Abstract
In this study of resultative V-V compounds in Chinese, it is shown that only certain theta-grid patterns are allowed. The restrictions on theta assignment are shown to follow automatically from standard Case theory and three other independently motivated assumptions of current Government-Binding Theory: theta-identification (Higginbotham 1985), a structured theta-grid (Grimshaw 1989) and head-feature percolation. Given the assumption that theta roles are assigned hierarchically, these theoretical devices interact so as to allow all well-formed V-V compounds while excluding all impossible compounds.
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This article began as a term paper for my first-year semantics course. I am grateful to Mark Baker, Noam Chomsky, San Duanmu, Ken Hale, Jim Higginbotham, Richard Larson, and Wayne O'Neil for their comments on various versions of that paper. I am also indebted to two NLLT reviewers, whose suggestions and criticisms have helped make the arguments in the paper more precise. But most of all, my thanks go to Jane Grimshaw, who was the first to point out to me that a modified version of the sketchy term paper could be good enough for print. Without her insightful comments, encouragement, and patience, this article would never have been able to appear in NLLT or anywhere else. As always, the author is responsible for all mistakes in the article.
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Li, Y. On V-V compounds in Chinese. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 8, 177–207 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00208523
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00208523