Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese

Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese
b. [ta da lanqiu da de] bi [wo da lanqiu da de] hao
he play basketball play PART COM I play basketball play PART good
‘Same as (a).’
c. [ta] bi [wo] da lanqiu da de hao
he COM I play basketball play PART well
‘Same as (a).’
d. *[ta] da bi [wo] da lanqiu da de hao
he play COM I play basketball play PART well
‘Same as (a).’
e. [ta] bi [wo] lanqiu da de hao
he COM I basketball play PART good
‘Same as (a).’
f. [ta lanqiu] bi [wo lanqiu] da de hao (Chao 2005)
he basketball COM I basketball play PART good
‘Same as (a).’
With regard to the comparative ellipsis that causes asymmetry between the
compared conjuncts, Hong uses Ellipsis and Focus together with semantic
interpretation principle to explain CD. It is assumed that constituent with ellipsis
feature can dominance the coordinate bi-clause with at least one focus feature, which
is shown as (36). This explains the asymmetry between the compared clauses.
However, it still needs the semantic interpretation principle to illustrate that the
meaning of the elliptical clause can be gained by tracing back to the first compared
one.
(36) S[ELL CONJ bi] → bi X 2 [FOC] +
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中正大學 e-Thesys (94 學年度)