Aspectual Structure and the Syntax of Chinese Durative Phrases

Liao, Wei-wen Aspectual Structure and the Syntax of Chinese Durative Phrases Liao, Wei-wen lwwroger@ms48.hinet.net Introduction This article inspects the aspectual structure and the durative phrases in Chinese I propose that aspect should be decomposed into three layers of representations, an approach that I call the Three-layerd Aspectual Structure (henceforth, TAS) I show that Chinese provides strong evidence for such a claim First of all, each of the three aspectual layers in syntax is morphologically realized in Chinese Second, the durative phrases in Chinese can be interpreted in three distinct ways, thus corresponding to the three aspectual layers Section reviews the theories of aspect by Reichanbach (1947) (supplemented by Hornstein 1990), Smith (1991), and Klein (1994) I conclude that aspect should be decomposed into three levels of representations The first (also the lowest) level is the lexicocompositional aspect, the information of which is provided by the inherent properties of main verbs and their combinations with other lower predicates The second level is the viewpoint aspect, where the internal structure of the lexico-compositional aspect is viewed from a certain viewpoint, or the topic time in the sense of Klein (1994) The two levels (in the lexical cycle) combined together and give an aspectual complex The complex is sent to the third (highest) level, the temporal aspect, which is functional and tense-related The aspectual complex is then punctualized into a point, called event point The aspect in this level arises from the relative position between an event point and a reference point in the sense of Reichanbach (1947) Section provides supporting evidence for TAS: the interpretations of the durative phrases in Chinese Liao (2004) points out that the durative phrases in Chinese can have three kinds of interpretations: the Target State-related reading (TS-related, measuring the target state), the Process-related reading (P-related, measuring the process), and the Reference Time-related reading (RT-related, measuring the time from a given point to the reference time, see below) I argue that the three interpretations correspond to three aspectual levels, respectively The following three examples illustrate these three readings: (1) a Zhangsan da-kai chuanghu san-ge xiaoshi ZS hit-open window three-Cl hour ‘ZS opened the window for three hours.’ [TS-related] b Zhangsan du-le zhe-ben shu san-ge xiaoshi ZS read-LE this-Cl book three-Cl hour ‘ZS [kept] reading the book for three hours.’ [P-related] c Zhangsan gai-wan zhe-dong fangzi san-tian le ZS build-finish this-Cl house three-day LE ‘It has been three days since ZS built the house.’ [RT-related] Notice that in the RT-related reading, in the case of (1c), the durative phrase measures the Liao, Wei-wen time span from the end of an event to a reference point Such an aspect has rarely been discussed.1 In section 4, the proposal is laid that the three readings of the durative phrases reflect the three aspectual layers in syntax in a one-to-one fashion In the TS-related reading, the durative phrase modifies the target state projections (from the lexico-compositional level) The durative phrase of the P-related reading modifies the aspectual projection in the viewpoint level, which is headed by Chinese verbal-le The durative phrase of the RT-related reading modifies the temporal aspect level, which is headed by the sentence final particle le (SFP le) I show that the structure of the durative phrases is closely related to the aspectual structure in Chinese Section discusses the theoretical consequences of the proposed analysis Semantically, the analysis can account for the telicity issue (see 2, 3), and syntactically, it explains why the durative phrases seem to be exceptions of the rightward convention of Chinese adjuncts: (2) (3) ??John ate the hamburger for three hours Zhansan chi-le zhe-ge hanbao san-ge ZS eat-LE this-Cl hamburger three-Cl ‘ZS ate the hamburger for three hours.’ [marginal in English] xiaoshi hour [perfect in Chinese] The Three-layered Aspectual Structure Hypothesis In this section I first review the relevant theory of aspect (section 2.1), and then propose the Three-layered Aspectual System (TAS) (section 2.2) 2.1 Theories of Aspect 2.1.1 Aspect as Tense: Reichanbach (1947); Hornstein (1990) Reichanbach (1947) regards aspect as a part of the Basic Tense System, as in (4): (4) R Tense Aspect S E (R for reference time; S for situation time; E for event time) Three possible combinations can be found, plus three aspect relations, shown as follows: (5) the construction of tenses and aspects The term Target state is adopted from Parsons (1990), and is meant to be equivalent to ‘result state’ in Piđón’s sense Liao, Wei-wen R,S / S,R R_S S_R TENSE present past future E,R / E,R R_E E_R ASPECT simple prospective perfect One problem with this theory is its weakness in describing the variety of aspectual patterns For instance, the theory of Reichanbach does not provide a powerful enough mechanism in differentiating perfect and perfective, but the difference between the two aspects is obvious (Chung and Timberlake 1985; Binnick 1991; Smith 1991) Perfect aspect is reference time-related, while the perfective aspect is not necessarily so The perfective aspect concerns the completion of the event regardless of any reference time Furthermore, aspect in different languages is more capricious than Reichanbach’s theory had expected Consider the following Chinese examples Different aspectual values (completive in (6a) and perfective in (6b)) fall into the same temporal structure, as in (7): (6) a b (7) Ta jintian zaoshang du-wan na-ben shu [completive; -wan] he today morning read-finish that-Cl book ‘He finished reading that book this morning.’ Ta jintian zaoshang du-le na-ben shu [perfective; -le] he today morning read-LE that-Cl book ‘He read that book this morning (regardless of the completion).’ E, R _ S this morning E, R _ S this morning 2.1.2 Two Parameters of Aspect: Smith (1991) Smith (1991) proposes that aspect is conditioned by two parameters One parameter is speakers’ viewpoint of the situation, and the other is the situation types Aspect then characterizes the way how the speaker views the internal structure of the situation, which consists of the interval (where it takes place) and the two endpoints, including an initial point (SI) and a final point (SF) (S stands for the situation) Depending on whether SI or SF is viewed by the speaker, the aspectual viewpoints are of three categories: (8) The Viewpoint Categories in Smith (1991) +SI, +SF perfective +SI, –SF neutral –SI, –SF imperfective The other parameter of aspect is the situation types The situation types characterize the Liao, Wei-wen inherent temporal/aspectual information in the lexicon Smith distinguishes situations into five prototypes, including State, Activity, Accomplishment, Achievement, and Semelfactive (see Smith 1991 for details) According to Smith (1991), a situation is located in a time interval with a given viewpoint superimposed on it, and in this manner aspect is composed by these two parameters Nevertheless, Smith’s theory has a theory-internal problem If both the viewpoint and situation type have their independent time intervals, it seems that the time interval of the situation loses its function when combined with the viewpoint For example, in the imperfective aspect, neither SI nor SF of the viewpoint plays any role; therefore, in propositions like [John RUN], or [John SING A SONG], although the initial point provided by the situation appears, the same initial point loses its function when the situation is combined with the imperfective viewpoint (–SI, –SF) In a nutshell, the ontological basis for the time interval of the situation appears dubious (see Klein 1994 for a detailed critique on the formal notions Smith has adopted) 2.1.3 Tense-related Analysis of Aspect: Klein (1994) Klein (1994) argues for a time-related analysis for tense and aspect He proposes three primitives for the temporal structure, the utterance time (TU), the situation time (TSit) and the topic time (TT) TT differs from the Reference Point in Reichanbach’s (1947) system in that TT has a complicated internal structure Aspect in this theory characterizes how TSit is linked to a certain TT Klein also employs a novel way to characterize the situation types He regards situation types as lexical contents of three kinds: 0-phase, 1-phase, and 2-phase lexical contents (in the terms of Klein et al 2000) Klein’s approach enriches the lexical content and reconciles the inconsistency between situation types and viewpoints However, his effort to unify the perfect and perfective aspect in the same time axis is not without problem Consider the examples in (9) and the temporal representations in (10) According to Klein, TT provides the only accessible information for aspectual marking Therefore, the durative phrase in (10a) arguably measures the topic time, which is the same as TSit in this case On the other hand, in (10b) the durative phrase measures the duration of the TSit, which is outside the TT, and should not include aspectual information, given the premise of TT In Klein’s approach, it should be possible to represent the duration of the topic time in the perfect aspect, but this is contrary to the fact, as in (10b’): (9) a John swam for ten minutes b John has swum for ten minutes (10) a b [perfective] [perfect] [++++++++++] pretime { TSit } posttime 10 ++++++++++ [ ] Liao, Wei-wen pretime { TSit } posttime 10 b’ * ++++++++++ [ ] pretime { TSit } posttime 10 Furthermore, if we assume the durative phrase only measures the TSit, as Klein himself claims, then we cannot account for the fact that in the RT-related reading, the durative phrase measures the post-event time (hence outside TSit), such as (1c) 2.2 Three-Layered Aspectual Structure I propose a dynamic theory of aspect in this work, which I call the Three-layered Aspectual Structure (TAS) That is, aspect is actually a composite of information from three independent levels This way, we can solve the incongruity between Reichanbach’s, Smith’s, and Klein’s theories The three levels are as follows The first level is the lexico-composition level This level corresponds to the conventional notion of lexical aspect or aktionsart The aspectual resource in this level is the lexical features Theoretically speaking, this level provides the prototype of the lexical information, corresponding to the lexical content in Klein’s sense The second level is the viewpoint level, corresponding to the conventional notion of grammatical aspect, or aspectual viewpoint The aspectual information provides a topic time onto the lexical content in the first level, resulting in a specific viewpoint This aspect corresponds to aspect in Klein’s sense The third level is the temporal aspect The aspect of this level arises from the interaction between a given reference point and a condensed event point (including TT and lexical content) This level of aspect is best understood with the Reichanbachian approach The general frame of TAS looks as follows: (11) Three-layered aspectual system (TAS) basis for observation compositional aspect lexical features and their composition viewpoint aspect topic time classifications [± change]/[ADD TO] ([± telic]) perfective neutral imperfective (incl progressive & habitual) temporal aspect reference point simple perfect prospective The interaction between the three layers is not rigid and may be subject to specific Liao, Wei-wen language strategies in aspectual representation Consider the perfective aspect in English English is a language without explicit perfective markers However, the concept of perfectivity is represented by means of the other two levels (past simple tense plus accomplishment), as in (12) On the other hand, the past-simple-accomplishment equivalent in Chinese does not necessarily represent a perfective viewpoint, as in (13a) The perfective aspect in Chinese usually comes along with a completive verbal marker, as in (13b), or a secondary predicate, as in (13c) (Smith 1991; Kang 1999; Klein et al 2000 among others): (12) John ate a hamburger, (*and he is still eating it) (13) a Zhangsan hua-le yi-fu hua, dao xianzai hai hua-zhe ZS draw-LE one-Cl picture until now still paint-Prog ‘(literally:) ZS painted a picture, and he is still painting it.’ b Zhangsan chi-wan yi-ge hanbao ZS eat-finish one-Cl hamburger ‘ZS ate a hamburger.’ c Zhangsan ba panzi chi-de ganganjingjing ZS BA dish eat-DE clean ‘ZS ate the dishes completely.’ A similar proposal is made by Tenny (2000) She suggests that aspect be represented in three levels in the syntactic structure Her evidence comes from the concept of core event and the behaviors of adverbial modifications The big picture hence looks like the following (from Tenny 2000: 326 with modification): (14) PoVP Point of view TP Functional cycle Tense … h-AspP Higher aspect  temporal level VP1 V1 m-AspP Lexical cycle Middle aspect viewpoint level V2 root VP2 (Inner aspect) composition level My proposal, from a different line of reasoning, matches her proposal with a striking Liao, Wei-wen similarity That is, inner aspect corresponds to the composition level, middle aspect to the viewpoint level, and higher aspect to the temporal level Note that in both proposals, aspect is laid out to different projections, contra the received view, which assumes that aspect is represented by a single projection, say, AspP (Cheng 1991) This proposal also claims that aspect is dynamically built from bottom to the top In this fashion, the proposal is reduced to Strict Cycle Condition In Chomsky (2001), the strict cycles (or phases) are taken to be CP and vP CP as a phase introduces the sentence-level operators vP is the projection in which all lexical requirements are satisfied Turning back to TAS, while the compositional level and the viewpoint level are closely tied, little interaction is found between the temporal level and the other two levels In Chinese, the first two levels can be combined together with the similar type of verbal morphology (verb-le and RVC can co-exist, e.g chi-wan-le ‘eat-finish-LE’), but the temporal level is represented by the sentence-final particles, such as SFP le, a distinct morphological mechanism (I will return to this point later) The strict cyclicity of the TAS, thus, is derived from phases (assumed as the important property of derivation) This may be regarded as a theory-internal support for the syntax of TAS, though many technical details still need elaborating I will leave it to further study Empirical evidence can also be found, which comes from the different interpretations of the Chinese durative phrases, a point I will discuss in the next section The Interpretations of the Durative Phrases in Chinese 3.1 Three Kinds of Durative Phrases In addition to the two kinds of readings of durative phrases proposed in Li (1987) and Lin (2003a), Liao (2004) suggests that there are actually three kinds of readings for the Chinese durative phrases: the Target State-related reading (TS-related), the Process-related reading (Prelated), and the Reference Time-related reading (RT-related) (for expository convenience, I assume readers’ familiarity with Klein’s and Reichanbachian notations) (< > stands for the measured time span): (15) TS-related (target state) a Zhangsan ba chuanghu tui-kai san-ge xiaoshi ZS BA window push-open three-Cl hour ‘ZS opened the window for three hours.’ b – – – – – – – [+ + + + + + ] pre-opening { opening } post-opening < >  three hours (16) P-related (process) Liao, Wei-wen a Zhangsan zhe-ben shu du-le liang-ge xiaoshi ZS this-Cl book read-LE two-Cl hour ‘ZS read this book for two hours, (whether he finished or not.)’ b [– – – – ]– – – ] + + + + + + … pre-reading { reading } post-reading < > or >  two hours (17) RT-related (reference time) a Zhangsan du-wan shu san-tian le ZS read-finish book three-day LE ‘It has been three days since ZS read this book.’ b E R , S < >  three days Specifically, Liao (2004) draws a distinction between the two post-event durative phrases, namely, TS-related and RT-related The TS-related durative phrase measures the time span of the target state in the sense of Parsons (1990), and the RT-related durative phrase measures the time span from the condensed event point to the reference point As far as TAS is concerned, the TS-related reading corresponds to the lexicocompositional aspect This is evidenced by the fact that the TS-related reading emerges in the sentence with a target state, which is generated by a secondary predicate or a resultative verbal compound (RVC) in Chinese (corresponding to English [in-the-water] and [open] types in Piđón 1999) Therefore, in the case of opening the window in (15), the target state is the window being (resultatively) open (the window can be closed again) On the other hand, in cases such as [x swim] and [x love y], there exist no target states, and hence the TS-related reading is not possible This indicates that the aspectual properties in this level crucially depend on the properties of individual lexical items and their composition The durative phrase of the P-related reading appears in the viewpoint aspect level The P-related reading tells the time from the initial point to the final point (either arbitrary or natural), which in Chinese syntax is brought about by the aspectual marker, verbal -le, the detail of which is discussed in the next subsection The durative phrase of the RT-related reading occurs in the temporal aspect level since the durative phrases measures the time span with respect to a reference point, as I have shown in (17) The reference point is introduced by the perfect aspect (in Chinese, the SFP le), and there are three possible time spans for measurement: the ongoing event, the target state, and the resultant state, as in (18)-(20), respectively: (18) Zhangsan da-kai chuanghu san-tian le [target state > RT] ZS DO-open window three-day LE ‘It has been three days since ZS opened the window.’ (19) Zhangsan pao-le san-tian le [ongoing event > RT] Liao, Wei-wen ZS run-LE three-day LE ‘It has been three days since ZS started running.’ (20) Zhangsan xie-wan zuoye san-tian le [resultant state > RT] ZS write-finish homework three-day LE ‘It has been three days since ZS finished writing his homework.’ Note that there are differences between (15) and (18), or between (16) and (19) (15) and (16) show closed process and target state (which is over), while (18) and (19) show open process and target state (which is not yet over) Theoretically, it is not possible to measure an open state However, owing to the introduction of a reference point (which stands as an final point for measurement), it is therefore possible to measure part of the ongoing state and part of the target state, and the open resultant state, all subsumed under the RT-related reading 3.2 Evidence from Chinese Aspectual Markers Evidence for TAS comes from the interaction between aspectual markers and the durative phrases in Chinese: the lexico-compositional aspect is realized by the resultative verb compound (RVC) or a secondary predicate, as in (21) The viewpoint aspect can be represented by the aspect marker verbal -le, as in (22), and the temporal aspect by the SFP le, as in (23): (21) a Zhangsan ba chuanghu da-kai [RVC] ZS BA window DO-open ‘ZS opened the window.’ b Zhangsan tiao jin shui-li [secondary predicate] ZS jump into water-(in) ‘ZS jumped into the water.’ (22) Zhangsan xie-le zuoye ZS write-LE homework ‘ZS wrote his homework.’ [verbal -le] (23) Zhangsan xie zuoye le ZS write homework LE ‘ZS has finished writing his homework.’ [sentence-le] I assume that verbal -le denotes the ‘realization’ aspect (Liu 1988), while the SFP le denotes the perfect aspect (since the main function is to introduce a reference time) In the viewpoint aspect level, verbal -le only specifies the initial point of the situation (this is an interpretation of Liu’s (1988) on Smith’s theory) On the other hand, the final point of the situation, though unspecified, is bound only by implicatures (which is cancelable) Therefore, the realization aspect in Chinese differs from the perfective aspect in English in the specification of the final point This is why the Chinese sentences (24a,b) are Liao, Wei-wen grammatical, while the English equivalents (24c,d)are awkward (cf Smith 1991):　 (24) a Zhangsan zuotian du-le yi-ben shu, keshi mei du-wan ZS yesterday read-LE one-Cl.book, but not read-finish ‘ZS read a book yesterday, but he did not finish reading it.’ b Zhangsan gai-le yi-dong fangzi, keshi mei gai-wan ZS buile-LE one-Cl house, but not build-finish ‘ZS built a house, but he didn’t finish builing it.’ c *John read a book, but did not finish reading it d *John built a house, but did not finish building it As to the temporal aspect level, the SFP le as a perfect marker introduces a reference point to the temporal-aspectual structure The contrasts between (25a) and (25b) well illustrate this point A given reference point ‘1492’ is introduced in (25b), while in (25a) ‘1492’ is the event time (as well as the reference point): (25) a 1492 nian, Gelunbu faxian-le xin-dalu 1492 year Columbus discover-LE new-continent ‘In 1492, Columbus discovered the new continent.’ b #1492 nian, Gelunbu faxian xin-dalu le #1492 year Columbus discover new-continent LE ‘In 1492, Columbus had discovered the new continent.’ (Contrary to the fact) The Syntax of Aspect and the Durative Phrases This section discusses how Chinese aspect and durative phrases are represented in syntax From the distributions of the two le’s, the TS-related reading is possible without either le’s, the P-related reading is usually accompanied by the verbal -le, and the RT-related reading must be accompanied by the SFP le, as in (15) to (17) It is a prerequisite to understand the syntax of the two le’s (section 4.1) before we understand the syntax of the durative phrases (section 4.2) 4.1 The Structure of Chinese Aspect The question of Chinese le’s has raised many controversies (see Cheng 1990, Sybesma 1997, 1999, and Jowang Lin 2000, 2003b) For conciseness, I assume the framework of light verb syntax of Lin (2001), who proposes that Chinese light verbs function semantically as eventuality predicates, such as CAUSE, BECOME, etc The verb-le, in the spirit of this framework, contributes the REALIZE eventuality to the main predicate The structure in Lin (2001) is as follows (with simplification): (26) vP argument-selecting light verb 10 Liao, Wei-wen v vP v aspectual light verb = viewpoint aspect VP V matrix verb secondary predicate VP Verbal -le and other aspectual markers, –zhe (progressive) and –guo (experiential), are treated as the head of the (viewpoint) aspectual light verb The lexical verb is base-generated in the matrix V, and a series of head movements lead to the surface form See (27): (27) a Ta xie-wan-le zhe-feng xin he write-finish-LE this-Cl letter ‘He wrote the letter.’ b vP DP zhe-feng xin ‘this letter’ v' v le vP VP V VP | | xie wan ‘write’ ‘finish’ This analysis matches TAS in a nice way Notice that the lexical content is linked to a TT, as is proposed by Klein (1994) I suggest that the syntactic mechanism responsible for this linking to TT is the V-to-v head movement As for the SFP le, Shen (2004) notes that in a Chinese sentence, the predicate and the sentence final particle must agree in aspectuality (dynamic vs static) Therefore, the SFP le matches a dynamic light verb, and another sentence final particle (SFP ne) a static one The SFP-le heads the AspP in the temporal aspect of TAS I assume that the dynamic feature in Asp0 (a kind of generalized EPP-feature in the sense of Chomsky 2001) drives the movement of the whole complement (which is vP) to the Spec of AspP for checking purpose, as in (28) (see also Shen 2004 for similar syntactic mechanism): (28) AspP 11 Liao, Wei-wen vPi Asp' Spec v' Asp ti | v | VP le | [+Dyn] [+Dyn] As Tzong-hong Lin (p.c.) points out, there is empirical evidence for this claim from the CED effect (Huang 1982) Assume Tsai’s (1994) theory of A'-dependencies.2 Adverbial wh-phrases in Chinese must move at LF to [Spec, CP] As expected, the adverbial wh-phrase zenme ‘how’ cannot move out of the vP if the sentence contains the SFP le (see 29) This indicates that the vP has indeed moved across the SFP le to the Spec position, hence inducing a CED violation: (29) a Laowang [zenme zhu niurou](*le)? Laowang how(manner) cook beef LE ‘How did Laowang cook the beef?’ b Zhangsan [zenme chi-wan-le hanbao] (*le)? ZS how eat-finish-LE hamburger LE ‘How did ZS eat the hamburger?’ To sum up, the lexico-compositional aspect shows different lexical contents, represented in Chinese by the main verb, its composition with the secondary predicate or the RVC construction The viewpoint aspect is represented by the verbal -le (and -guo, -zhe), the function of which is to link the lexical content to a given viewpoint, forming an aspectual complex of TT and situation Syntactically, the linking is achieved through head movement The highest temporal aspect is represented by the sentence final particles, such as SFP le Semantically, it condenses the aspectual complex to a point, and then linked it to a reference point Syntactically, the complement of the AspP (i.e vP) raises to [Spec, AspP] for dynamicity checking In the next section, I discuss the placement of Chinese durative phrases in the structure of TAS 4.2 The Structure of the Chinese Durative Phrases Consider first the durative phrases of TS-related reading I have argued that the TSThere is another consequence in Tasi’s (1994) proposal That is, Subjacency and CED also apply at LF, contrary to the original proposal in Huang (1982) 12 Liao, Wei-wen related reading requires a target state in the sentence According to the source of the target state (by RVC or by a secondary predicate), two structures involved in the TS-related durative phrases are shown in (30) and (31): (30) a ta da-kai chuanghu wu-fenzhong he do-open window five-minute ‘He opened the window for five minutes.’ b vP v v vP VP | da NP V [DO] | wu-fenzhong kai ‘five-minute’ ‘open’ Following Hale and Keyser (1993, 1997, 2002), the resultative verb (kai in (30)) is basegenerated in the root position I propose that the durative phrase of the TS-related reading is in the Spec position of the root phrase or the secondary predicate, modifying the time span of the target state.3 In (31), the target state is brought about by the secondary predicate VP jin shui-li ‘into the water’, and it is this target state that is modified by the durative phrase: (31) a ta tiao jin shui-li wu-fenzhong he jump into water-in five-minute ‘He jumped into the water for five minutes.’ b VP V VP The subject position of the secondary predicate is omitted in this discussion Actually, this is an issue that deserves a serious argumentation For simplicity, I assume the generalized control approach in Huang (1984) In (34b), this leaves a Pro (bound by the object) in the subject position of the secondary predicate, to which the adjectival head attribute its property Another possibility to consider this structure is that X' (X= P or A) itself undergoes reanalysis, as in Larson (1998), and move as a head, as illustrated in (31b) 13 Liao, Wei-wen V VP | tiao NP VP [V reanalysis] ‘jump’ wu-fenzhong V PP ‘five-minute’ | | jin shui-li ‘into’ ‘water-in’ Second, since the P-related reading is closely related to the verbal –le in the viewpoint level, the structure looks like (32) The durative phrase modifies the projection of the vP: (32) a Zhangsan [vP xie-le zhe-feng xin san-tian] ZS write-LE this-Cl letter three-day ‘ZS wrote the letter for three days.’ b vP DP v' zhe-feng xin ‘this letter’ v | vP Xiej-lei ‘write’ san-tian v ‘three day’ | NP vP VP | ‘ti c *Zhangsan xie-wan-le ZS write-finish-LE tj zhe-feng xin this-Cl letter san-tian three-day One piece of evidence for this structure comes from the homogenous requirement (Moltmann 1991) Notice that the durative modification is illicit when the verb chunk is not homogenous In (32), the process xie-le is homogeneous and can be modified by the durative phrase However, another verb chunk xie-wan-le ‘write-finish-LE’ (32c) will be ruled out in presence of a durative adverb, since the result is not homogeneous As to the RT-related reading, since the reference point is provided by the SFP le, I assume that the durative phrase modifies the AspP in the RT-related reading (see 33): (33) ta da-kai chuanghu wu-fenzhong le he do-open window five-minute LE ‘It has been five minutes since he opened the window.’ 14 Liao, Wei-wen AspP vPi AspP Spec v' v NP … AspP Asp ti | da-kai chuanghu wu-fenzhong le ‘open the window’ ‘five minute’ One piece of empirical evidence comes from negative and modal scope In Chinese, one can negate the main predicate by inserting the negation mei-you ‘not-have’ before the predicate We can see that both of the TS-related and the P-related readings are negated along with the predicate This indicates that the TS-releated and the P-related readings are predicate-internal (see 34a,b) On the other hand, the durative phrase of the RT-related reading is immune from the negation (see 35) This suggests that the durative phrase of the RT-related reading is outside the scope of the negation and is generated out of the main predicate: (34) a Zhangsan mei-you da-kai chuanghu hen-jiu ZS not-have DO-open window very-long ‘ZS did not open the window for a long time.’ b Zhangsan mei-you chi hen-jiu ZS not-have eat very-long ‘ZS did not eat for a long time.’ c Zhangsan mei-you zhe-yang zuo hen-jiu le ZS not-have this-way very-long LE ‘It has been long since ZS did so last time.’ (35) The RT-related durative phrases: immune from negation AspP NegP Neg vP AspP RT-Dur AspP … Asp t Consider the modal scope next Assume that ModalP is base-generated above AspP The fact that the modal scope covers the RT-related reading, as in (36), indicates that the durative phrase of the RT-related reading is generated lower than the ModP but higher than the NegP This leaves the AspP as the only possible site (see 37): 15 Liao, Wei-wen (36) a Zhangsan dagai du daxue wu-nian-duo le ZS probably read college five-year-more LE ‘ZS probably have studied in college for more than five years.’ b Zhangsan keneng yong zuo-shou xie zi henjiu le ZS likely use left-hand write word very-long LE ‘It is likely that ZS can use his left hand to write for a long time.’ (37) The RT-related durative: subsumed to the Modal scope: ModP Subj Mod' Mod AspP vP AspP RT-Dur …NegP Consequences and Remarks Here I would like to discuss some questions pertaining to the differences between Chinese and English with respect to aspect and durative phrases The first question is about the telicity An asymmetry exists between Chinese and English telic expressions: The telic sentences in Chinese allow, while in English reject, the existence of a durative phrase of the P-related reading: (38) a ??John ate the hamburger for three hours b Zhansan chi-le zhe-ge hanbao san-ge xiaoshi ZS eat-LE this-Cl hamburger three-Cl hour ‘ZS ate the hamburger for three hours.’ Under the proposed theory, this asymmetry can be accounted for in a straightforward manner The verbal -le denotes a realization aspect (Liu 1988), which specifies only the initial point That is, verbal -le does not concern the natural final point; on the other hand, an arbitrary final point of the situation is introduced by default (as in the case of activities) This arbitrary final point allows the events to be activity-like The same logic applies to English accomplishments as well In English an arbitrary final point of the situation is introduced by contexts or by other syntactic means (e.g durative preposing) Owning to the arbitrariness, the ‘lexically’ telic event may become atelic: accomplishments become activities This is evidenced by the following sentence, which is lexically telic, but turns out to be atelic due to 16 Liao, Wei-wen durative preposing: (39) For three hours, John ate the hamburger.4 a ‘John brought about the event that the eating of the hamburger lasts for three hours.’ b *‘John naturally entered the state that the hamburger was eaten for three hours.’ In (39a) an arbitrary final point is introduced, and the sentence characterizes the arbitrariness of John’s eating the hamburger intentionally (or forcedly) for three hours (Verkuyl calls it ‘forced reading’) The interpretation in (39b) sounds bizarre since the arbitrary final point has replaced the natural final point, and this is why the accomplishment flavor of this sentence is dropped The second question concerns why the durative phrases (as adjuncts) occupy the exceptional rightward position in Chinese, unlike other conventional adjuncts which appear leftward in Chinese (cf Tang 1990; Lin and Liao 2003) For example, locative, temporal (both deictic and anaphoric), and manner adverbs are instances of left adjuncts Assume they are IP/vP-level (Bowers 1993; Tang 1990) The structure hence looks like (40a) and (40b) CP-level adjuncts are also left adjuncts, such as (40c): (40) a Zhangsan [vP zai jia-li [v' kan dianshi]] ZS in home-in watch TV ‘ZS is watching TV at home.’ b Zhangsan [IP mingtian [I' zai jia-li xie baogao.]] ZS tomorrow in home-in write paper ‘ZS is going to write his paper tomorrow.’ c [CP cong jintian-qi, [C' Zhangsan shi boshi le.] from today-on ZS BE PhD LE ‘From today on, ZS is a Ph.D.’ Given the conventional directionality of adjuncts, how can we explain the unusual behaviors of the durative phrases? Under the proposed theory, the surface ordering is actually derived from series of movements, and the durative phrases are stranded in the sentence-final position Thus, the structures have the general shape, as in (41): (41) [YP…X0/XPi…RT-Dur…Y [ZP…P-/TS-Dur…ti …]] To recapitulate, in the TS-related reading, YP=VP, and ZP=the resultative phrase, which Higginbotham (1994) suggests that a sentence such as ‘I had my wallet stolen’ may have three readings: a ‘I came near to suffering the theft of my wallet.’ b ‘I was on the point of engineering the theft of my own wallet.’ c ‘I was on the point of being in a position where I would be certain of stealing my own wallet.’ (filtered out by context) I pursue his idea here, and generalize it to the accomplishements with the durative phrases 17 Liao, Wei-wen moves up to VP and leaves the durative phrase stranded rightward to the main predicate In the P-related reading, the YP=vP, and X0=V0, which adjoins to v0 In the RT-related reading, the durative phrase appears in YP domain, and XP=vP, which raises to spec of YP As we can see, the surface rightward adjuncts are actually stranded rather than base-generated Therefore, the uniform directionality of adjunct still holds in the proposed theory The last question is to examine the co-occurrence of the different readings of the durative phrases Consider the following sentences: (42) a *Zhangsan kai-le chuanghu wu-fenzhong wu-tian yi-ge-yue le ZS open-LE window five-minute five-day one-Cl-month LE (P-related, TS-related, and RT-related) b *Zhangsan kai-le chuanghu wu-tian yi-ge-yue le ZS open-LE window five-day one-Cl-month LE (TS-related and RT-related) c *Zhangsan kai-le chuanghu wu-fenzhong wu-tian ZS open-LE window five-minute five-day (P-related and TS-related) d *Zhangsan kai-le chuanghu wu-fenzhong yi-ge-yue le ZS open-LE window five-minute one-Cl-month LE (P-related and RT-related) All of the combinations of the TS-related, the P-related, and the RT-related above show the co-occurrence restriction However, the grammatical sentences like the following can still be found, where the main predicate is in habitual aspect (with adverbial meitian ‘every day’): (43) a Zhangsan meitian pao ban-xiaoshi san-nian le ZS everyday run half-hour three-year LE ‘For three years, ZS has been running for half hour every day.’ (P-related and RT-related) b Zhangsan meitian kai chuanghu wu-fenzhong san-nian le ZS everyday open window five-minute three-year LE ‘For three years, ZS has opened the window for five minutes every day.’ (TS-related and RT-related) Notice that (43 a-b) are in the habitual aspect, and the habitual aspect allows the durative phrases to modify the homogenous state, which is the habitual states per se Therefore, in the grammatical sentences, the structures are like (44): (44) i AspP vPi habitual state Asp' 18 Liao, Wei-wen ii resultant state iii target state iv process [homogenous] RT-Dur Asp' Asp ti Therefore, the ungrammaticality in (42 a, b, d) falls into the violation of the homogeneous requirement How we explain (42c), where the co-occurrence restriction holds between the TSrelated and the P-related durative phrases? I argue that the reason is attributed to a general linguistic phenomenon That is, only main predicate can receive aspectual marking and license the durative phrases Therefore, the question, to be precise, is how the durative phrase (of TS-related reading) can be licensed by the secondary predicate Higginbotham (1994) may have provided a clue for this question He claims that the secondary predicate can sometimes function as the semantic main predicate: (45) The boat floated [under the bridge] a ‘(atelic reading): Under the bridge, the boat floated.’ b ‘(telic reading): The boat went under the bridge in the manner of floating.’ When under is taken to be telic (meaning ‘go under’) as in (45b), the PP under the bridge functions as the main predicate: (46) float (the boat, e1) & under (the bridge, e1, e2) & in an hour (e1, e2) I suggest that the case in Chinese is similar That is, the secondary predicate in Chinese can function as the main predicate when it induces a target state For example, the secondary predicate jin shui-li ‘into the water’ in (31) actually functions as a semantic main predicate: (47) jump (ZS, e1) & into (the water, e1, e2) & for five minutes (e2) Therefore, not only in the P-related (the typical main predicate), but in the TS-related interpretations (the semantic main predicate) as well, it is actually the main predicates that receive the aspectual marking, and are able to license the durative phrases Therefore, the Prelated and the TS-related may never co-exist with each other because we have only one main predicate in each sentence This point again evidences the proposed analysis Conclusion I have shown the structures of the aspect and the durative phrases in Chinese and the interaction between semantics and syntax of aspect To summarize, the durative adverbs in Chinese can have three kinds of interpretations, namely, the TS-related, P-related, and RT19 Liao, Wei-wen related readings The interpretations can be attributed to the aspectual 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Objects, ed by Carol Tenny and James Pustejovsky 285-334 Standford, CA: CSLI Publications Tsai, Wei-tian Dylan 1994 On Economizing the Theory of A-bar Dependency Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation 22 ... checking In the next section, I discuss the placement of Chinese durative phrases in the structure of TAS 4.2 The Structure of the Chinese Durative Phrases Consider first the durative phrases of TS-related... prerequisite to understand the syntax of the two le’s (section 4.1) before we understand the syntax of the durative phrases (section 4.2) 4.1 The Structure of Chinese Aspect The question of Chinese le’s... evidences the proposed analysis Conclusion I have shown the structures of the aspect and the durative phrases in Chinese and the interaction between semantics and syntax of aspect To summarize, the durative