Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese

Syntax of the Bi Comparative Construction in Mandarin Chinese
prepositions, and verbs as well. Her (2006) examines the original account for the
syntactic categories of gei in MC by Ting and Chang (2004), in which gei may act
either as a verb, a preposition, and even a complementizer. Among all, gei can be a
complementizer in the goal-marking structure like (98) where gei-NP is not a PP
subcategorized for by the predicate, as shown in (99a~b).
(98) [V NP gei NP VP]
(99) a. wo chang-le yi shou ge [CP gei [IP ta ting]] (Her 2006)
I sing-ASP one CL song GEI she listen-to
‘I sang a song for her to listen to.’
b. *wo chang-le yi shou ge [P gei] ta.
I sing- ASP one CL song to she
‘I sang a song to her.’
Ting and Chang (2004) also cite binding facts and prosodic features to support their
analysis on the complementizer in MC. Their analysis do not complicate the grammar
given the independently motivated complementizer of shuo, as in (100b), which
likewise has arisen from the grammaticalization of the verb shuo ‘say’, as in (100a).
Thus, shuo as a complementizer is similar to that in English and gei is like for in the
“for-to construction.” 12 However, unlike their English counterparts, MC
complementizers needs to be licenses and thus cannot stand alone, as in (101).
12 The purposive gei is parallel to the ‘for..to’ construction in English
(i) Wo fei [CP gei [IP ni kan e]] (Her 2006)
I fly GEI you watch
‘I will fly for you to watch.’
(ii) ‘I will fly for you to watch.’
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中正大學 e-Thesys (94 學年度)