Aspect Marker and Light Verb in Chinese Directional

• Main Authors: Wang, Yu-yun, 王昱勻
• Other Authors: Tsai, Wei-tien
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/60789665822347817492

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 語言學研究所 === 93 === This work discusses the distributions of the Chinese qi-lai construction in the following environment: (1)a.Zhangsan fa-qi-piqi-lai, dajia dou hen haipa Zhangsan show-QI-temper-LAI everyoneall very sacred ‘When Zhangsan loses his temper, everyone is scared.’ b.Zhangsan fa-qi-piqi-lai hen kepa Zhangsan show-QI-temper-LAI very terrible ‘When Zhangsan loses his temper, he is very terrible.’ (2) zhe ben shu du-qi-lai hen rongyi/ hen youqu this CL. bookread-QI-LAIvery easy very interesting ‘It is easy to read this book.’ ‘This book is interesting to read.’ (3) (kan-qi-lai), zhe dong fangzi kan-qi-lai bu pianyi look-QI-LAI thisCL. houselook-QI-LAI notcheap ‘It seems that this house is not cheap.’ Syntactically, the distribution of qi-lai is quite wide in addition to the directional RVC, and it is not very clear from earlier analyses what function of qi-lai in the structure is. Contrary to the former proposals, I put forth that qi-lai in (1) and (2) should be assorted to the conditional and unaccusative constructions, respectively. Qi-lai itself is treated as a viewpoint aspect marker which emphasizes on the initial point and process of the event. In the conditional construction, the viewpoint aspect marker qi-lai introduces the initiation of the event. Due to the cause-effect relation, example (1) is biclausal in structure. The reason why (1b) has only one argument (and appears to be monoclausal) is that the subject in the main clause is deleted (subject to identity with subordinate clause). Therefore, (1b) is also biclausal. On the other hand, the internal argument occurs in the structural subject position in (2), resulting in the unaccusative construction. I adopt the accounts in Ramchand (1997, 2000) and Lin (2001) and regard qi-lai as a kind of light verb (taking the eventuality of PROCESS). The adjectival in the sentence takes the position of secondary predicate, modifying theme argument or event argument elucidated in the main predicate. This derives the effect of evaluation on the theme and process in this construction. Lastly, the qi-lai in (3) undergoes lexicalization with the main verb, emerging in an evaluative adverbial, and therefore appears prior to the subject. The proposed analysis provides a unified account for the qi-lai in the various constructions. I also demonstrate that other meanings of qi-lai can be derived through present analysis. The observation may also shed light on the analyses of Chinese aspect marker, conditional, and unaccusative constructions.