full
'to eat to full'
31 (82a-b) are ungrammatical even if ge is interpreted as a classifier of nouns. The nouns yan 'cigarette'
and bi 'pen' both require a specific classifier zhi '(lit.) stick'. Furthermore, (82a-b) cannot be interpreted as
involving the measure use of ge, since yan 'cigarette' and bi 'pen' cannot be understood as extensions or
results of the actions chou 'smoke' and jie 'borrow'. Thus (82a-b) are ungrammatical in any interpretation.
32 It is not clear what function the element ta assumes here. Though the original meaning of ta is
"he/she", in (83a-b) it clearly doesn't denote any person. Intuitively, it seems to be a clitic denoting some
resultative extension of the event. We leave it unaccounted for here.
86
b.
shuo ta ge gou
speak he GE satisfy
'to keep speaking until satisfied'
(84)
a.
*chou ta ge yan
smoke he GE cigarette
'to have a cigarette'
b.
*jie ta ge bi
borrow he GE pen
'to borrow a pen'
Though the explanation for these differences remains unclear at this point, we suspect that it
has to do with the structural loci that the two different ge's modify: the measure ge in (80),
(81) and (83) is VP-internal and hence modifies the result or extent of the action, whereas
the diminutive ge in (78a-e) is VP-external and modifies the predicate as a whole. If this
characterization is correct, then each ge has a specific scope of modification. In the case of
the diminutive ge, the modification applies at a very high structural level, covering the whole
predicate. For example, when a speaker utters (78a), Chou ge yan 'have a cigarette', this
speaker doesn't really mean to make a suggestion about the amount of tobacco to be
consumed; rather, it is the predicate, "cigarette-smoking," that is meant to be diminutive.
Here comes the point of interest. Assuming grammatical principles such as
Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH, Baker 1988a), the diminutive ge must
be at a structural position higher than the VP in the underlying syntactic representation, as it
takes the whole predicate in its scope of modification. We tentatively assume that it adjoins
to VP. But notice that the diminutive marker ge occurs post-verbally. Here again we have a
syntax-semantics mismatch. Thus, to account for the post-verbal occurrence of the
diminutive ge, it must be the case that the verb moves to some higher light verb and as such
leaves the diminutive ge behind. The analysis of the diminutive construction, therefore, must
87
be like the diagram in (85b): the main verb incorporates to DO, crossing the diminutive ge,
yielding the surface representation (85a):
(85)
a.
chou ge yan
smoke GE cigarette
'to have a cigarette'
b.
.... VP
V'
VP
V
DO
ge
VP
V
DP
chou
'smoke'
yan
'cigarette'
Head movement
This analysis is in line with Huang's analysis of the possessive agent construction; that is,
the main verb moves up to the light verb DO, leaving some element (the possessive agent or
the diminutive ge) behind.
There is, however, a peculiar thing about the diminutive construction. That is, stative
predicates can occur in this construction. Below are some examples:
(86)
a.
Dong ge Fa-wen you sheme liao-bu-qi!
understand GE French have what big-deal
'It's not a big-deal to understand French!'
88
b.
Ai ge ren zhemo tongku ma?
love GE person such painful Q
'Is it so painful to be in love with someone?'
c.
Lao ge ji-sui bu shi hen zhongyao.
old GE several-year not be very important
'It's not very important to be a few years older'
d.
Ni zhidao ge sheme dongxi!
you know GE what thing
'What do you know? [= you know nothing!]'
Again, the scope of modification of the diminutive ge in (86a-d) extends to the whole
predicate; ge doesn't just "diminutize" the quantity/extension of the object, but the whole
predicate. That is, taking (86a) as an example, the sentence doesn't mean that the amount of
the language French understood is insignificant, but that the whole state of affairs, i.e.
French-understanding, is insignificant. The sentence doesn't convey any implication
regarding the level of proficiency of French. But if so, again, the diminutive ge must have a
structural position higher than the VP, exactly like the case of (85). In other words, the
derivation will be as the following:33
33 A puzzling thing about the stative diminutive sentences in Mandarin Chinese is that, in most cases,
they have to be embedded in another sentences, as in (86a-c). The stative diminutive sentences themselves
cannot occur as root sentences. For instance:
(i)
*Dong ge Fa-wen ba.
*understand GE French Prt.
*'Understand some French.'
Presently we don't understand why this is the case. Probably the stative diminutive sentences (IP) in (86ac) undergo nominalization/gerundization so as to be grammatical; this could be the reason that they have to
occur as (sentential) subjects in larger sentences. Incidentally, active diminutive sentences can be embedded
within larger root sentences too, as shown below:
(ii)
Chou ge yan mei sheme da-bu-liao.
smoke GE cigarette have-no what big-deal
'Smoking cigarettes is not a big deal.'
89
(87)
a.
dong ge Fa-wen
understand GE French
'understand French'
b.
.... VP
V'
V
VP
HOLD ge
VP
V
DP
dong
'understand'
Fa-wen
'French'
Head movement
As in (85b), the main verb dong 'understand' in (87b) incorporates to the light verb HOLD,
yielding the surface structure (87a). Notice that, if the analysis of the diminutive
construction presented here is correct, then the structures of the active case in (86) and that
of the stative case in (87) become non-distinct configuration-wise -- both involve a multipleVP structure. But statives remain stative, and actives active. Therefore, we have one more
example showing that the structural configuration alone cannot determine the event
structures of predicates as HK propose. The only thing that distinguishes between them is
the eventuality predicate that occurs in the syntactic structure, DO or HOLD.
One last point about the diminutive construction. In section 4.2.1 we mentioned that
we adopt Bach's (1981) Neo-Davidsonian position on the event semantics and take the
statives on a par with the other event types. Now the analysis of the diminutive construction
presented above provides a support for that position. According to our analysis, the
formation of the diminutive construction crucially involves incorporation of the main verb to
90
a higher light verb, leaving the diminutive marker ge behind. As we have seen, both the
active and stative predicates can occur in this construction. This fact suggests that the stative
predicates must have a light verb, so that the stative verbs have a target to incorporate to,
exactly on a par with the active predicates. This parallelism amounts to a piece of syntactic
evidence for the Neo-Davidsonian position on the eventualities. That is, the stative
predicates also require a higher light verb, the same as the active predicates.
4.2.5 Conclusion
In this subsection we defined the notion of the light verb, and explicated the functions of the
light verbs with Huang's (1997) system of light verb syntax for Mandarin Chinese. There
are two important features in Huang's (1997) light verb syntax. First, light verbs in this
system are eventuality predicates with concrete thematic functions, and contribute to the
shaping of the eventualities in a substantial way. Second, light verbs are syntactic entities in
Mandarin Chinese; they serve as building blocks for sentences and introduce arguments
into the sentence structures. In view of these two features, it is clear that Huang's (1997)
light verb syntax is a return to the Generative Semantic framework. This system is the one
that we adopt in this thesis. The superiority of this framework will become clear in the
discussions to follow.
In this subsection we also looked at two syntactic constructions in Mandarin
Chinese, the possessive agent construction and the diminutive construction. The point in
these two constructions is that, for a successful analysis for these two constructions, light
verbs must be syntactic entities. Considerations on the syntax-semantics mismatches in
these two constructions lead to the proposal that the main verb incorporates to a higher light
verb in the syntactic derivation of the structure. In Chapter 3 and 4, we will see more
examples along this line. Thus, Mandarin Chinese provides evidence for locating the light
verbs in S-Syntax. English, however, doesn't seem to fit this proposal, as we have seen in
earlier discussions. We will return to this point in the next section. We will argue that, to
91
obtain an appropriate explanation for the cross-linguistic variation between English and
Mandarin Chinese, light verbs in English should be located in L-Syntax, as entities in
Lexicon.
5. Light verbs and a relativized theory of phrase structure
In this section, we reconsider the syntactic phenomena discussed in earlier sections and
reanalyze them in terms of the notion of light verbs as eventuality predicates. Two issues
will be addressed: how the different constructions, such as the denominals and deadjectivals,
are represented in the new framework of light verb syntax, and how the cross-linguistic
variation among English, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese is accounted for in a principled
way.
5.1 Light verb syntax and event structure
As we mentioned in section 3.1, the most remarkable insight in HK's proposal on the
correlation between syntactic structures and event structures. We also presented analyses
for the denominals and deadjectivals in Mandarin Chinese and Japanese supporting that
proposal. On the other hand, we pointed out that the pure configurational approach to event
structures cannot be maintained, since there are cases in which one syntactic structure
represents more than one event structure. Since syntactic structures are correlated with
event structures, and the syntactic configurations don't determine event structures, the correct
generalization should be: event structures determine syntactic structures. Below is an
illustration for this position applied to the syntactic constructions discussed in earlier
discussions.
92
5.1.1 Mandarin Chinese
As pointed out in section 3.1, the unaccusative-causative alternation in Mandarin Chinese
provides a good example for the correlation between syntactic structures and event
structures. The relevant examples are repeated below:
(88)
a.
Chuangzi po le.
(Unaccusative)
window break Prt
'The window broke.'
b.
Laozhang da-po chuangzi.
(Agentive)
p.n. hit-break window
'Laozhang broke the window.'
c.
Mutou zhuang-po chuangzi.
(Instrument)
wood strike-break window
'The wood broke the window.'
d.
Taifong chui-po chuangzi.
(Natural force)
typhoon blow-break window
'The typhoon broke the window.'
(89)
a.
Laozhang da de chuangzi po le.
p.n. hit Ext window break Prt
'Laowang hit [the window such that] the window broke.'
b.
Mutou zhuang de chuangzi po le.
wood strike Ext window break Prt
'The wood stroke [the window such that] the window broke.'
c.
Taifong chui de chuangzi po le.
typhoon blow Ext window break Prt
'The typhoon blow [on the window such that] the window broke.'
93
When the verb po 'break' occurs alone as the main verb of a sentence, it can only assume
unaccusative use, as in (88a). To make it causative, an additional action verb must be
inserted into the structure. What is more, the two verbs can be separated and made phrasal.
These observations lead to the analysis represented in the following diagram:
....
(90)





VP
NP
 Laozhang

mutou ' wood'

taifong ' typhoon' 
V'
V
VP
CAUSE
DP
da ' hit'

 zhuang ' strike'  chuangzi
chui ' blow
 'window'
Causativeagentive


V'


V
 Inchoative
BECOME  resultative


po
'break'
In (90), the two components of the causative eventuality are realized by two distinct VPs. If
the verb po 'break' occurs alone, it results in an inchoative eventuality, the unaccusative use
of the verb po 'break'. But if the action verb da 'hit', zhuang 'strike', or chui 'blow' occurs, a
CAUSE VP is merged to the structure, yielding a causative eventuality. Thus the syntactic
structures correlate with the eventualities. In fact, it is determined by the eventuality
structure of the predicate, mediated by the light verbs CAUSE and BECOME.
Next we look at the unergatives, denominals, and deadjectivals. In section 3.2.13.2.3, we saw that the general pattern for in Mandarin Chinese is lexical spell-out of the
light verb. First let's look at the intransitive predicate derived from a transitive structure:
94
(91)
a.
zou lu
walk road
'to walk'
b.
zou-le hen chang yi-duan lu
walk-Perf very long one-stretch road
'to walk for a long distance'
c.
....
VP
V'
NP
V
DO
zou
'walk'
...lu...
'road'
In (91c), the lexical verb zou 'walk' is hosted by the light verb DO, and takes an NP
complement. If the head of the NP complement lu 'road' is bare and non-referential, it
incorporates to the verb zou 'walk', as in (91a). If it is referential, it stays in situ and exhibits
phrasal characters, as in (91b). The same analysis applies to denominals with the light verb
da 'hit'. Consider the following examples:
(92)
a.
da dianhua
hit phone
'to make a call'
b.
da-le san-ge dianhua
hit-Perf three-Cl phone
'to make three calls'
95
c.
....
VP
V'
NP
V
DO
da
'hit'
...dianhua...
'telephone'
The light verb DO is lexically spelled out as the verb da 'hit', and takes an NP
complement.34 The referentiality of the head N of the NP complement determines whether
it incorporates to da 'hit' or not -- if it is non-referential, it does; but if it is referential, it does
not. In this way (92a) and (92b) are derived. For the analyses in (91) and (92), we assume
that the denominals in Mandarin Chinese (including the intransitives and the da
construction) involve the light verb DO with an NP complement.
Deadjectivals in Mandarin Chinese resemble the causatives in (90). The analysis of
the deadjectivals is as follows:35
34 We assume that there is a difference between (91c) and (92c) with respect to the lexicalization of the
light verb DO. In (91c), we assume that zou 'walk', an independent lexical verb, merges to the light verb
DO directly. That is, zou 'walk' is not the lexicalization of DO. The same point applies to (90), where da
'hit', zhuang 'strike', and chui 'blow', as independent verbs, merge to CAUSE. In (92c), however, da 'hit' is
the lexicalization of the light verb DO, since it doesn't have an independent meaning, but just to "verbalize"
the NP complement that it takes. In this sense, da 'hit' resembles suru in Japanese. We assume that these
two strategies to "support" a light verb are both permitted in Mandarin.
35 In (93b) the adjective liang 'bright' is directly merged to the light verb BECOME. In fact, there are
complicated questions related to this point, which we omit here. It seems that adjectives in Mandarin
Chinese can only assume stative use. To make them inchoative, the inchoative sentence-final particle -le
must be inserted into the structure:
(i)
a.
b.
Na-zhan deng (hen) liang.
that-Cl light (very) bright
'That light is bright.'
Na-zhan deng liang le
that-Cl light bright Prt.
'That light [becomes] bright.'
For (93b), we simply assume that the inchoative use of the adjective liang 'bright' is licensed by its
complement status to the light verb CAUSE.
96
(93)
a.
dian-liang na-zhan dian-deng
turn-bright that-Cl light
'to turn that light bright'
b.
....
VP
V'
V
CAUSE
dian
'turn'
VP
NP
V'
na-zhan dian-deng
'that light'
V
BECOME
liang
'bright'
To summarize, in the unaccusative-causative alternation, unergatives, denominals, and
deadjectivals in Mandarin Chinese, we observe two distinct types of eventualities. In the
case of the unergatives and denominals, the predicates are DO eventualities. The light verb
DO takes an NP complement. There's no resultant state, hence the eventuality is a simplex
one. This is why in these constructions there is only one VP projection. On the other hand,
in the case of the unaccusative-causative alternation and deadjectivals, the predicates
represent CAUSE eventualities. The light verb CAUSE takes the projection of another light
verb, BECOME, as complement. The causation and the resultant state are both necessary
components in the eventuality, hence the eventuality is a complex one, represented by
multiple VP projections in these constructions. These cases illustrate the point we made
earlier on the correlation between syntactic structures and event structures -- it is the event
structures that determine the syntactic structures, not the reverse.
97
5.1.2 Japanese
Here we turn to Japanese. In section 3.2.5 we pointed out that there is no clear evidence that
unergatives in Japanese are related to transitive structures, hence we will skip the unergative
verbs.
We have seen that the light verb suru plays an important role in verbalizing nouns
and adjectives, yielding denominals and deadjectivals. The examples are repeated below:
(94)
a.
b.
c.
d.
kopii suru
e.
hanasi suru
copy suru
speech suru
'to copy'
'to speak'
deeto suru
f.
mizu-asobi suru
date suru
water-play suru
'to date'
'to play in the water'
paatii suru
g.
o-tya suru
party suru
tea suru
'to have a party'
'to have tea'
pikunikku suru
picnic suru
'to attend a picnic'
98
(95)
a.
Adjective
b.
Causative
i.
nagai
i.
naga-ku suru
'long'
ii.
isogasii
'make...long'
ii.
'busy'
iii.
kirei
'make...busy'
iii.
'clean'
iv.
benri
isogasi-ku suru
kirei-ni suru
'make...clean'
iv.
'convenient'
benri-ni suru
'make...convenient'
As we pointed out in section 3.3.1, the examples in (94a-g) and in (95b) share a common
surface structure. However, in the former case we have activities, and in the latter case,
accomplishments/causatives. This amounts to a piece of counterevidence against HKChomsky's configurational approach to event structures. Now, with the notion of light
verbs as eventuality predicates, we propose to distinguish these two types of eventualities in
terms of different light verbs. We propose that suru is the common lexicalized form of the
light verbs DO and CAUSE -- this is the major reason that the denominals in (94a-g) and
the deadjectivals in (95b) have identical syntactic configurations. (See Chapter 6 for further
discussion on this point.) We suggest the following structural analyses for these two types
of eventualities in Japanese:36
(96)
a.
paatii suru
party suru
'to have a party'
36 We will come back to them in Chapter 6, with more refined analyses. Here (96) and (97) are presented
just for demonstration purposes. There are interesting issues involved in the suru construction in Japanese.
(96-97) only represent part of them.
99
b.
VP
V'
(97)
a.
NP
V
N
DO
paatii
'party'
suru
naga-ku suru
long suru
'to make...long'
b.
VP
V'
AP
A
naga-ku
'long'
V
CAUSE
suru
(96b) and (97b) are configurationally similar; the only difference between them is the light
verb that heads the predicate. We will come back to a thorough discussion on the suru
construction and related questions in Chapter 6.
5.1.3 English
For a light verb analysis of the denominals and deadjectivals in English, we need to insert
eventuality predicates in to the structure. First consider the unergatives:
100
(98)
Unergative: to walk
VP
V'
V
NP
DO
N
walk
The unergatives in English involves a DO predicate and an NP complement. In (98), the
head N of the NP, walk, incorporates to DO, yielding the unergative verb walk. Location
and locatum verbs involve more complicated structures. Look at the following examples:
(99)
a.
Location verb: to shelve the books
VP
V'
V
CAUSE
VP
NP
V'
V
PP
the books
BECOME
ON
NP
N
shelf
101
b.
Locatum verb: to saddle the horses
VP
V'
V
CAUSE
VP
NP
the horses
V'
V
BECOME
PP
POSS
NP
N
saddle
The structural analyses and derivations in (99a-b) are adapted from HK's proposal. There
are two characteristics in the location and locatum verbs in English. First, since both types
of verbs are accomplishments, the light verbs CAUSE and BECOME are present in the
structure. Second, following Kayne (1984) and HK (1997), we assume that there are "light
prepositions," ON and POSS, in the structure. In short, the analysis of the denominals in
English are much the same as the one the HK propose; we simply place appropriate
eventuality predicates in the structures.
The analysis for the deadjetivals is basically the same, as below:
102
(100) Deadjectival: to thin the gravy
VP
V'
V
CAUSE
VP
NP
the gravy
V'
V
AP
BECOME
A
thin
Like the location and locatum denominals, the deadjectivals in English involve the light verbs
CAUSE and BECOME. (The deadjectivals in English can also assume inchoative use. In
such cases, only the light verb BECOME occurs.)
To summarize, we have rearticulated the analyses for denominals and deadjectivals
in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and English. There will be more detailed discussions on
the relevant issues -- Chapter 3-5 for Mandarin Chinese, and Chapter 6 for Japanese and
English. One thing that we would like to emphasize is that, for a proper characterization of
the light verb syntax in different languages, it is not sufficient to simply replace the
Chomskyan light verbs by eventuality predicates. In the next subsection, we will propose a
parametrization among Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and English with respect to the
grammatical level at which the light verb structure is located. We argue that the light verb
structures in different languages can be located in different grammatical levels -- in
Mandarin Chinese, the light verb structures are syntactic entities; in English, they are lexical
entities; in Japanese, both syntactic representation and lexical representation are involved.
5.2 Relativization of the application of conflation
In this subsection, we will first take a brief look at the verbs of placement in English,
Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese, and then propose that the cross-linguistic variations
103
observed among these languages can be accounted for if we assume that conflation and
argument licensing operate at different grammatical levels in different languages. This is a
parametrization that we call the Lexicalization Parameter.
In section 3.3.2 we discussed the question on the grammatical level where conflation
should apply. The question is related to whether the denominal verb shelve should occur
with the structure (101a) or (101b) in Syntax:
(101)
a.
b.
VP
Subj
Subj
V'
V
VP
V'
V
Obj
shelve
shelve
VP
Obj
V'
V
t
PP
P
Loc
t
t
According to HK's (1991, 1993) original theory, (101b) is a structure in Lexicon. In
Syntax, the verb shelve projects a structure as in (107a), just like other regular transitive
verbs. Chomsky (1995), however, suggests to promote (107b) to Syntax. We argued that
Chomsky's suggestion cannot be held, and that, for a proper account for the relevant facts in
English, we must return to HK's original distinction between the L-Syntax and S-Syntax,
and maintain that the denominals (and deadjectivals) in English are derived in L-Syntax in
Lexicon. Here we would like to elaborate this point further.
The evidence that we referred to in section 3.3.2 is the stative use of verbs of
placement in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Verbs of placement in English, on the other
hand, cannot assume such use. The following examples illustrate this observation:
104
(102) English
a.
*John put a book on the table.
b.
*The book put on the table.
(103) Japanese
a.
*Haruki-wa tukue no ue-ni issatu no hon-o oi-ta.
*p.n.-Top table Mod on-Dat one-Cl Mod book-Acc put-Past
*'Haruki put a book on the table.'
b.
*Sono hon-ga tukue no ue-ni oi-te aru.
*that book-Nom table Mod on-Dat put-Ger have
*'That book put on the table.'
(104) Madarin Chinese
a.
*Laozhang fang-le yi-ben shu zai zhuo-shang.
*p.n. put-Perf one-Cl at table-on
*'Laozhang put a book on the table.'
b.
*Na-ben shu fang zai zhuo-shang.
*that book put on table-on
*'That book put on the table.'
In section 3.3.2, we pointed out that the stative uses of the verbs of placement in Japanese
and Mandarin Chinese, such as oku 'put' and fang 'put', can be accounted for if we assume
that the light verb structures in which they occur are syntactic entities -- their
causative/agentive uses result from the merger of a CAUSE-VP to a BECOME-VP; their
stative uses come from removing the CAUSE-VP from the structure. All these are
operations in Syntax. A consequence from this proposal is that the external agentive
arguments in the Japanese (103a) and Mandarin Chinese (104a) are dissociated from the
verb oku 'put' and fang 'put' in Lexicon. They are not in the selection domains of these two
105
verbs. They are introduced into the structure by way of the merger of the CAUSE-VP.
This point is represented in the following diagram:
(105)
VP
NP2
Merging the
CAUSE-VP
VP
⇒
NP1
V'
V'
V
VP
V
BECOME
V
CAUSE
VP
NP2
V'
V
VP
BECOME
V
The idea expressed in (105) is this. In Syntax, the combination of verbs and light verbs can
be quite liberal. A regular VP can be the complement of any eventuality predicate provided
that the interpretation goes through. The situation is like an NP, which can be a complement
of a V forming a VP, or a P forming a PP. The only operation involved is Merge. This is a
characterization of the case of Mandarin Chinese (and, to a lesser extent, Japanese; see
below).
English, on the other hand, is very different in this regard. As we have seen in
(102a-b), verbs of placement in English, such as put, can only assume causative/agentive
use, not stative or inchoative use. In other words, if the event structure of put is composed
of the eventuality predicates CAUSE and BECOME, then a special requirement must be
imposed to the lexical specification of put that mandates that a causative component, along
with an agentive argument, must be attached to at all time. That is to say, an external
agentive argument is in the argument structure of the verb put. The empirical generalization
on the external agentive argument of the verbs of placement in English, Japanese, and
Mandarin Chinese can be stated as follows:
106
(106) In Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, the external agentive argument is licensed in
the structure via the merger of a light verb in Syntax. In English, the external
agentive argument is licensed in the structure via the realization of an argument
role from the argument structure in Lexicon.
There are intriguing phenomena to examine about the case of object as well. In (102-104)
we saw that Japanese patterns with Mandarin Chinese in permitting the external agentive
argument to be removed from the verbs of placement, in contrast with the case of English.
There is, however, an important aspect that Japanese patterns with English but contrasts with
Mandarin Chinese, the internal argument. The phenomenon is this: for a transitive verb of
placement such as fang 'put' in Mandarin Chinese, its internal argument can be removed and
replaced by an adverbial object. This is not possible for Japanese and English. Consider
the following examples:
(107) English
a.
*John put a book on the table.
b.
*These books put three boxes.
(108) Japanese
a.
*Haruki-wa tukue no ue-ni issatu no hon-o oi-ta.
*p.n.-Top table Mod on-Dat one-Cl Mod book-Acc put-Past
*'Haruki put a book on the table.'
b.
*Sorera hon-wa san-ko no hako-o oi-ta
*those boo-Top three-Cl Mod box-Acc put-Past
*'Those books put three boxes.'
107
(109) Madarin Chinese
a.
*Laozhang fang-le yi-ben shu zai zhuo-shang.
*p.n. put-Perf one-Cl at table-on
*'Laozhang put a book on the table.'
b.
*Naxie shu fang-le san-ge xiangzi.
*those book put-Perf three-Cl box
*'Those books put three boxes.'
(= 'it takes three boxes to locate / arrange those books.')
As shown in (107b) and (108b), the verbs of placement in English and Japanese cannot take
an adverbial, for example the instrument "three boxes," as their surface object. They can
only take a regular theme/patient object, as in (107a) and (108a). In Mandarin Chinese,
however, the verb fang 'put' can take either a theme yi-ben shu 'a book' or an instrument sange xiangzi 'three boxes', as its surface object. Foreseeing the analysis in Chapter 4, we
assume that the instrumental object in (109b) is introduced into the structure by a light verb,
USE. The analysis is given below:
(110)
....
V'
NP
naxie shu
'those books'
Introduction of the
instrument argument
VP
VP
V
NP
san-ge xiangzi
'three boxes'
V'
V
VP
USE
V
fang
'put'
108
In (110), the verb fang 'put' doesn't select any argument. The external argument is selected
by a light verb V. The internal argument, that is, the instrument, is introduced into the
structure by the light verb USE. The VP projected by fang 'put' is embedded within all the
light verbs. For now, let's ignore the external argument and concentrate on the internal
argument. If the free replacement of the internal theme argument in (109b) in Mandarin
Chinese comes from the function of the light verb USE in the syntactic structure, as shown
in (110), then, the inability for Japanese and English to perform the same effect must be due
to lack of such a light verb in the syntactic representation. For the English verb put and
Japanese verb oku 'put', an internal theme argument has been "registered" in their argument
structure as an indispensable element. The generalization, then, is as follows:
(111) In Mandarin Chinese, the internal argument is licensed in the structure via the
merger of a light verb in Syntax. In Japanese and English, the internal argument is
licensed in the structure via the realization of an argument role from the argument
structure in Lexicon.
Merging the generalizations (106) and (111) together, we obtain the following scenario:
(112) The locus where arguments are licensed in a structure -English
Japanese
Mandarin Chinese
External
argument
Lexicon
Syntax
Syntax
Internal
argument
Lexicon
Lexicon
Syntax
109
A parametrization emerges from the table in (112). Suppose that in all the three languages,
the light verb structures are all (basically) the same.37 That is, for the causative use of the
English verb put, the Japanese verb oku 'put', and the Mandarin Chinese verb fang 'put', the
light verb structure is the one represented in (113):
(113)
VP
Subj
V'
V
CAUSE
VP
V'
Obj
V
VP
BECOME
V'
V
Loc
There are three arguments in this structure, the external agent argument Subj, the internal
theme argument Obj, and the location argument Loc. The first two arguments are
introduced by the two light verbs CAUSE and BECOME, and the third argument is the
complement of the main verb V. The verb V incorporates to BECOME and CAUSE,
conflated with them. However, in different languages, conflation applies at different
grammatical levels, and reaches different heights in the light verb structure. We call this
parametrization the Lexicalization Parameter:
(114) Lexicalization Parameter
Languages may vary on the phrase-structural heights in the light verb structure
which L-Syntax reaches.
37 There are in fact some differences, which, though, don't affect the point we are making here. Just an
example: the locative expression Loc in English and in Mandarin Chinese may have different categorial
status, in English a PP, but in Mandarin Chinese a VP. In Chapter 3 and 4, we propose that the locativeintroducing element zai 'at' is a verb, not a preposition (Li 1990). This difference, however, doesn't seem
to affect our discussion here in any way.
110
Now let's look at the concrete analyses. For the case of English, we propose to return to
HK's (1991, 1993) original proposal, and locate the structure (113) in Lexicon. The
operation of conflation, then, falls within the domain of L-Syntax. As L-Syntax reaches the
highest point of the light verb structure in (113), the whole structure is lexicalized, yielding
an individual lexical item put with a specific argument structure, encompassing all the three
arguments, Subj, Obj, and Loc, in it. The following diagram illustrates this analysis:
(115) English
S-Syntax
⇒
VP
L-Syntax
Subj
V'
V
CAUSE
put:
< Subj, Obj, Loc >
VP
V'
Obj
V
VP
BECOME
V'
V
Conflation:
lexical
Loc
put
In the case of Japanese, L-Syntax reaches a lower height in the light verb structure,
excluding the part where the external argument is introduced. The result is that only the
internal theme argument, Obj, and the internal location argument, Loc, are encompassed into
the argument structure of the verb oku 'put'. Look at the following diagram:
111
(116) Japanese
VP
Subj
V'
S-Syntax
V
CAUSE
VP
L-Syntax
V'
Obj
V
VP
BECOME
V'
V
Conflation:
half lexical,
half syntactic
⇒
oku 'put':
< Obj, Loc >
Loc
oku
'put'
In (116), L-Syntax reaches BECOME-VP. This VP undergoes lexicalization and yield the
verb oku 'put' with the argument structure <Obj, Loc>. Incorporation applies and conflates
oku 'put' with the light verb BECOME. Up to this point, the derivation occurs in Lexicon,
and the operation of conflation is lexical. But the derivation doesn't stop here. After all
these are done, the verb oku 'put' is sent to Syntax, and the light verb CAUSE, along with the
external agent argument Subj, is merged to it. The operation of conflation continues, but
now an operation in S-Syntax. Thus, conflation in Japanese is half-lexical and halfsyntactic, a mixed case. In this way we account for the phenomenon that the external agent
argument in Japanese can be freely removed from verbs of placement, since it is not
included in the argument structure of the verb. Only the theme and the location are
obligatory.
In the case of Mandarin Chinese, the theme and the location arguments are not
obligatory -- in fact, no argument is obligatory for the verb fang 'put', as all of the arguments
can be freely replaced. This fact indicates that L-Syntax only trivially reaches the verb itself,
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encompassing no argument into the argument structure of the verb fang 'put'. As a result,
fang 'put' doesn't have any argument. Consider the following diagram:
(117) Mandarin Chinese
VP
Subj
V'
V
VP
CAUSE
V'
Obj
V
VP
BECOME
V'
Loc
S-Syntax
Conflation:
syntactic
V
fang
'put'
L-Syntax
⇒ fang 'put':
<Ø>
In (117), L-Syntax trivially applies to the verb fang 'put'. Thus the verb fang 'put' is sent to
S-Syntax without any argument. In S-Syntax, syntactic mergers apply and merge the light
verbs BECOME and CAUSE to the structure, along with the arguments Loc, Obj, and
Subj.38 The verb fang 'put' then incorporates to the light verbs and conflates with them. In
this case, conflation is a syntactic operation. In this way, we account for the free
replacement of the external and internal arguments of the verb fang 'put' in Mandarin
Chinese, as none of them are included the argument structure of fang 'put'.
As shown above, with the Lexicalization Parameter, we are able to account for the
cross-linguistic variations among English, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese with respect to
the free replacement of the arguments in the case of verbs of placement. In fact, this is just
an instance of a more general phenomenon that we refer to as the unselectiveness of subject
38 We assume that the locative expression Loc, as a VP, merges to V as a secondary predicate. It is not
introduced by any light verb. See Chapter 3 and 4 for detailed discussions.
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and object, which will receive intensive discussions in the following chapters. We will show
that the phenomena of the unselectiveness of subject and object is prevalent is Mandarin
Chinese, less so in Japanese, but absent in English, in line with the observation we have
here. We leave the relevant discussions and analyses for later chapters. Our purpose here
is to point out the need for parametrizing the boundary between L-Syntax and S-Syntax. If
our proposal is correct, then Chomsky's (1995) suggestion to abolish L-Syntax as an
independent grammatical level cannot be maintained. For an appropriate analysis of event
structures and syntactic structures in English, we must return to HK's (1991, 1993) original
lexicalist position. It is Mandarin Chinese that really fits Chomsky's suggestion; English
doesn't.
6. Concluding remarks
In this chapter, we reviewed the HK-Chomsky theory on the light verb and the event
structures, pointed out some problems in it, and postulated a different conception on light
verbs. We proposed that light verbs must have concrete thematic contents and serve
substantial roles in the licensing of arguments and the construction of sentence structure.
We proposed to return to the Generative Semantic tradition, according to which light verbs
are eventuality predicates that contribute to the shaping of eventualities. We also referred to
Huang's (1997) light verb syntax in Mandarin Chinese as a demonstration for the functions
of light verbs as eventuality predicates in the syntactic representation. This new conception
on the light verbs is adopted in this thesis, and it will be the basis for the discussions in the
chapters to come.
Return to E.T. With all the discussions in this chapter, it is clear that coming up
with a right form of denominals is by no means a simple task. For E.T. to communicate
with Elliot effectively, several things must be figured out first. E.T. has to understand that,
in human language, event structures are correlated with syntactic structures, and,
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furthermore, syntactic structures are actually determined by event structures. Also, E.T. has
to know that different languages may locate the event structures in different grammatical
levels. For E.T. to use the denominal phone, he would need to know that, the noun denoting
that tiny communication machine, phone, should incorporate to entities called light verbs
before it is used as a verb. E.T. must understand that these light verbs are predicates of
eventualities, and they occur in Lexicon in English. If E.T. landed in China or Taiwan, he
would have to know that the light verbs exist in Syntax, and that, when he was pointing to a
phone, he would need to insert a lexically overt light verb, da 'hit', to express his intention to
do something with the phone. And so on and so forth. All these are no trivial things. E.T.,
as well as all human children, must discover principles to determine what forms of
denominals and deadjectivals to be used in a particular human language. We will come the
relevant questions in later chapters.
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