Reconsidering Verbal Doubling in Chinese : Evidence for vP Movement in “lian...dou” Constructions = 중국어 동사 중복 구문 재고: lian…dou 구문에 나타난 vP 이동의 근거

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Verbal doubling in Mandarin Chinese, especially in lian...dou constructions, including both initial and internal verb-doubling forms, remains an underexplored area in the study of Chinese syntax. This dissertation investigates this phenomenon by addressing two key questions: (1) What triggers the movement underlying verb doubling in lian...dou constructions? and (2) What is the size of the constituent that undergoes displacement, and what insights does this provide into the mechanism of doubling?
Drawing on empirical data, the study first investigates the trigger of movement. Previous accounts that attribute doubling either to morphological fusion (Cheng & Vicente, 2013) or to a covert maximality operator (Constant & Gu, 2010) are critically evaluated as neither adequately explains the syntactic differences between initial and internal verb-doubling constructions. I propose that in internal lian...dou constructions, within the TP layer, it is the focus feature of dou that triggers movement, whereas in initial lian...dou constructions, a topic feature in the left periphery triggers movement to satisfy discourse-related licensing requirements, topicalization. Turning to the size of the displaced constituent, I challenge previous proposals of V-head or VP movement and instead argue for a vP-movement analysis, as diagnostics indicate that objects and aspectual markers can undergo fronting, and that the distribution of passive markers, modals, and negation aligns with a vP-sized constituent movement rather than a bare verb or VP movement. These results further indicate that vP, TopP, and DP function as phases in verb-doubling lian...dou constructions.
The phase-related results refine accounts of Mandarin phasehood and support the crosslinguistic view that phasehood is context-sensitive and dynamic (Bošković, 2014; den Dikken, 2007). The evidence of dual chain reduction, aligning with distributed deletion patterns reported in German (Fanselow & Ćavar, 2003) and Korean (Jung, 2005), demonstrates that verbal doubling is not purely a syntactic phenomenon but a syntax-PF interface effect. In this way, the data from Mandarin verb-doubling lian...dou constructions provide new insights into the architecture of grammar.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

중국어 만다린의 동사 중첩(동사 이중화) 현상, 특히 lian…dou 구문에서 나타나는 초기형 및 내부형 동사 중첩 형태는 중국어 통사론 연구에서 충분히 탐구되지 않은 영역이다. 본 논문은 이 현상에 대해 두 가지 주요 질문을 중심으로 분석한다. (1) lian…dou 구문에서 동사 중첩을 일으키는 이동의 유발 요인은 무엇인가? (2) 이동하는 구성요소의 크기는 얼마나 되며, 이것이 중첩 메커니즘에 대해 어떤 통찰을 제공하는가?
경험적 데이터를 토대로 본 연구는 먼저 이동의 유발 요인을 조사한다. 기존 연구들(Cheng & Vicente, 2013; Constant & Gu, 2010)은 동사 중첩의 원인을 형태론적 결합 또는 암묵적 최대화 연산으로 설명하지만, 이는 초기형과 내부형 동사 중첩 간의 통사적 차이를 충분히 설명하지 못한다. 본 논문은 TP 층위 내의 내부 lian…dou 구문에서는 dou의 초점 특징이 이동을 유발하며, 초기형 구문에서는 좌주변의 화제(topic) 특징이 담론상의 인허 요건, 즉 주제화(시험적 주제화)를 만족시키기 위해 이동을 유발한다고 제안한다.
이동하는 구성요소의 크기와 관련해서는, 기존의 V-핵이나 VP 이동 이론을 비판하고, vP 이동 분석을 주장한다. 진단적 특징은 목적어와 상적 표지(aspect marker)의 전치(fronting)가능성을, 또한 피동 표지(passive marker), 양태사(modal), 부정의 분포가 단순 동사 또는 VP 이동이 아닌 vP 크기의 구성요소 이동에 더 부합함을 보여준다. 이 결과는 추가로 vP, TopP, DP가 lian…dou 동사 중첩 구문에서 국면(phase)의 단위로 기능함을 시사한다.
국면(phase) 관련 결과는 만다린 단계성(phasehood) 분석을 세분화하며, 국면이 맥락에 따라 유동적이고 동적임을 보여주는 언어간 관점(Bošković, 2014; den Dikken, 2007)을 지지한다. 독일어(Fanselow & Ćavar, 2003)와 한국어(Jung, 2005)에서 보고된 분산 삭제 패턴과 정렬되는 이중 연쇄 축약(dual chain reduction) 증거는 동사 중첩이 단순한 통사적 현상이 아니라 통사-PF(음운형식) 인터페이스 효과임을 보여준다. 이와 같이, 만다린 동사 중첩 lian…dou 구문의 데이터는 문법 구조에 관한 새로운 통찰을 제공한다.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Chapter 1 Introduction 1
• 1.1 Background and Motivation 1
• 1.2 Research Questions 4
• 1.3 Theoretical and Empirical Significance 5
• 1.4 Structure of the Dissertation 7
• Chapter 2 Background and Theoretical Foundations 10
• 2.1 Descriptive Overview of liandou Constructions 10
• 2.1.1 Introduction to lian 11
• 2.1.2 Introduction to dou 16
• 2.1.3 Generalization of liandou Constructions 19
• 2.2 The Syntactic Structure of Mandarin Chinese and the Verb Phrase Hierarchy 28
• 2.2.1 Core Features of Mandarin Chinese Syntax 28
• 2.2.2 The Hierarchical Structure of the Verb Phrase in Mandarin 34
• 2.3 Theoretical Foundations 45
• 2.3.1 Topic and Focus Structures in Mandarin 46
• 2.3.2 The Copy Theory of Movement and Linearization 47
• 2.3.3 Phase Theory and Syntactic Movement 49
• Chapter 3 Review of Previous Studies 56
• 3.1 Previous Analyses of Nominal liandou Constructions 56
• 3.1.1 Analysis of liandou Construction Within IP+CP Domain 56
• 3.1.2 Analysis of liandou Construction Within CP Domain 69
• 3.2 Previous Analyses of Verb-Doubling liandou Constructions 73
• 3.2.1 Bare V-head Movement Approaches 74
• 3.2.2 Possible Partial Movement Driven by “Maximality” Operator 85
• 3.3 Other Related Works on liandou Constructions 89
• 3.3.1 The Derivation of VP Fronting 91
• 3.3.2 The Derivation of V Fronting 94
• 3.3.3 Reconsidering Post-Syntactic Movement in liandou Constructions 97
• 3.4 Limitations of Previous Analyses of liandou Constructions 98
• Chapter 4 Analysis: The Syntax and Derivation of Movement in Verb-Doubling liandou Constructions 100
• 4.1 Mechanisms of Movement 101
• 4.1.1 Examining the Size of the Moved Constituents 103
• 4.1.2 Exploring the Syntactic Movement Nature of liandou Constructions 126
• 4.1.3 Tree Structures of the Derivation Process of liandou Constructions 147
• 4.2 The Trigger of Movement 152
• 4.2.1 Focus Feature as a Trigger 154
• 4.2.2 Topic Feature as a Trigger 155
• Chapter 5 Syntactic Findings and Implications 157
• 5.1 Key Syntactic Findings 157
• 5.1.1 Fronted Constituents Extend Beyond the Verb Head 157
• 5.1.2 Object Fronting Precedes Remnant VP Movement 158
• 5.1.3 Aspectual Marker guo and Passive Marker bei Require Realization in the Base Position 160
• 5.1.4 Clause-Boundedness Differentiates Internal and Initial Constructions 160
• 5.1.5 Flexible Object Position Reflects Chain Reduction 161
• 5.2 Theoretical Implications 162
• 5.2.1 The Order Between Head Movement and Chain Reduction in Mandarin 162
• 5.2.2 Dual Chain Reduction and Phonological Realization in Mandarin Syntax 166
• 5.2.3 Reassessing Focus and Topic Features in Mandarin Syntax 172
• 5.2.4 Phase Boundaries and Movement Constraints in Mandarin Syntax 175
• 5.3 Additional Empirical Evidence from Verb Doubling Cleft Constructions 187
• 5.3.1 An Overview of Verb Doubling Clefts 187
• 5.3.2 The Syntactic Movement Mechanism of Verb Doubling Clefts 188
• Chapter 6 Conclusion 196
• 6.1 Overall Summary of the Study 196
• 6.2 Limitations of the Study 199
• 6.3 Suggestions for Future Research 200
• References 204
• Acknowledgement 212
• 국문초록 216