Analyzing The Bei Construction In Mandarin Chinese With A Transitivity Projection

In this thesis we revisit the extensively studied bei construction in Mandarin Chinese and aim to demonstrate how various types of the bei construction are derived.We choose the Minimalist Program(MP)(Radford 2009)and Transitivity Projection(TrP)in the sense of Bowers(2002)as our theoretical framework,because a combination of the two presents a uniform analysis of the long passive and the short passive and solves the disputed case issues of the DPs in the bei construction.Specifically,this thesis establishes the following: firstly,we provide some new language data to demonstrate that both the long passive and the short passive involve A-movement and a silent argument does exist in the short passive.These findings indicate that a uniform analysis of the two is not only theoretically desirable but also empirically supported;secondly,we point out the limitations of analyzing bei as a lexical word,a preposition and argues that the best option is to analyze it as a functional category,namely Voice in the sense of Collins(2005),heading a VoiceP immediately above vP;thirdly,we posit a Transitivity Projection(TrP)in the bei construction to explain why only transitive verbs can be selected by bei and the distribution of the Affectedness marker ‘gei';fourthly,we propose an low Applicative Projection(ApplP)in the sense of Pylkk?nen(2008)to explain the case issue of the retained object in both the bei construction with a retained object and the bei construction with an embedded ba construction.In our analysis,the core functional category v passes ‘up' its uninterpretable agreement features to Voice,making Voice as a new phase head.This is because when Tr is realized as the Affectedness marker ‘gei',it would block the way for v to pass them down.The derivation of a canonical bei construction is as follows: V selects a DP to be its internal argument,forming a VP.The resulting VP then merges with Tr to form a Tr bar projection,the EPP feature on Tr will attract the DP to its edge.The resulting TrP then merges with a v,forming a v bar projection.This v bar projection then merges with an external argument to form vP.When v is selected by Voice,Voice as a probe will assign case to the nearest target,namely the external argument and attracts the internal argument extracted from TrP to delete its Extended Projection Principle(EPP)feature.And then T enters the derivation,with its uninterpretable agreement features inherited from C,it assigns case to the internal argument and attracts it to spec-T.