The Derivation Of The Typical Chinese Passives-"Bei" Constructions

This paper studies bei constructions, which is considered to be the typical passive construction in Chinese and aims to provide a proper analysis of the derivation of Chinese passive sentences.Sentence (1) and (2) are typical bei constructions in Chinese. (1) is often called the long passive and (2) the short passive.(1) Zhangsan bei Lisi piping-le. Zhangsan Bei Lisi criticize-Asp 'Zhangsan was criticized by Lisi.'(2) Zhangsan bei piping-le. Zhangsan Bei criticize-Asp 'Zhangsan was criticized.'Thus the structure of bei constructions is as follows: (3)NP₁... Bei (NP₂)... V₁... (NP3)Like English passives, the internal argument of the "passivized" verb V1 occurs as the grammatical subject of the passive sentence, i.e. NP1, and the presence of the external argument NP2 is optional which can be introduced by bei or does not occur. If the complement position of V1 is left empty, we will get the typical short passive or long passive like (1) and (2), which depends on the occurrence of NP2.Based on the previous study on Chinese passives within the framework of generative grammar and my own observation, I propose that bei is a verb undergoing grammticalization and behaves differently in long passives and short passives. Bei selects a VP in short passives and anIP in long passives. Short passives involve ergaivization triggered by bei and NP movement while long passives involve null operator (NOP) movement and predication.In Chapter One, by comparison between the so-called unmarked passives and bei constructions, I state that only sentences with a passive marker are passive sentences in Chinese. Then I compare the behaviors of various passive markers in Chinese and argue that bei is the typical passive marker since only bei can occur in short passives and it is more functional and less lexical in the process of grammaticalization.In Chapter Two, I discuss the properties and constraints of Chinese passives and show the distinction between long passives and short passives. Then I proceed with a review of the previous analysis of Chinese passives within the framework of generative grammar. In fact, there are two competing lines of research on Chinese passives within the framework of generative grammar. One line of research is to extend the analysis of English passives to Chinese passives, according to which Chinese passives are derived by NP movement in much the same way as English passives. Short passives are derived by deleting the agent argument from long passives. The other is a complementation approach, which claims that bei is a verbal category. The major difference between long passives and short passives lies in the subcategorization of bei: in long passives which involve A'-movement, bei selects an IP, while in short passives which involve A-movement, bei selects a VP.In Chapter Four, I support the claim that long passives and short passives in modern Chinese are developed respectively from Archaic Chinese. In Archaic Chinese, bei is a lexical verb and short passives appeared much earlier than long passives, which in fact developed from the "wei ... suo" construction. Along the line of the complementation approach, I propose that bei is a verb undergoing grammaticalization and turning from a lexical verb to a functional one. Bei selects a VP or an...