Grammatical functions and verb subcategorization in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

This dissertation presents a classification of Mandarin verbs by the subcategorized grammatical functions within Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG). A brief description of LFG is provided. The following functions are identified as subcategorizable in Mandarin: SUBJ, OBJ, OBJ2, XCOMP, SCOMP, NCOMP, OBL$\sb{\rm LOCT}$, OBL$\sb{\rm GOAL}$, OBL$\sb{\rm THME}$, OBL$\sb{\rm BNFC}$, and the syntactic encoding of these functions is discussed. Twenty-six subcategories are identified, and further subgroupings are made when different syntactic requirements of the subcategorized elements are observed. Additionally, four semantic subcategories are distinguished along the traditional distinction of action versus state. A number of our analyses of particular syntactic constructions in LFG differ from previous accounts. We consider topic a syntactic notion and argue against its subcategorizability in Mandarin. In relation to treating OBJ2, or indirect object, as encoded by the second, rather than the first, postverbal NP, we insist that (ba3 NP) should not be taken as object, rather it should be considered as an oblique function. To name one more, we reject bei4's status as either a subject marker or a preposition and analyze it as a verb requiring a pivotal construction subcategorizing for SUBJ, OBJ, and XCOMP. To improve efficiency in computational processing and linguistic generalizations, the formalism in which our analyses are formulated differs than the conventional LFG formalism in the notations of phrase structure rules and the feature inheritance structure. The latter makes under-specified lexical entries and thus a lexicon of reduced size possible. Also in our variant formalism unification takes place at the same time when partial constituent structures are constructed. This allows earlier detection of functional structure violations, including incoherence of grammatical functions. While previous classifications of Mandarin verbs are often based on case roles and constituents, our classification is based on the notion of subcategorization for grammatical functions. Given the recognition of notions of subcategorization and grammatical relations in general linguistics, our study fills the gap in Chinese syntax due to the lack of a systematic, extensive account of Mandarin verbs concerning subcategorized grammatical functions.

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