The Analysis of the Chinese Phrasal VR Constructions from the Perspective of Event Structure Theory

Abstract

There is a kind of Chinese VR (verb-resultative) constructions in which the meanings of verb and complement (stands as the “result”) are relatively independent and decomposable. We call it “phrasal VR construction”. Syntactic structures of this kind are various. The semantic orientations of complements are complicated. And there are some grammatical phenomena that have not been explained yet. After choosing four typical Chinese VR structures (“哭累” (cry-tired, being tired from crying), “哭湿” (cry-wet, being wet from crying), “洗累” (wash-tired, being tired from washing), and “推倒” (push over)), this article first described them in accordance with Levin & Rappaport’s event structure theory, and summarized the principles of the three participants’ prominence and recession. Then the article, by analyzing the projection process from the event structure to the syntactic structure, found the correspondence between the participants and the syntactic elements. Finally it gave interpretations to the unexplained grammatical phenomena.