Chinese Double Object Construction: A CG Approach

Traditionally, double object constructions have been characterized as deriving from the prepositional dative constructions. This assumption holds that all the double object constructions should have corresponding prepositional datives.This thesis negates the traditional assumption and provides an alternative CG account of Chinese Double Object Construction. Based on the theories of CG proposed by Fillmore et al. (1988), Kay &Fillmore (1999), Goldberg (1995) and the theory of linguistic categorization proposed by Taylor (1989,1995), I argue in this paper that Chinese Double Object Construction, the NP V NP1 NP2 pattern, can be viewed as an independent grammatical entity which has the meaning of CAUSE-TRANSFER (RECEIVE/LOSE) that is independent of particular verbs. The sense that the agent argument acts to cause successful transfer of an object to a recipient can be regarded as the prototype of Chinese Double Object Construction and all the Chinese double object structures constitute a radical linguistic category. All the other Chinese Double Object Constructions, both core and marginal, can be viewed as extensions from the prototype and the extensions are licensed by metaphor or metonymy.My account pays special attention to the constructions that traditional approaches fail to account for. In my proposal, verb of obtaining/consuming type, the inverted Chinese Double Object Constructions and some idiom-like constructions all fall into the same explanatory mechanism with the prototype of Chinese Double Object Construction.My proposal also explains why the commonly acknowledged two-place predicates can take three arguments when they occur in the double object constructions.