Research On The Atypical Mandarin Ba Constructions

When we are talking about typical Ba constructions, we mainly refer to those constructions that express the meaning of "disposal" or "causative", with a patient argument behind Ba. The grammatical features of typical Ba constructions are as follows:the subject of a Ba construction exerts an influence on the object of Ba, causing it to arrive at a result or take on some changes. The complement of VP is usually semantically directed to the patient argument behind Ba. Also, the patient argument behind Ba can be put back to the place immediately behind main verbs and serving as object.However, in the thesis, the main focus is on the atypical mandarin Ba construction, for example, some Ba constructions exert influence on the subject (ta ba ying yu xue hui le "he has learned English"), some Ba constructions express the meaning of unwilling permissives (ta ba lao ban si le "he allowed his wife to die due to his carelessness or incapacity"), some Ba constructions with retained objects (ta ba da men shang le suo "he has locked the door"), and some Ba constructions without complements for ever(ta ba zhuo zi yi pai "he patted the desk once in a very short tmie"). Starting from a viewpoint about the atypical mandarin Ba constructions, we complement previous work and bring on the research on Ba constructions.There are five points of innovation in the thesis:1. By taking a closer look at the diachronic source and development of those atypical Ba constructions, I analyzed the correspondence between atypical and typical mandarin Ba construction;2.I offered full description of the grammatical features of every type of atypical Ba constructions and gave proper explanation, which complements previous work and fills in the blanks of research on Ba constructions;3. By introducing the theory of telicity, I revealed the relations between typical Ba constructions and the atypical Ba constructions which exert influence on the subject;4. By introducing the theory of function expansion, I described the growth path of the atypical Ba constructions expressing the meaning of unwilling permissives, and put forward three rules concerning the expansion of function;5. By establishing the theory of Competition between Arguments, I provide an explanation for the asymmetries existing in object alteration and constituent extraction in Ba constructions with retained objects.6. By introducing the theory of structure transformation, I divided the Ba constructions without complements forever into three categories, all of which express the meaning of disposal of something in a very short time.As for the generating mechanism of typical and atypical Ba constructions, we arrive at a conclusion that both typical and atypical Ba constructions involve delexicalization, function expansion and context restrictions. Different from typical Ba construction, atypical Ba constructions have some specific characteristics as follows:First, most verbs used in the Ba constructions that exert influence on the subject are sensory verbs and cognitive verbs. These verbs does not have the meaning of disposal or causative, therefore cannot exert influence on the object behind Ba like other Ba constructions. In the meantime, the double tropism of sensory and cognitive verbs leads to that the person who carried out the activities is both the agent and affeetee of the event. The double tropism is the key factor that makes Ba constructions atypical.Also, the Ba constructions expressing the meaning of unwilling permissives bears a higher degree of grammaticalization, which is the ending point of the function expansion of Ba constructions.Last but not least, concerning Ba constructions with retained objects, since the NP corresponding to the foregoing are mostly non-core arguments such as instrument, material and affectee, and so on. Therefore, these arguments cannot be put back to the position immediately behind verbs.Finally I summarized the main points of the research and provided some topics for further study in the future.