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Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs
陳佳芸 69112201
Incorporation in Causative Construction of Compound Verbs
in Mandarin Chinese
Submitted to Dr. Hsin
英碩一 69112201 陳佳芸 (Jasmine Chen)
English Department, National Kaohsiung Normal University
Studies on Syntactic Theory
June 23rd, 2003
Introduction
Motivation of the Study
In daily live, we often encounter several circumstances in which we need to express
cause-and-effect relations. For example, we see a girl crying so hard that her handkerchief is
wet by her tears or a man pushing the door so that the door opens. In these instances, we want
to describe that one event or one subject’s action results in another event or state. Moreover,
we can notice that to state this kind of situation or relationship typically requires two clauses,
that is, one clause denoting the cause and one denoting the consequence. Following this
perspective, we can link the two events or the two clauses with a conjunction and derive the
sentences “她哭的如此淒慘，因此手帕沾滿了淚水” and “有個男人推了門，所以門開了.”
Nevertheless, using conjunction to state cause-and-effect relationship may not be our only
choice.
We find that using certain compound verbs can express the cause-and-effect
relationship between two events. Chinese has a diversity of compound verbs, including
verb-object compound verbs, modifier-head compound verbs, subject-predicate compound
verbs, and verb-complement compound verbs. As to verb-complement compound verbs, each
of them is composed of a verb and a complement as the name indicating. From syntactic
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point of view, a complement is an adjective or a verb describing the subject or the object in
the sentence. For example, 哭濕 is a compound verb consisting the verb 哭 and the
adjective 濕; this adjective functions as a supplement for denoting the state of the object. We
can derive the sentences “她哭濕了手帕”, “小李打破花瓶”, “小明摔壞電話.” I name this
kind of construction as causative construction in compound verbs because the compound
verbs make their objects turn into the state as their complement parts specifying.
Framework of the Study
This study centers on the causative construction of compound verbs in Chinese. I base
my study on Tang’s Incorporation in Chinese (1991) and Baker’s Incorporation Theory
(1988). Tang pointed out that this construction is formed through the process of incorporation.
Baker indicated that incorporation could make the grammatical functions change. In this
study, I report the process of incorporation in causative construction and discuss the
implications of this construction and another issue concerning the first component, that is the
verb, in this kind of compound verbs.
Literature Review
Baker’s Incorporation Theory
Baker wrote the book Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing in
1988. He claimed that incorporation is a movement of an X0 category to adjoin its X0
governor. He further categorized incorporation into verb incorporation, noun incorporation,
preposition incorporation, and passive incorporation. Here, our focus is verb incorporation in
causative construction.
Many of his data came from Chichewa, a language of Bantu. The following are
causative paradigms from English and Chichewa:
(1) a. Bill made his sister leave before the movie started.
b. The goat made me break my mother’s favorite vase.
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陳佳芸 69112201
Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs
(2) a. Mtsikana ana-chit-its-a
girl
kuti mtsuko
u-gw-e.
AGR-do-make-ASP that waterpot
AGR-fall-ASP
“The girl made the water pot fall.”
b. Aphunzitsi athu ana-chit-its-a
teacher
kuti mbuzi zi-dy-e
our AGR-do-make-ASP that goats
udzu.
AGR-eat-ASP grass
“Our teachers made the goats eat the grass.”
(3) a. Mtsikana anau-gw-ets-a
girl
mtsuko.
AGR-fall-made-ASP waterpot
“The girl made the waterpot fall.”
b. Catherine ana-kolol-ets-a
mwana wake chimanga.
Catherine AGR-harvest-made-ASP child
her corn
“Catherine made her child harvest corn.”
In English, causative construction is biclausal in form as well as in meaning, as shown
in (1). The Chichew sentences in (2) are similar; they correspond to their English
counterparts. However, in (3), we can find that Chichew has another way of expressing these
notions by using monoclauses. The causative verb and the embedded clause form into a
complex predicate. Baker suggested that (2a) and (3a) should have parallel D-structures. The
causative affix –its and the verb root -gw- clearly combine into a single word at some stage.
He said that this would not cause violation of Projection Principle because the moved verb
root must leave a trace to allow theta role assignment to the “stranded” subject. The
D-structure and S-structure approximately like (4) and (5) (details omitted):
(4)
(5)
S
NP
girl
V
-its
S
VP
NP
girl
S
NP
‘make’
waterpot
V
VP
-gw-i
V
-gw-
V
VP
S
V NP
VP
-its
waterpot V
ti
‘fall’
To account for Baker’s claim of grammatical function changing, compare (6a) to (6b).
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(6) a. Mtsuko u-na-gw-a.
waterpot SP-PAST-fall-ASP
“The waterpot fell.”
b. Mtsikana a-na-u-gw-ets-a
girl
mtsuko.
SP-PAST-OP-fall-Cause-ASP waterpot
“The girl made the waterpot fall.”
In both cases, it is the water vessel that plummets to the ground; yet in (6a) “waterpot”
is the subject of the sentence, appearing preverbally and triggering subject agreement,
whereas in (6b) “waterpot” (mtsuko) is the object, appearing immediately after the verb and
triggering object agreement. Therefore, Baker pointed out that causative makes the original
subject become object and adds an additional subject to the causative construction.
Tang’s Incorporation in Chinese
Tang in his Incorporation in Chinese utilized the principle of incorporation to make
explanation to compound verbs formation and other syntactic movement in Chinese. One
relating to the topic of this study is verb incorporation in verb-complement compound verbs,
such as 叫醒, 打破, 哭濕, and 摔壞.
Tang defined incorporation as the phenomena where a word or phrase adjoins to
another morpheme, word or phrase through reanalysis or other changes, and therefore the
former one merges with or incorporates into the latter and becomes the component of the
latter. The so-called “change” in this causative construction of verb-complement compound
verbs is ergativization of the complement part. This process makes the intransitive verb or
adjective turn into a causative-transitive verb and is preposed before the original subject. The
causative and incorporation procedure is shown in (7).
(7) a. NPi Vt NPj [NPj {Vi/A} ]
小明推 門 [門
開]
b. NPi Vt NPj [ ({Vi/A}＞) Ve NPj] (after ergativization of complement)
小明 推 門 [開＞（使…開）門]
c. NPi [V Vt Ve] NPj (after incorporation of clause and reanalysis of verbs)
小明 推 開
門
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Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs
Tang indicated that the arguments (NPi and NPj) and argument relation
(subject-predicate relation between NPi and Vt-NPj) and predicate-object relation between Vt
and NPj) are preserved after incorporation. Therefore, Marantz ‘s Merger Principle is
observed. The phrase marker of this sentence is illustrated in (8) and (9).
(8)
(9)
VP
VP
NP
小明
V’
V
推
NP
小明
V’
V’
S
NP
NP PRO 門
門
V’
V
V
推
V
開
V’
S
NP
NP PRO 門
V 門
開
V’
V
e
After tree-pruning, we derive the structure as (10):
(10)
VP
NP
小明 V’
V’
NP
門
V
V
推
V
開
Discussion
Implications of Causative Construction in Compound Verbs
I made a distinction between the following two structures, as shown in (11a&11b):
(11) a. NPi Vt NPj [NPj {Vi/A} ]
小明 撞 門; 門 開
b. NPi Vi [NPj {Vi/A} ]
小美 哭; 手帕 濕
c. NPi [V V Ve] NPj
小明 撞開
門
小美 哭濕
手帕
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In the first structure (11a), the predicate of the main clause is a transitive verb and the
subject of the embedded clause refers to the object of the main verb. In (11b), the predicate is
an intransitive verb and consequently there is no object corresponding to the subject of the
embedded clause. After all, they have the same form as (11c). From above, we derive the
following implications of causative construction in compound verb:
(i)
In structure (a), the subject of the embedded clause must be co-referential to the
object of the main clause. If not, it leads to ambiguity, as illustrated in (12):
(12) a. NPi Vt NPj [NPk {Vi/A} ]
小明 擦眼淚; 手帕 濕
b. NPi [V V Ve] NPj/k
*小明 擦濕 眼淚/手帕
濕 is incorporated into the verb 擦 and becomes its component. That is to say, they
form into a single verb, which can only assign an object-case and a theme-θ-role to
an argument. Therefore, (12b) violatesθ-Criterion and is excluded. However, there is
one circumstance where the object of the first verb does not correspond to the subject
of the embedded clause. That is when the object of the first verb is non-referring and
can be deleted after incorporation, as shown below:
(13) a. NPi Vt NPj [NPk {Vi/A} ]
b. 小李 氣 人; 身體 壞了
c. 小李 氣 壞了 身體
d. 小高 唱歌; 噪子 壞了
e. 小高 唱 壞了 噪子
(ii)
S-selection is also triggered between the first verb of the compound verb and its
complement clause; the intransitive verb in (b) and the transitive verb in (a) should
have cause-and-effect relation to the embedded clause. The transitivity of the main
verb is not the key to causative construction, as we have seen the example 小美哭濕
手帕, but its cause-and-effect relation to the following proposition. Crying must be
accountable for the wetness of the handkerchief. That is the reason why *小美笑/累/
丟 濕手帕 is excluded.
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(iii)
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There must be a subject and an object in the final structure as (11c); this requirement
is displayed in (13). The grammatical function change activated here is the subject of
the embedded clause to become the object of the compound verb. It probably may be
the case that incorporation is triggered because we need to make the one-place
predicate of the second clause become a two-place predicate, which allows an
additional external argument, that is, the agent or the causer. (13) demonstrates the
thematic structures of 摔, 破 and 摔破.
(13) a. *我不知道 e 摔破花瓶
b. *我聽說小張摔破 e 了。
(14) a. 摔: agentj <theme>
b. 破: themei < Ø >
花瓶 i 破了
c. 摔破: agentj <themei >
小張 摔破 花瓶 I
We may find some sentences seemingly violate this restriction, such as 花瓶摔破了.
I argue that this is a topicalized sentence and involves a subject deletion because of
either known or unknown to the speaker and listener, as 花瓶，我摔破了 or 花瓶，
有人摔破了.
(iv)
Not all verb-complement compound verbs have causative construction. For example,
吃飽 is a verb-complement compound verb but 我吃飽飯 does not have causative
reading because the structure of the sentence is as (15), that is, the subject of the
embedded clause does not refer to the object of the main clause:
(15) NPi Vt NPj [NPi {Vi/A} ]
我 吃 飯 ; 我
(v)
飽
If the object of the causative construction refers to the subject, a reflexive object is
needed in order to obey Binding Principle.
(16) a. 小明 i 跌了; 小明 i 受傷了
b. *小明 i 跌傷小明 i /他 i。
c. 小明 i 跌傷自己 i。
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The above clarifies the features of causative construction in compound verbs. As we
have seen, the complement and the original main verb forms into a single, compound verb,
which should abide by the case theory, θ-criterion, and binding principle. Following is
another issue, or rather my hypothesis of the causative verb formation in this construction.
Assumption of Causative-Morpheme in Causative Construction
Some data make me curious about the nature of the compound verbs in this causative
construction, as follows:
(17)a.老王打消了念頭。
！老王打(了)念頭。
*老王打(了)。
b. 小陳弄丟了鑰匙。
！小陳弄(了)鑰匙。
*小陳弄(了)。
c. 小張開了門。
d. 歹徒殺了人質。（歹徒使人質死）
e. 小王餵了狗。（小王使狗吃）
My question is why the first verbs in compound verbs in (17a) and (17b) do not have
predicate-object relation with the objects. Besides, in (17c), the causative construction
requires only a mono-word verb 開. (17d) and (17e) illustrate that causative construction can
be implied by using a verb, not a compound verb.
As to the questions, I hypothesize that an adjective or intransitive is ergativized through
two steps. First, the adjective or intransitive is preposed to the position before the subject or
in another way, the subject is internalized, becoming the internal argument, which receives
theme-θ-role. This process, I believe, is not controversial to most people. The second step is
enclosing the adjective or intransitive verb with a causative-morpheme, and therefore, it
brings the reading of “making something A/Vi.” The causative-morpheme is invisible and
bound so that it must attach to a verb to be realized. To my assumption, that is the motive for
incorporation. In most cases, the causative-morpheme attaches to the first verb, denoting the
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cause, as we have seen in (11). In some cases, the causative-morpheme and ergativized verb
undergo the process of lexicalization so we derive the sentences in (17d) and (17e). As to
(17c), we can have either the former explanation of lexicalization or the deletion of one of the
same verbs as 小張開開了門 because of redundancy. Nevertheless, in some other cases, we
have defined the agent or causer but lack a definite cause-verb, neither can the ergativized
verb get lexicalized with the causative-morpheme. In this condition, a light verb, such as 打
and 弄, is inserted, as shown in (17a) and (17b). Light verbs do not have clear meanings; they
are activated in order to make the causative-morphemes merge or be visible. Moreover, light
verbs make one-place predicates turn into two-place predicates, in the light of their argument
structures. This light verb insertion is somewhat similar to do-support, which serves as the
last resort to save a stranded Tense.
Conclusion
Causative construction of compound verb undergoes ergativization of the intransitive
verb or adjective of the embedded clause, internalization of the external argument,
incorporation of the causative-transitive verb into the main verb, and adjunction of an agent
or a causer. The assumption of causative-morpheme still needs testifying in other structures
but it provides a more convincing account of the occurrence of incorporation.
References
Baker, M. C. (1988). Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press.
Ouhalla, J. (1999). Introducing transformational grammar: From principles and parameters
to minimalism (2nd ed.). NY: Oxford University Press.
Tang, T.-C. (1991). Incorporation in Chinese. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, 21,
1-63&337-376.
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