Person:

Huang, C-T

提要 本文讨论新兴非典型“被 XX”结构的句法、语义特征及历史来源并进行跨 语言的比较研究。本文认为这种“新生”结构不是一个将不及物动词被动化的特殊 句法结构,而是一些隐含了使动、意动或施动成分的轻动词结构。受到被动化的动 词不是 XX 本身,而是其所隐含的无声轻动词。类似的隐含动词结构也大量见于古 汉语、英语等语言,不同的是,现代汉语的“被 XX”结构不能还原为主动形式。 本文将这一不同归因于综合性语言与分析性语言之间的不同,并以“派生时机参 数”为基础的参数理论对此提出解释。从语言演变角度来讲,“被 XX”结构在现 代汉语的出现反映了语言演变遵循“⋯ 综合 → 分析 → 综合 ⋯”的循环模式。

This paper discusses the syntax, semantics and historical source of the new bèi XX construction in Mandarin from a cross-linguistic perspective. We argue that bèi XX is not a special construction that involves the passivization of intransitive verbs. What is passivized in it is not XX itself but a null light verb with the elementary semantics of a causative, putative or activity predicate that takes XX as its complement or adjunct. Such null light verb constructions are abundant in Old Chinese and English, though often not in passive form. Different from them, the bèi XX construction does not have a grammatical active form. We attribute this difference to the difference between synthetic and analytic languages, and account for it by a parameter in derivational timing. The appearance of the bèi XX construction marks Modern Chinese as being at the early stage of a new cycle of change. The analysis of the bèi XX construction as proposed capitalizes on the role of light verb syntax as being the real essence of grammar, and lends important support to the non-projectionist theories of syntax-lexicon mapping such as Distributed Morphology.

Collins (Syntax 8:81–120, 2005) proposes a smuggling approach to English passives that solves some problems associated with the traditional analysis. This article will show that while English passives involve smuggling, Mandarin passives do not; we offer an explanation for this difference. We first provide evidence that Mandarin passives can have not only control structures (as previously assumed) but also the possibility of a raising derivation involving A-movement, thus ruling out control as the sole reason for the absence of smuggling. We then attribute the absence of smuggling in Mandarin to the existence of vP-internal movement, which implies that Chinese allows multiple Specs of vP while English does not. This analysis helps tie together a number of otherwise unrelated differences between these languages (vP-internal movement, quantifier float, and constituency). We see the results as falling within the basic tenets of the theory of UG: While UTAH and Minimality are presumably universal requirements, individual grammars may employ different strategies to satisfy them.

The Principles-and-Parameters Theory marked an important milestone in formal linguistic theoryby offering a plausible solution to the logical problem of language acquisition, leading to a productive field of inquiry that uncovered important universal properties and macro-patterns of parametric variation among an unprecedented number of languages. Recent advances in parametric theory have capitalized on microparametric variation, raising certain questions about the status of macro-parameters. In this chapter, developing recent work and using the facts of Chinese as a paradigm case, we show that (a) both macro- and microparameters are needed in linguistic theory, (b) macroparameters are simply aggregates of microparameters acting in concert with a conservative learning strategy, and (c) the (micro)parameters themselves are hierarchically organized. Assuming a ‘three factors’ model, we take parameters to be emergent properties that result from the interaction of a radically unspecified UG, experience, and third-factor principles like Feature Economy and Input Generalization.

This paper puts together a range of distinguishing properties of Chinese and considers them in the context of parametric theory, capitalizing on the clustering of these properties that jointly characterize Modern Mandarin as a language of high analyticity, Old Chinese as a language of moderate synthesis, and the modern Chinese dialects in their varying degrees of development towards mild synthesis. It argues that while some properties have been identified in isolation as independent typological properties, given the analyses proposed, they can be seen to fall out as special cases of a larger generalization, as manifestations of the same property of analyticity or synthesis. It is also shown that each distinguishing property may be seen as a result of setting a micro-parameter defined in terms of the nature of a triggering or non-triggering head, as in current research in generative grammar. The typological properties shed light on the nature of parametric variation and change, arguing for the need to see them through the lens of both micro- and macro-parametric theory.

This paper shows that non-canonical passives (like English get- and Chinese bei-passives) exhibit a chameleonic character that makes them amenable to a control and/or a raising analysis – depending on context and lexical choice. Such passives are formed by superimposing on the main predicate a higher semi-lexical verb whose meaning may include one or more points in the causative-unaccusative spectrum. Such semi-lexical verbs may differ in their ‘bandwidths’ along the spectrum, exhibiting lexical, contextual and idiolectal micro-variation – accounting for the controversies that have often arisen in the literature. The paper demonstrates the need for fine-grained decomposition in argument structure theory by providing several concrete cases, and ends with a case study of so-called ‘give-passives’ in Mandarin, arguing that they are raising constructions involving an existential use of gei ‘give’ and an implicit affectee which gives rise to their passive-like meanings.