Chinese causative and its mediators' representation

Author: Zhao Yang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: The active voice of Chinese lexical verbs has gradually disappeared, so unaccusative verbs and psych verbs cannot be used as active voice verbs. Chinese active voice is expressed through analytical active voice structures, resultative complement structures, and compound active voice structures. Analytical active voice structures and resultative complement structures are respectively introduced by "" (shǐ) and "" (dé). Compound active voice structures consist of a behavioral verb and a component indicating the result, forming a V1-V2 compound structure. This book, framed by generative grammar theory, explores the semantic and syntactic features of unaccusative verbs, psych verbs, and the three types of active voice structures mentioned above. The author argues that Chinese unaccusative verbs and psych verbs project onto syntax as verb phrases (VPs), not verb phrase shells (VPshells). Chinese resultative complement structures and compound active voice structures contain a functional category, namely the aspect phrase (AspP). The author conducted empirical research on the representation of unaccusative verbs, psych verbs, and the three active voice structures in interlanguage. The main objectives of the empirical study were two: first, to examine language transfer, and second, to investigate whether learners could acquire the functional category contained in Chinese resultative complement structures and compound active voice structures. The empirical study consisted of two parts: a cloze test and an experimental component. The experimental component used three testing tools: production tests, acceptability judgment tests, and comprehension tests. The participants included 55 English-native learners, 56 Japanese-native learners, and 73 Korean-native learners, while the control group consisted of 28 Chinese-native adult learners. To determine whether second-language learners of Chinese and native Chinese speakers exhibit the same syntactic representation, and whether learners with different native language backgrounds (English, Japanese, and Korean) show differences in acquiring Chinese, the author conducted developmental studies on learners with the same native language background and comparative studies on learners with different native language backgrounds. The results showed that, compared to the acquisition of psych verbs, second-language learners of Chinese were more likely to make active voice errors with unaccusative verbs. Among the three types of active voice acquisition, compound active voice structures were the most difficult for learners to master. The author's conclusion is that language transfer does not always occur, and functional categories present in second languages but absent in first languages can have appropriate representation in interlanguage.