Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese

Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese
b. Zhangsan qi ma bi Lisi qi niu qi-de kuai
Zhangsan ride horse COM Lisi ride bull ride-de fast
‘Zhangsan rides a horse faster than Lisi does a bull.’
In (44a) Lisi and zuotian ‘yesterday’ are not of subject-predicate relationship, and are
not constituents either. The bi word cannot occur in the TP domain, for the word
zuotian ‘yesterday’ is a temporal adjunct and needs to be licensed by T o , therefore the
second compared item has an empty predicate. The phonological form (PF) of (44a) is
as (45).
(45) Zhangsan jintian [PP bi [CP Lisi zuotian [___]]] gaoxing
Zhangsan today COM Lisi yesterday happy
‘Zhangsan is happier today than Lisi was yesterday.
The descriptive complement structure in (44b) cannot be explained without the
ellipsis analysis.
(46) a. [CPZhangsan qi ma] bi [CP Lisi qi niu] qi-de kuai
Zhangsan ride horse COM Lisi ride bull ride-de fast
‘Zhangsan rides a horse faster than Lisi does a bull.’
b. *[CPZhangsan qi ma] bi [CP Lisi gan yang] qi-de hao
Zhangsan ride horse COM Lisi drive sheep ride-de good
‘Zhangsan rides a horse better than Lisi drives the sheep.’
Thus, Liu suggests an ellipsis analysis for the structure of BCC as shown in (47).
According to the LF Identity Condition on Ellipsis (Heim & Kratzer 1998), the
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中正大學 e-Thesys (94 學年度)