講者：林宗宏  教授

單位：國立清華大學語言學研究所

主持：邱力璟老師

時間：2020年10月21日(三) 14:00-15:30

講題：Two Kinds of Measure Constructions in Mandarin

地點: 綜合603

 

摘要：This work examines two kinds of measure construction in Mandarin, the Subject-Adjective-Measure (SAM) type and the Subject-Measure-Adjective (SMA) type.  These two constructions look similar in both form and meaning, so much so that it is tempting to consider them as deriving from a common underlying syntactic source and are derivationally related.  This work, however, argues that they actually come from very different origins, as empirical evidence indicates.  First, when converted to wh-questions, different wh-words must be used for the M in SAM and SMA.  Second, while the M in SMA must denote a fixed measure, the M in SAM may denote a differential measure, which is not possible for the M in SMA.  Third, under specific circumstances, aspectual modifiers can be inserted between A and M of SAM, but not between the M and A of SMA.  These phenomena and contrasts point to the conclusion that SAM and SMA cannot be derivationally related.  It is proposed in this work that the analysis of SAM and SMA should be the following: SAM actually is S(A)M, where M is the main verb and A an adverbial and a domain-setter, whereas SMA is S(M)A, with A the main verb and M a degree modifier.  Both SAM and SMA, therefore, have a head-final predicate, even though the surface word order of the predicates of the two constructions are reverse.