* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Incorporation and causative construction of compound verb
French grammar wikipedia , lookup
Malay grammar wikipedia , lookup
Proto-Indo-European verbs wikipedia , lookup
Scottish Gaelic grammar wikipedia , lookup
American Sign Language grammar wikipedia , lookup
Ukrainian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Polish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Japanese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Udmurt grammar wikipedia , lookup
Old Irish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Macedonian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Germanic strong verb wikipedia , lookup
Germanic weak verb wikipedia , lookup
Swedish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Compound (linguistics) wikipedia , lookup
Kannada grammar wikipedia , lookup
Navajo grammar wikipedia , lookup
Ancient Greek grammar wikipedia , lookup
Modern Hebrew grammar wikipedia , lookup
English clause syntax wikipedia , lookup
Old English grammar wikipedia , lookup
Turkish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Chinese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Portuguese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Icelandic grammar wikipedia , lookup
Yiddish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Latin syntax wikipedia , lookup
Italian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Spanish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Serbo-Croatian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Kagoshima verb conjugations wikipedia , lookup
Georgian grammar wikipedia , lookup
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 1 Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs 陳佳芸 69112201 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. 2 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). 3 Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs 陳佳芸 69112201 (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 4 陳佳芸 69112201 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 5 Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs 陳佳芸 69112201 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. 6 Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs (iii) 陳佳芸 69112201 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。 7 Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs 陳佳芸 69112201 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 8 Incorporation in causative construction of compound verbs 陳佳芸 69112201 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. 9