Taiwan Journal of Linguistics (Jun 2010)
MANDARIN SECONDARY PREDICATES
Abstract
In the first part, I provide some data of secondary predicates in English and Mandarin on consequence-depictives (SUBJ-oriented) and resultatives (OBJ-oriented), which adopt an intransitive verb/adjective for their secondary predicate. In the second half, I present an account of the linking issue on “resultative” compound predicates in Mandarin Chinese, building on the LFG/LMT work of Her (2007), who assumed that the argument structures of each predicate merge to give a composite structure, which determines whether a resultative sentence is semantically causative or not, and from which the arguments link to grammatical functions. I argue here that the facts require a more articulated semantics, for unlike Her’s analysis, the determination of causativity and the linking of the arguments of the two predicates is fully an issue of semantics; specifically, I argue that there are two types of secondary predicates in terms of their semantics, namely those with internally- and externally-caused changes of state (see Levin and Rappaport Hovav: 1995, McKoon and Macfarland: 2000), which are respectively “indirect-causative” and “direct-causative”; causativity should be categorised into three types, non-causative, indirect-causative, and direct causative. I further argue that the argument undergoing internally-caused change always links to Actor and that the one undergoing externally-caused change (a truly “affected” argument) always links to Undergoer.
