Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese

Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese
comparatives without bi are similar to this DOC structure and takes the open degree
adjectives as the predicate, and the first NP is the comparative datum while the second
one indicates the value of the different degree, which conform to what Kennedy &
McNally (2005) claims- the relative value of the degree is determined by the
relationship between the comparative value in the context. In other words,
DOC-comparatives can be regarded as a syntactic behavior of the degree of
predicative adjectives. Similar to the ditransitive verb in Larson’s (1988) analysis of
the DOCs, the degree predicative takes two internal arguments, the comparative
datum in the Spec of AP, and the value of the comparative degree in the
complementation position of the predicative AP. Moreover, as is shown in (61), it is
supposed that the degree predicative adjective is overtly moved to the head of Deg for
some feature checking requirement, then we get (58a).
(61) (Chao 2005: 45)
IP
3
NP …DegP
g 3
Zhangsan Spec Deg’
3
Deg AP
g 3
gao NP1 A’
g 3
Lisi A NP2
g 6
t san gongfen
Phrasal comparative sentences like (62a), is similar to (62b) both semantically and
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中正大學 e-Thesys (94 學年度)