Licensing “gapless” bei passives

Abstract

This paper investigates ''gapless'' bei passives in Mandarin Chinese and the way they are licensed. It is discovered that if the embedded predicate of a bei passive contains a weak NP, then the bei passive can be gapless. The proposal of this paper is that the weak NP introduces a variable, which can be bound by the operator Op at the embedded IP. Op need not move from an argument position in the embedded predicate of the bei passive; it can be merged directly to the embedded IP and bind the variable introduced by the weak NP.

How Do Broca’s Aphasics Comprehend Chinese Passive BEI?

“…In syntax, bei in most Chinese passive sentences is considered as a verb that takes a clausal complement [12]. (9) (a) Zhangsan bei Lisi da-le.…”

“…gap. More specifically, "bei takes an IP complement, the object argument of this embedded IP adjoins to the IP in the form of an empty operator" [12]. However, bei passive that contain no apparent gap is available in Mandarin Chinese as well.…”

“…Sentence (10), further analyzed by sentence ( 11) is a sentence with no apparent gap. Inside VP, there is a subject which as represented by t. According to Lin , the operator is the "outer object" of the VP [12]. The operator and the trace are coreferential.…”

“…The definition of existential sentences in Mandarin Chinese is that it follows a structure that is used for the expression of existence of something [14]. The structure of a Mandarin existential sentence consists of three parts (i.e., place + verb + object), as shown in (12). The object must contain weak NPs.…”

Resumptive Pronouns in Chinese Passives

“…As shown in (4)-(5), resumptive pronouns can occur as long as the predicate under bei is modified by a post-verbal modifiers, independently of the type of modifier, for instance, a durational phrase 'for three hours' in (4) or a de-resultative phrase in (5). Since (5) Another problem for Lin's analysis is that long passives involving weak NPs (6), which are predicted by Lin (2006Lin ( , 2009 Lin's analysis also fails to explain the coreference between the resumptive pronoun and the subject in a long passive. In (1a) the subject Zhangsan and the resumptive pronoun ta 'him' have to be co-indexed.…”