Postverbal word order in chinese - article ; n°1 ; vol.19, pg 91-107

Xu Dan

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Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale - Année 1990 - Volume 19 - Numéro 1 - Pages 91-107
Le présent article vise à remettre en question un point de vue couramment accepté, selon lequel le chinois ne peut pas comporter deux constituants postverbaux (VC1C2). Après avoir fourni des contre-exemples, ce travail tente d'établir un autre modèle d'analyse, que nous nommerons : Principle of Postverbal Hierarchy (PPH). Cette nouvelle approche permet de mieux tenir compte de l'ordre de mots postverbaux en chinois. Le PPH est déterminé par les propriétés sémantico-syntaxiques des constituants postverbaux. Il est sensible au degré du trait [± défini] : dans une séquence donnée VC1C2, plus un constituant a une tendance à être défini, plus il a de chances de se trouver immédiatement après le verbe. Selon la description structurale du PPH, le premier constituant doit avoir un niveau hiérarchique supérieur ou égal au second, i.e. Cl >= C2.
17 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• maths

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• Publié par: CAHIERS_DE_LINGUISTIQUE_-_ASIE_ORIENTALE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1990
• Nombre de lectures: 35
• Langue: English

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Dan Xu
Postverbal word order in chinese
In: Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale, vol. 19 n°1, 1990. pp. 91-107.
Résumé
Le présent article vise à remettre en question un point de vue couramment accepté, selon lequel le chinois ne peut pas
comporter deux constituants postverbaux (VC1C2). Après avoir fourni des contre-exemples, ce travail tente d'établir un autre
modèle d'analyse, que nous nommerons : Principle of Postverbal Hierarchy (PPH). Cette nouvelle approche permet de mieux
tenir compte de l'ordre de mots postverbaux en chinois. Le PPH est déterminé par les propriétés sémantico-syntaxiques des
constituants postverbaux. Il est sensible au degré du trait [± défini] : dans une séquence donnée VC1C2, plus un constituant a
une tendance à être défini, plus il a de chances de se trouver immédiatement après le verbe. Selon la description structurale du
PPH, le premier constituant doit avoir un niveau hiérarchique supérieur ou égal au second, i.e. Cl >= C2.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Xu Dan. Postverbal word order in chinese. In: Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale, vol. 19 n°1, 1990. pp. 91-107.
doi : 10.3406/clao.1990.1312
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/clao_0153-3320_1990_num_19_1_1312XU Dan
POSTVERBAL WORD ORDER IN CHINESEÍ*)
RESUME
Le présent article vise à remettre en question un point de vue
couramment accepté, selon lequel le chinois ne peut pas comporter deux
constituants postverbaux (VC1C2). Après avoir fourni des contre-exemples,
ce travail tente d'établir un autre modèle d'analyse, que nous nommerons :
Principle of Postverbal Hierarchy (PPH). Cette nouvelle approche permet de
mieux tenir compte de l'ordre de mots postverbaux en chinois.
Le PPH est déterminé par les propriétés sémantico-syntaxiques des
constituants postverbaux. Il est sensible au degré du trait [± défini] : dans une
séquence donnée VC1C2, plus un constituant a une tendance à être défini,
plus il a de chances de se trouver immédiatement après le verbe.
Selon la description structurale du PPH, le premier constituant doit
avoir un niveau hiérarchique supérieur ou égal au second, i.e. Cl > C2.
(*) I am grateful to anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.
C.L.A.O. Vol. XIX, №1, Juin 1990, pp. 91-107. 92
XV Dan
INTRODUCTION
During the past decade, a number of linguists (e.g. S.F. Huang
(1982), C.-TJ. Huang (1984) and Y.H. Li (1985)) have pointed out that
Mandarin Chinese does not allow the co-occurrence of two postverbal
constituents (C) except in the dative construction. The present paper presents
data which contradicts these earlier analyses and proposes a new model,
namely the Principle of Postverbal Hierarchy (PPH) to account for these
postverbal combinations in a natural way.
Section 1 reviews the earlier analyses of postverbal word order in
Mandarin and presents counterexamples showing that Chinese does in fact
permit two postverbal C. Section 2 presents alternative explanations pointing
out why the Surface Structure Condition (SSC) can not deal with duplication
of verbs in Chinese, while section 3 proposes the PPH to account for the
word order of the Mandarin Chinese construction VC1C2.
In order to limit the object of study, the postverbal constituents under
discussion here do not include any VP (or AP).
1. EARLIER ANALYSES
1.1. The restriction that Mandarin Chinese does not allow two postverbal
constituents was proposed by S.F. Huang (1982) as the Surface Structure
Condition (SSC), as follows :
No surface structure is well-formed if it contains a sequence of the
form :
Verb-Cl-C2
C.-TJ. Huang (1984) and Y.H. Li (1985), while proposing different
analyses, concurred in this basic observation1. The main argument for the
constraint that Mandarin Chinese does not allow two postverbal C is based on
two observations, the behavior of the disposal (or ba ) construction and that of
the duplicate verb construction in Mandarin Chinese, as may be seen in the
following examples (see C.-TJ. Huang 1984:55, 58) :
C.N. Li (1975) and Light (1979) had already expressed the same point of view
(i.e., that Mandarin Chinese generally does not allow two postverbal constituents)
in a different way. 93
POSTVERBAL WORD ORDER IN CHINESE
(la) * Wo bo le pi juzi
I - peel - LE - skin - orange
(b) Wo bajuzi bo le pi
I - BA - orange - peel - LE - skin
"I peeled the orange".
(2a) *Ta кап shu le liangge zhongtou
he - read - book - LE - two - hour
(b) Та кап shu кап le liangge zhongtou
he - read - book - read - LE - two - hour
"He books for two hours".
According to C.-TJ. Huang (1984) and S.F. Huang (1982), (la) and
(2a) are ill-formed because of the co-occurrence of two postverbal
constituents. In the first case, the second С must be preposed with the
disposal ba, as in (lb) ; in the second case, the verb must be repeated in order
to carry the time durational NP, as in (2b). (2a) can also be made acceptable
either by preposing the direct object (see (3)) or by subordinating the
durational constituent to the other С by using the subordinator de, as in (4) :
(3) Shu, ta кап le Hang ge zhongtou
book - he - read - LE - two - hour
"He read books for two hours".
(4) Та кап le liangge zhongtou de shu
he - read - LE - two - hour - DE - book
"he books for two hours".
In fact, (2), (3) and (4) are based on one observation, i.e., that the
time durational NP can not appear in the second postverbal position. We are
going to see in 1.2. and 2.2. that this view is wrong.
1.2. The Surface Structure Condition (SSC) can not account for the
following examples, all of which contain two postverbal С :
A. Postverbal PP construction :
(5) Ta zhu zai beijing san nian le
he - live - at - Beijing - three - year - LE
years" "He has been living in Beijing for three 94
XV Dan
(6) Ta lai dao zheli Rang tian le
he - come - to - here - two - day - LE
days" "He has been here for two
B. Double object construction :
(7) Ta ma wo hutuchong
he - curse - 1 - fool
"He cursed me as a fool".
(8) Women jiao ta Lao Zhang
we - call - he - L.Z.
"We call him Lao Zhang".
C. Pseudo frequency expression :
(9) Ta da le zheige ren Hang qiang
he - shot - LE - this - man - two - gun
"He shot this man twice (with a gun)".
(10) Ta gei le wo y i bangzi
He - give - LE - 1 - one - stick
"He hit me once (with a stick)".
D. Time durational NP :
(11) Ta yanjiu hanyu s hi nian le
he - study -Chinese - ten - year - LE
"He has been studying Chinese for ten years".
(12) Women deng le ta bantian
we - wait for - LE - he - long - time
"We have been waiting for him for long time".
E. Chain structure2 :
(13) Ta mai le ge zhuozi santiao tui
he - buy - LE - GE - table - three - leg
"He bought a table with three legs".
Y.R. Chao (1968) called such constructions "pivot constructions". For chain
structures, see Xu Dan (1988), (1989). 95
POSTVERBAL WORD ORDER IN CHINESE
(14) Wo kanjian yige niihair huang toufa
I - see - one - girl - brown - hair -
"I saw a blond-haired girl".
All of the sentences cited above contain two postverbal C and are in
good Mandarin Chinese. These facts show that order in Chinese
can not be analysed solely in terms of a single constituent.
2. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS
2.1. This section will discuss why the SSC is not sufficient to account for
Mandarin postverbal word order in the sentences cited above.
As noted by C.-T.J. Huang (1984), there are many ba constructions
such as that in (lb) which have no corresponding non-ba counterparts. But
the existence of such ba sentences without any corresponding VC1C2
counterparts is not sufficient to argue that it is the SSC which motivates the ba
construction in examples such as (1). In fact, A. Peyraube (1985) has pointed
out that the preposition ba evolved from an earlier verb ba, meaning "take",
between the seventh and eighth centuries. Here are two of Peyraube's
examples (1985: 199):
(15) Yu ba qing tian mo (9th century)
wish - BA - azure - sky - touch
"(I) would like to reach the azure sky".
(16) Yue xia ba shu кап (9th century)
moon - under - В A - letter - read
"read the letter in the moonlight".
Note that no constituents occur after the main verbs mo and кап. As
Peyraube (1985) points out, this earlier examples of ba show that its presence
is not in fact motivated by any SSC, i.e., by a need to block structures of the
typeVClC2.
Furthermore, there do exist ba constructions with corresponding
VC1C2 counterparts, contrary to C.-T.J. Huang (1984)'s observation :
(17a) Wo xia le Xiao Wang yitiao
I - startle - LE - X.W. - a jump
"I startled Xiao Wang".
(b) Wo ba Xiao Wang xia le yitiao
I - В