Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese

Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese
c. Zhangsan bi Lisi xihuan paobu, Wangwu ye shi/
Zhangsan COM Lisi like jogging Wangwu too AUX/
bi Zhaoliu ye shi.
COM Zhaoliu too AUX
‘Zhangsan likes jogging more than Lisi/Zhaoliu, and so does Wangwu.’
When the subjects are compared in these three sentences, we can only get the
meaning of comparison between Wangwu and Lisi. That it, Wangwu is the subject of
the second clause, which support the idea that the second conjunct together with the
common predicate form a predicate for the first subject. All these give more support
to the adjunction analysis.
As for the semantic reconstruction, it seems that PF deletion is more plausible.
(57) a. Zhangsan zuotian dazi bi Ø Ø xiezi kuai
Zhangsan yesterday type COM write fast
‘Zhangsan typed faster than wrote yesterday.’
b. Zhangsan Ø youyong bi Ø zuotian paobu hai kuai
Zhangsan swim COM yesterday run more fast
‘Zhangsan swims faster than he ran yesterday.’
Besides, Hsing states that we cannot use focus to explain deletion, for shi may
occur in the F position or moves to the C position as (54), yet we cannot tell whether
it is auxiliaries or the word shi that serves as the emphatic marker, and the positions of
bi word and the operator are not specified yet.
Regarding the syntactic structure of BCC, Hsing’s research is in favor of the
Adjunction analysis, rather than the Coordination analysis. Relative to the syntactic
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中正大學 e-Thesys (94 學年度)