A study of resultative constructions in Mandarin Chinese

The current study investigates the semantic properties and the syntactic structures of resultative constructions in Mandarin Chinese. Such constructions are very productive in the language and take the V-V form where the second V serves as a resultative complement to the first one. Previous studies fall into two approaches: treating the construction as a lexical compound or as a syntactically generated structure. The syntactic approach is further divided into treating the construction as a syntactically generated lexical structure or as a complex of predicates. The current study argues for the complex predicate approach and, based on fresh data and new evidence, has provided more adequate and more comprehensive analyses than was attempted before.; A summary of the chapters of the thesis is as follows:; Chapter 1 gives a critical review of the previous representative treatments and at the same time outlines the issues that the current study will investigate in its own course.; Chapter 2 conducts a detailed and comprehensive semantic classification of V-V resultative constructions, which exhibit as many as ten distinct thematic as well as referential patterns, correlating to different types of predication, i.e. the ergatives, the unergatives, the accusatives (including the co-referential and the cross-referential types, the so-called pseudo-passives and the object-fronting sentences), and the causatives (ranging from an independent Causer to one derived from an Agent/Theme constituent).; Chapter 3 investigates the syntax of causative constructions in Chinese, laying the foundation for the syntactic analyses of V-V constructions in the chapters to follow. The chapter offers a uniformed analysis to periphrastic as well as lexical causative constructions.; Chapter 4 conducts a systematic and comprehensive syntactic analysis of the V-V resultative construction, on the basis of the discussions in the foregoing chapters and of further technical reviews of previous representative treatments.; Chapter 5 examines V-V constructions of ambiguity and those co-occurring with an additional VP headed by a duplicated copy of the first verb of V-V (known as verb-copying constructions).; Chapter 6 argues that the V-V resultative construction might have evolved from two "routes" instead of one as previously thought.; Chapter 7 summaries the major findings of the current study, and their theoretical and empirical implications. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...