Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese

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Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese (31) a. Zhangsan bi Lisi qinlao Zhangsan COM Lisi diligent ‘Zhangsan is more diligent than Lisi.’ b. *Zhangsan bi zhuozi qinlao Zhangsan COM table diligent To analyze BCC like (28a), Hong uses Comparative Schema (CS) and Gazdar’s (1981) the Feature Co-occurrence Restriction (FCR) to analyze the syntactic structure of BCC as a clausal coordination with the verb to be raised obligatorily. (28) a. gou bi mao zhongshi (NP bi NP) dog COM cat faithful ‘Dogs are more faithful than cats.’ (32) Hong’s (1991) coordinate structure S’ [+COM] qp NP [+COM] VP [+COM] 3 g H [+N –V, CONJ NIL] H[+N –V, CONJ bi] V g 2 g NP bi NP zhongshi g g gou mao There are two dominance rule of BCC, the Immediate Dominance (ID) statements, and the Linear Precedence (LP) statements, which together with Binary Coordination Schema (BCS) make a Comparative Schema. In (33), H refers to Head; the syntactic categories are not specified yet. +COM refers to comparative feature; CONJ refers to coordinate feature. [+ N, + V] refers to the syntactic category. 18 中正大學 e-Thesys (94 學年度)
Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese (33) a. Comparative Schema (CS) (Hong 1991: 43 ) XP[+ COM ] → H[aN bV, CONJ NIL], H[aN bV, CONJ bi] b. Coordinate LP Schema H[CONJ NIL ] < H[CONJ bi ] As for the FCR, Hong only uses part of the features of FCR here. The relevant feature, SLASH as shown in (34) is interpreted as: constituents with a phrase missing from it. Thus S/NP is to be read as: an S with an NP missing from it (Hong 1994: 51-52). (34) [CONJ & COM ] כ H[SLASH VP ] (Hong 1991: 52 ) It is assumed that Mandarin CC can be viewed as coordinated-sentences structures with ‘raised’ VPs, and they thus can be taken as Right-Node Raising (RNR). The coordinate conjuncts are two clauses, and the rightmost sequences of both the coordinate sentences can be ‘raised’, as long as they are verb phrases 8 . Hong indicates that this extension of the traditional notion of category allows accounting for non-constituent comparatives. The following (35) (Hong1991: 54-55) are the supportive examples. All of the rightmost VP in these examples can be raised. Hong explain that sentence (35d) is unacceptable because the raised part lanqiu da de hao is not a VP, not because that ta da and wo da are not constituents. (35) a. [ta da lanqiu] bi [wo da lanqiu] da de hao he play basketball COM I play basketball play PART well ‘He play basketball better than I do.’ 8 Verbs are also taken as VPs in GPSG.. 19 中正大學 e-Thesys (94 學年度)
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Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese

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