Auxiliary selection in Chinese*

This paper argues that the distribution of the two Chinese aspectual auxiliaries -Ie and -zhe in the locative inversion construction is determined by the semantics of the event, in particular the interaction of lexical aspect (telicity and stativity) and agentivity. The -le/-zhe alternation shows a gradient effect similar to the selection of perfective auxiliaries in Romance and Germanic (Sorace 2000), since telic verbs select -Ie, dynamic atelic verbs select and verbs that fall in between may show variable behavior depending on other factors. The fact that auxiliary selection with 'detransitivized' verbs (analogous to passives) is sensitive to the same semantic parameters is offered as evidence against a purely syntactic analysis of the -le/-zhe alternation.