Abstract
In this article I argue that not all the verbs that undergo locative inversion in Mandarin Chinese are intrinsically unaccusative as assumed in the literature. The fact that some transitive non-passivized verbs can undergo locative inversion is argued to be the result of morphological operations rather than the result of transitive alternation (cf. Cheng 1989). One such operation — that involving the morpheme zhe — is described here; I claim that it deletes the agent role of a verb if certain conditions are met, and allows the verb in question to satisfy the conditions on locative inversion (Bresnan and Kanerva 1989). I also argue that the zhe operation is not a variant of the passive operation, but a morphological operation in its own right.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bresnan, J. and J. Kanerva: 1989, ‘Locative Inversion in Chicheŵa’, Linguistic Inquiry 20, 1–50.
Carlson, G.: 1977, ‘Bare Plurals and the English Kind’, Linguistics and Philosophy 1, 413–457.
Cheng, Lisa L.-S.: 1989, ‘Transitivity Alternations in Mandarin Chinese’, in Proceedings of the 3rd Ohio State University Conference on Chinese Linguistics, Columbus, Ohio.
Dowty, D.: 1979, Word Meaning and Montague Grammar, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland.
Grimshaw, J.: 1990, Argument Structure, LI Monograph, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Gu, Y.: 1992, ‘On the Locative Existential Construction in Chinese’, in Dawn Bates (ed.), The 10th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, The Stanford Lunguistics Association, Stanford, California, pp. 183–195.
Huang, C.-T. J.: 1987, ‘Existential Sentence in Chinese and (In)definiteness’, inE.ReulandandA.terMeulen (eds.), The Representation of (In)definiteness, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 226–253.
Krifka, M.: 1989, ‘Nominal Reference, Temporal Constitution and Quantification in Event Semantics’, in R. Bartsch, J. van Benthem, and P. van Emde Boas (eds.), Semantics and Contextual Expressions, Foris, Dordrecht, Holland, pp. 75–115.
Levin, Beth: 1993, English Verb Classes and Alternations, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Li, A. Y.-H.: 1990, Order and Constituency in Mandarin Chinese, Kluwer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Li, Charles N. and Sandra Thompson: 1976, ‘Subject and Topic: A New Typology of Language’, in Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject and Topic, Academic Press, New York, pp. 457–489.
Li, Charles N. and Sandra Thompson: 1981, Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Mei, K.: 1986, ‘Raising Structure in Chinese’, manuscript, Taiwan University.
Smith, C. S.: 1992, The Parameter of Aspect, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Tan, F.: 1991, Notion of Subject in Chinese, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford, California.
Vendler, Z.: 1967, Linguistics in Philosophy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.
Vlach, Frank: 1981, ‘The Semantics of the Progressive’, in P. Tedeschi and A. Zaenen (eds.), Syntax and Semantics: Tense and Aspect, Academic Press, New York, pp. 271–272.
Williams, E.: 1981, ‘Argument Structure and Morphology’, The Linguistic Review 1, 81–114.
Yeh, M.: 1991, ‘The Stative Situation and the Imperfective Zhe in Mandarin’, in Cynthia McLemore (ed.), Texas Linguistic Forum 32: Discourse, Department of Linguistics and the Center for Cognitive Science, The University of Texas at Austin, pp. 231–270.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pan, H. Imperfective aspect zhe, agent deletion, and locative inversion in Mandarin Chinese. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 14, 409–432 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133688
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133688