Variations in non-canonical passives

Huang, Chu‐Ren

doi:10.1075/la.205.05hua

Cited by 18 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In recent theoretical literature, Mandarin long passives have been widely analyzed along the lines of English tough-constructions under the proposal of Chomsky (1981) (Feng 1995;Cheng et al 1993Cheng et al , 1999Ting 1995Ting , 1996Ting , 1998Huang, Li and Li 2009;Huang 2013, among others). Chomsky argues that tough-constructions involve null operator movement and predication of the subject, as shown in (78).…”

Section: Long Passivization As Null Operator Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psych verbs in English and Mandarin

Cheung

Larson

2014

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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Psych verb constructions show peculiar properties. They appear to project the same θ-relations into inverse configurations (John fears sharks/Sharks frighten John). Furthermore, Experiencer Object psych verb constructions admit backward binding in apparent violation of familiar c-command conditions (Pictures of himself anger John). We offer a solution to both puzzles drawing crucially on data from English and Mandarin. We argue that apparent θ-role inversion is an illusion, and that Experiencer Subject psych verb constructions like John fears sharks are not in fact simple transitive constructions but instead involve a concealed clause with a silent predicate (John fears [CP sharks PRED]). Regarding backward binding, we argue for an updated version of Belletti and Rizzi's (1988) analysis of Experiencer Object psych verbs in which the putative Theme is a Source that is underlyingly c-commanded by the Experiencer.Keywords psych verbs · intensionality · concealed complement clauses · applicatives· English · Mandarin 1 Introduction: The problem of psych constructionsPsych constructions pose a number of challenges to syntactic theory. As shown in (1)- (2), Experiencer Subject (ES) and Experiencer Object (EO) psych verbs in English appear to assign the same θ-roles of Experiencer and Theme. 1 But the structural positions of the corresponding arguments are reversed or "flipped" in the two constructions (Lakoff 1970;Postal 1974). This apparent "θ-role inversion" challenges the Universal Alignment Hypothesis (UAH) of Perlmutter and Postal (1984) and the corresponding Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH) of Baker (1988), which require identical thematic relationships to be realized in identical structural configurations. The exact identity of the non-experiencer θ-role in (1) and (2) is controversial; we label it here as THEME mainly for convience. The important point is that the same pair of roles appears to be involved in the two exemples; we return to a more careful discussion of this issue below. 2 In this study we concentrate on what Landau (2010) terms "Class I" psych verbs like fear and "Class II" psych verbs like frighten, largely putting aside discussion of his "Class III" psych verbs like appeal; the latter resemble the Class II type, but exhibit a dative preposition (to) on the experiencer (or, in other languages, dative case marking) as opposed to a simple accusative object (i): THEME EXPERIENCERThe idea appealed to Julie. (Landau 2010: 6) This is the Pre-Published Version.

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Section: Long Passivization As Null Operator Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psych verbs in English and Mandarin

Cheung

Larson

2014

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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“…However, in more recent works, Huang (2013) and Liu (2012) Such cases do not arise in a sentence with a subject-oriented adverb like guyi 'intentionally'.…”

Section: The Control/predication Analyses Of Mandarin Bei Passivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With an animate subject, a sentence may be ambiguous depending on whether the subject is an Experiencer and a pure Theme/Patient. As a concrete example, consider (17): 4 4 In Huang (2013) it was assumed that long-distance passives cannot involve raising, but only NOP movement and predication.…”

Section: The Control/predication Analyses Of Mandarin Bei Passivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Control and raising passives, and why Mandarin does not smuggle

Liu

Huang

2016

J East Asian Linguist

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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.

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“…Huang further adds that when the context is underspecified, the implicit affectee in constructions such as (19b) could be either "the speaker or someone else whose identity is 'somewhat slippery'". In other words, according to Huang (2013), the implicit affectee in (19b) is someone who experiences the adversative event of the prisoner running away, and this "someone" could be the speaker or someone else, depending on the context. We suggest that this affected 'someone' is one with whom the speaker empathizes, hence the subjective, adversative reading of unaccusative 'give' constructions.…”

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confidence: 99%

Pathways to adversity and speaker affectedness: On the emergence of unaccusative ‘give’ constructions in Chinese

Chen

Yap

2018

Linguistics

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In this paper, we examine the characteristics of unaccusative 'give' constructions in Chinese, and additionally identify the pathways for their emergence in some Chinese dialects, in particular Southern Min and Mandarin varieties.1 We distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 unaccusative 'give' constructions, the former involving reversible 'escape'-type intransitive predicates, and the latter irreversible 'die'-type intransitive predicates. Type 1 constructions are attested in many Chinese varieties, such as Mandarin, Min, Wu, Hui, Hakka and Cantonese, whereas Type 2 constructions are more rare and thus far are mainly attested in Southern Min and some Mandarin varieties. Two major pathways in the development of unaccusative 'give' constructions are identified in this paper, namely, the causative pathway and the passive-mediated pathway. Our analysis also traces how the unaccusative 'give' construction develops into a marker of adversity and speaker affectedness. The findings of this study have implications for understanding the relationship between changes in valence (i.e., the number of core arguments that are profiled in a given construction) and speaker's subjective stance.

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Variations in non-canonical passives

Cited by 18 publications

References 13 publications

Psych verbs in English and Mandarin

Psych verbs in English and Mandarin

Control and raising passives, and why Mandarin does not smuggle

Pathways to adversity and speaker affectedness: On the emergence of unaccusative ‘give’ constructions in Chinese

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