On The Syntax Of Locative Inversion In Mandarin Chinese

In general,locative inversion refers to a linguistic phenomenon whose word order is reversed to its canonical sentence.To be more exact,in the locative inversions,the locative phrase is preposed with its subject postposed.However,the meaning of locative inversions is too much degree the same with the canonical one.It is an overall linguistic phenomenon in many languages around the world which has been studied for many decades.Under the framework of syntax and semantics,this paper deals with two questions:l:What verb types can be used in locative inversion?2:How is Chinese locative inversion generated?Most studies claim that the verbs undergo locative inversion are intrinsically unaccusative verbs.However,we find that other than unaccusatives,other verb types are also observed in this construction.For example,in English,some unergative verbs appears in locative inversion as well.In Bantu languages,some unergative verbs and even some transitive verbs are also found in this construction.In Chinese,some unergatives and ergatives are also used in locative inversions.But no matter how the pattern changes,and no matter what types the verbs are,all the verbs allowed in locative inversion undergo unaccusativisation.It is the compatibility of verbs in both syntax and semantics that allows it in locative inversion.In Mandarin Chinese,the locative inversion structure PP VP NP has two canonical uninverted structures NP VP PP and NP PP VP.Although explanations of locative inversion generation have been proposed(Bresnan and Kanerva 1989,Rochemont&Culicover 1990,Hoekstra&Mulder 1990,Han 2016a),none of them can explain the two canonical uninverted structures in Chinese.Thus we propose an alternative approach—phonetic movement(scrambling).In generative grammar,a-Movement is one of the important operations which comprise three movements:syntactic movement(overt movement)from D-structure to S-structure;logical movement(covert movement)from S-structure to semantic component;phonetic movement(scrambling)from S-structure to phonetic component.One of the biggest differences among the three is that after the syntactic and logical movement,the meaning of the sentence changes,while after the phonetic movement,the meaning not.However,we find that the difference of locative inversion construction in Mandarin Chinese is not resulted from scrambling,but the different syntactic roles the PP plays and the deep structure that the complement can stay in-situ.The corresponded univerted form of locative inversion in Chinese is NP PP VP.The locative phrase PP in NP VP PP structure is not an adjunct PP.On the contrary,it is a locative phrase,being an object of the verb.In Chinese,the locative phrase functions as an adjunct,and the complement of the verb can stay in-situ position.Therefore,we think the locative inversion is not derived from the generally recognized canonical form.On the contrary,it is the so-called univerted one derived from the locative inversion.