Revisiting Taiwan Southern Min Ū ‘HAVE’ and its Stative Complement

• Main Authors: Zhi-ren Zheng, 鄭智仁
• Other Authors: Niina Ning Zhang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/29171874247697620336

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 語言學研究所 === 103 === Previous studies claim that the possessive verb ū ‘have’ can select an adjective as its complement, as seen in (1). However, it is surprised to pay less attention whether it can select any types of adjectives. (1) Kaka ū suí. PRN HAVE beautiful ‘Kaka is (very) beautiful.’ I hence investigate whether there is any restriction on selecting a complement of an adjective. The observations show that ū ‘HAVE’ cannot select any adjective as its complement, for instance, absolute gradable adjectives, non-predicate adjectives, reduplicate adjectives as well as it cannot be modified by the intensifying degree words. Based on the other observations, ū ‘HAVE’ cannot select a reduplicate adjective as its complement, and the stative complement cannot be modified by an intensifying degree word. It thus poses a question that whether the complement of ū ‘have’ is a true adjective. I further propose that the stative complement of ū ‘HAVE’ is a nominalised adjective, as shown in (2) . (2) [NOMP [NOM’ SBJ [Nom [+N, -V], √ Gradable]]] I explore my assumption by means of four tests: (a) the complement can be topicalised, and (b) it can follow the kind classifier tsiong ‘kind’. Besides, the complement can be the complement of kongtioh ‘speaking of’, and it can be conjoined with another nominal. These facts show that the complement which ū ‘HAVE’ chooses is a nominal. Besides, I propose that ū ‘HAVE’ is a raising (light) verb and selects a nominal clause as its complement. A raising verb always selects an infinitive clause as its complement. A nominal clause can be referred to syntactically as an infinitive clause. The subject is base-generated at [Spec, NomP]. Therefore, the subject moves to [Spec, vP] out of [Spec, NomP]. Moreover, in term of previous studies, I first argue that it is optional for ū ‘HAVE’ to denote an emphatic interpretation. Then, as ū ‘have’ denotes an intensifying interpretation, it moves to the head of FocusP, gaining a [FOCUS] feature. Fifth, I argue against treating ū ‘HAVE’ as a perfective marker or a perfect marker. I also argue against that ū ‘HAVE’ is not a positive morpheme because it can be intervened by a diminutive quantifier phrase tsı̍t-tiám-tiám ‘some’. That is, it does not satisfy with the condition of a positive morpheme that it degrees a gradable adjective. Semantically, I claim that ū ‘HAVE’ can focus the contrastive nominalised adjectives or prominence the subjects. Furthermore, ū ‘HAVE’ may be analysed as a functor to distinguish a possessive meaning from a descriptive reading. What is more, ū ‘HAVE’ receives a [BE] feature when it projects to the head of vP. I thus claim that ū ‘HAVE’ may share some syntactic properties with the copula BE. Crosslinguistically, some languages prefer to describe a possessive/existential sentence and a declarative sentence (especially in an adjectival statement) by means of BE; on the other hand, other languages prefer to ascribe a possessive/existential sentence and a declarative sentence (especially in an adjectival statement) via HAVE. Finally, I conclude my argumentation as well as indicate my interests for future studies.