An analysis of Chinese coverbs.

Abstract

This dissertation deals with Chinese coverbs, which have never been consistently defined by linguists. It consists of three parts. Chapter II ivestigates the reasons that the category of coverbs causes confusion. My findings are that coverbs share a syntactic slot (preceding the main verb and following the subject in a sentence) with ordinary verbs, which makes coverbs especially hard to distinguish from them. A second reason for confusion is that the syntactic slot for coverbs is not limited to only one position. There are other positions in which coverbs may occur. The third reason for confusion is that previous definitions of coverbs are too simplistic. In Chapter III, I use the distinction of 'argument' and 'adjunct' in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) to analyze the functions of putative coverbs. Coverbs have one or another of four functions: (1) They may introduce a subcategorized-for argument; (2) they may introduce an argument which is in a marked position; (3) they may introduce a verb phrase-modifying adjunct; and (4) they may introduce a sentence-modifying adjunct. I use eight syntactic and semantic tests to differentiate and identify the four major functions of coverbial phrases. My finding is that coverbs have different syntactic properties depending on which of these functions they serve. Therefore, one has to first know the function in the sentence of a putative coverb in order to correctly identify it as a coverb and to describe its syntactic behavior. In Chapter IV, I classify the putative coverbs. I show that they fall into many subgroups, and even within one and the same subgroup two coverbs still can have differing syntactic characteristics. I propose a new difinition of coverbs: Coverbs are a group of lexical items which as coverbs cannot occur independently as main verb in a sentence but which may overlap with other syntactic categories such as verb. They can have one or another of the above four functions in a sentence, and their syntactic behavior is determined by their function in the sentence.