Control and raising passives, and why Mandarin does not smuggle

Abstract

Abstract. Collins (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, and 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.

Deriving Various Affected Subjects in Bei-Passives

“…[6]), to the best of our knowledge, there have been no systematic investigations of either how such subjects are derived, or the sources of the interpretations they are given. In this paper, therefore, we entertain the proposal that Mandarin bei is a semi-lexical verb that takes a raising structure to form long passives, and show that adopting the high applicative projection proposed by [7], in combination with a revised version of the raising structure discussed in [5], facilitates a unified account of different thematic types of subjects in Mandarin bei-passives.…”

“…Mandarin bei-passives have been a topic with extensive discussion among linguists, involving both the surface realization of participants' roles in an event, and the categorial status of bei. Regarding the latter, four main proposals have been made, i.e., that bei -is a verb [1][2][3][4][8][9]; is a preposition [10][11]; occupies a dual-status category [12][13][14]; and is a semi-lexical verb [5,15]. Earlier studies have suggested that, much like the by-phrase in English passives, bei can be understood as a preposition introducing an Agent argument [10][11].…”

“…Lisi BEI Wangwu hit-LE one-CL home-run 'Lisi had Wangwu hit a home run on him.' ( [3]: 462-463) Unlike (5), the subject position in (6a) is empty, and the semantic Patient (i.e., zhe ye 'this page') is retained in its original object position together with the Agent (i.e., wo 'I') following bei. In other words, the segment after bei in (6a) is a complete sentence by itself, and yet, readers of the full sentence may still perceive that some person or entity external to the event being described was unwillingly, adversatively, or unfortunately affected (see [5] for further discussion).…”

“…( [3]: 462-463) Unlike (5), the subject position in (6a) is empty, and the semantic Patient (i.e., zhe ye 'this page') is retained in its original object position together with the Agent (i.e., wo 'I') following bei. In other words, the segment after bei in (6a) is a complete sentence by itself, and yet, readers of the full sentence may still perceive that some person or entity external to the event being described was unwillingly, adversatively, or unfortunately affected (see [5] for further discussion). Example (6b) represents a similar type of sentence, in which the implicit subject seems to be associated with the speaker's comment about the event 'he succeeded' -as implied by zui-ou-de shi 'what's the most upsetting is', and juran 'surprisingly'.…”

“…

This paper investigates the thematic types and derivations of subjects in Mandarin bei-passives. Based on an examination of the categorial status of bei discussed in the literature, we try a new approach by adopting Liu and Huang's [5] view that the mechanism of deriving bei-passives is argument raising (in which bei is a semi-lexical verb heading the Voice projection), and propose a simplified and unified account of bei-passives' Experiencer and Possessor subjects, as well as their typical Patient subjects. Specifically, we propose that the high applicative gei proposed in Hsu and Qu [7] can account structurally for the source of the Experiencer in bei-passives.

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