Title

On the Chinese Verbal Suffix ‘-HUA’: Its Conceptual Structure and Syntactic Function

Author

Ting-chi Tang

Genre

Article  

Pages

411-439

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Language

Chinese

Key words

Chinese derivative verbs, verbal suffix ‘-hua’, semantic prefix, lexical conceptual structure causative-inchoative alternation

Abstract

    Chinese derivative verbs, verbal suffix ‘-hua’, (-化), which can be suffixed to monosyllabic, disyllabic and even trisyllabic noun or adjective stems to form causative-transitive verbs and inchoative-intransitive verbs, with regard to: (1) How id the verbal suffix ‘-hua’(-) grammaticalized from the original verb (2) Which subcategory will the Chinese derivative verbs containing ‘-hua’ (-化) fall under interms of their argument structure and lexical aspect? (3) The unmarked number of syllables for Chinese verbs is said to be monosyllabic or disyllabic, but with the addition of semantic prefixes such as ‘fan-(泛-), fan-(反-),qu-(去-)’, the resulting verbs can be as long as five syllables. What kind of marked phenomena might manifest with these marked verbs in terms their morphological and syntactic behaviors? (4) How will the compound verb containing the verb stem ‘hua’(化) and the derivative verb suffixed by ‘-hua’ (-化) be represented in their lexical conceptual structure (and related to, as well as distinguished from, each other? How can their alternation between causative-transitive and inchoa tive-intransitives be accounted for?