Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese

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Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese Second, clausal comparatives are derived by bi-clauses that are post-cyclically adjoined to the main clause and subsequently undergo PF-deletion operation. Both the bi-phrase and the bi-clause are preverbal adjunct of the gradable predicate. It is suggested that the comparative datum is a contextually controlled PRO in the DET position of AP. (64) Zhangsan jintian bi Lisi zuotian gaoxing Zhangsan today COM yesterday happy ‘Zhangsan is happier today than he was yesterday.’ (65) (Chao 2005: 63) IP 3 NP I’ g 2 Zhangsan I DegP 3 Spec Deg’ 3 PP Deg’ qg 3 P CP Deg AP g 6 g 3 bi [CP Opi [IP Lisi gao NP A’ zuotian ti-gaoxing ]] g 2 PRO A NP g 6 t san gongfen In sum, while bi takes a NP in the phrasal comparative, in the clausal 40 中正大學 e-Thesys (94 學年度)
Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese comparatives bi takes a clause instead. Besides, the preverbal adjunct bi-phrase has undergone Argument Demotion, yet phrasal comparative clausal comparatives are derived by bi-clauses that are post-cyclically adjoined to the main clause. Last but not least, phrasal comparatives are derived from DOC-comparatives via some transformation process; however, clausal comparatives undergo PF-deletion operation. 2.2.5 Summary Generally, there are two main types of analysis on the structure of BCC, the Conjunction Analysis (Tsao1989, Hong 1911), and the Adjunction Analysis (Fu 1978, Liu 1998, Hsing 2003). The Conjunction Analysis considers that the coordinate conjuncts are semantically and syntactically parallel conjuncts, sharing predicates right peripherally. On the other hand, the Adjunction Analysis is accepted in most analyses in the literature. It claims that the degree clause is adjoined to the main clause as modifications, the differences among this analyses is the place of the adjunction, either the preverbal place of the sharing predicate or somewhere inside the adjunctional predicate. 2.3 Previous Analyses on Comparative Construction in English In studying the syntactic structure of CC in English like (66), it concerns the syntactic interactions among the degree expression, the degree clause, and the gradable predicate that marks the dimension of the comparison. Chao (2005) points out that the adjunction analysis is more plausible in the literature, in which the adjunction site of the than phrase is the main issue (Bresnan 1973, Larson 1987, Abney 1987, and so on). However, there is also the coordination analysis in which than is the coordinator (Napoli 1983). 41 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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