Chinese Descriptive and Resultative V-de Constructions. A Dependency-based Analysis

This contribution presents a dependency grammar (DG) analysis of the so-called descriptive and resultative V-de constructions in Mandarin Chinese (VDCs); it focuses, in particular, on the dependency analysis of the noun phrase that intervenes between the two predicates in a VDC. Two methods, namely chunking data collected from informants and two diagnostics specific to Chinese, i.e. bǎ and bèi sentence formation, were used. They were employed to discern which analysis should be preferred, i.e. the ternary-branching analysis, in which the intervening NP (NP2) is a dependent of the first predicate (P1), or the small-clause analysis, in which NP2 depends on the second predicate (P2). The results obtained suggest a flexible structural analysis for VDCs in the form of “NP1+P1-de+NP2+P2”. The difference in structural assignment is attributed to a semantic property of NP2 and the semantic relations it forms with adjacent predicates.