Bianca Basciano | Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (original) (raw)

Books by Bianca Basciano

This volume provides a broad introduction to Chinese linguistics, offering an accessible synthesi... more This volume provides a broad introduction to Chinese linguistics, offering an accessible synthesis of the most relevant topics in the field. Despite the steady growth in interest in Chinese linguistics in recent years, this is one of very few books at introductory level written for a Western audience. The authors begin by outlining the history and typology of the Sinitic languages and the writing system of Chinese before moving on to discuss key topics in phonology, morphology and the lexicon, and syntax. Throughout the book, they incorporate and discuss examples from standard and non-standard varieties of Sinitic, and include new research on topics such as dialect writing, subjecthood, and word formation. The book will be a valuable reference both for researchers and scholars in the field of China studies and for linguists, including those with little or no previous knowledge of Chinese.

This volume collects papers presenting corpus-based research on Chinese language and linguistics,... more This volume collects papers presenting corpus-based research on Chinese language and linguistics, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. The contributions cover different fields of linguistics, including syntax and pragmatics, semantics, morphology and the lexicon, sociolinguistics, and corpus building. There is now considerable emphasis on the reliability of linguistic data: the studies presented here are all grounded in the tenet that corpora, intended as collections of naturally occurring texts produced by a variety of speakers/writers, provide a more robust, statistically significant foundation for linguistic analysis. The volume explores not only the potential of using corpora as tools allowing access to authentic language material, but also the challenges involved in corpus interrogation, analysis, and building.

Bologna: Pàtron, 2016

Sommario: Elenco delle abbreviazioni - periodizzazione della storia cinese - prefazione di Emanu... more Sommario:

Elenco delle abbreviazioni - periodizzazione della storia cinese - prefazione di Emanuele Banfi - le lingue cinesi: inquadramento storico e tipologico - la scrittura nella storia della Cina - i mille suoni del Paese di Mezzo - morfologia e lessico - cenni di sintassi - riferimenti bibliografici.ci.

Presentazione:

Quasi un abitante su cinque del nostro pianeta è parlante nativo di una lingua cinese. Oltre ad essere il paese più popoloso del mondo, nonché un gigante in ambito economico e geopolitico, la Cina è anche un universo linguistico straordinariamente complesso ed affascinante, popolato da un’enorme varietà di lingue e dialetti. Gli ultimi trenta anni hanno visto una crescita notevolissima degli studi sinologici, inclusi quelli linguistici, e le università e le scuole di lingua di tutto il mondo hanno registrato un’esplosione dell’interesse per la lingua e la cultura cinesi. Questo volume sintetizza i più importanti risultati e le questioni dibattute della lingusitica cinese, ed è rivolto non solo agli studenti e agli esperti di lingua cinese, ma anche a chi voglia iniziare o approfondire lo studio di tematiche inerenti il diasistema linguistico cinese: studenti e studiosi di linguistica, anche non specialisti di cinese, e sinologi attenti alla dimensione linguistica, interessati ad aggiornarsi su questa branca degli studi cinesi. La struttura del presente lavoro prevede che ogni tema sia trattato in prospettiva ‘pan-sinitica’, ovvero tenendo conto non solo della situazione della lingua standard, ma anche, per quanto possibile, dei cosiddetti ‘dialetti cinesi’, ovvero le lingue sinitiche diverse dallo standard nazionale. Inoltre, ove pertinente, si tiene conto della prospettiva diacronica, segnalando i fatti più rilevanti per l’evoluzione storica delle lingue cinesi. Questa impostazione, auspicabilmente, sarà utile per chi voglia avere una visione d’insieme del diasistema cinese in prospettiva tipologica e storico-linguistica.

Papers by Bianca Basciano

Studies on Chinese Language and Linguistics in Italy, 2023

This paper focuses on Mandarin Chinese complex deadjectival verbs formed with 弄nòng ‘make’ or 加ji... more This paper focuses on Mandarin Chinese complex deadjectival verbs formed with 弄nòng ‘make’ or 加jiā ‘increase’ as V1. Both 弄nòng and 加 jiā ‘have been analyzed as causative light verbs (see Basciano 2013, 2019). In particular, 弄 nòng ‘make’ is a causative light verb combining with different change of state verbs, including adjectives, while 加 jiā is the spell-out both of the causative component and of the increasing event in the logical representation of the complex verb, which is a degree achievement. Basciano (2019) observes that 弄 nòng ‘make’ may seemingly combine quite freely with adjectives, while 加 jiā only combines with open scale adjectives. In cases like the one in (1), 弄 nòng and 加 jiā combine with the same adjective, apparently with the same meaning. Following Rothstein (2008), Basciano speculates that 加 jiā specifies the direction of change, meaning ‘cause an increase in a certain property’, without specifying a value, while verbs formed with 弄 nòng specify a value in the property range, without specifying the direction, meaning ‘cause to have the value X in the property range’: 加热 jiā-rè ‘increase-hot, heat, warm up’ (‘cause an increase in temperature’) vs. 弄热 nòng-rè ‘make hot’ (‘cause to have a temperature value in the (contextually determined) hot range’). This paper aims at answering the following research questions: 1) are 弄 nòng and 加 jiā interchangeable in this kind of verbs? May 弄 nòng be freely attached to open scale adjectives? 2) Are 弄 nòng and 加 jiā used for different telic senses of degree achievements? In order to answer these questions, I will explore this issue through a corpus investigation based on the BCC corpus of Modern Chinese (Beijing Language and Culture University, 15 billion characters). Through this investigation I will show that: 1) aspectually, 弄 nòng and 加 jiā display different properties: differently from 加 jiā, 弄 nòng cannot be found with the durative aspect marker, with ‘for X time’ expressions, and with resultative 到 dào ‘up to’. 2) 弄 nòng is allowed only with open scale adjectives which have both the comparative endstate and a standard endstate and not with those which only have a comparative endstate. Based on Kearns’ (2007) account of degree achievements, I argue that when 弄 nòng and 加 jiā attach to the same (open scale) adjective, 弄 nòng always marks the telic (accomplishment) sense, i.e. ‘cause to become X’ (the interpretation of the implicature is given by the standard value of the property). In contrast, complex verbs formed with 加 jiā are basically atelic, but also have the telic achievement sense ‘cause to become X-er’ (comparative endstate).

The main aim of this paper is to underpin the connection between the semantic relationship bindin... more The main aim of this paper is to underpin the connection between the semantic relationship binding the constituents of verbs and the formal and semantic properties of their reduplication in Sinitic. We will first discuss in detail verbal and adjectival reduplication in Standard Mandarin, the best described Chinese language; we also collected data on adjectives, in order to compare them to verbs. Then, we will discuss data from a convenience sample of twelve Chinese 'dialects', representing the eight major groups of Sinitic, comparing them to Mandarin. We will show that whereas the ABAB reduplication pattern often has a (counter-iconic) diminishing meaning and appears as close(r) to syntax, being also sensitive to the aspectual properties of the base, the AABB pattern always has an increasing function, regardless of the word class of the base, and it is a phenomenon conditioned by morphological factors, being sensitive to the relation holding between the constituents of the b...

Corpus-Based Research on Chinese Language and Linguistics, 2020

In the past decades, corpus-based research has been gaining momentum in contemporary linguistics.... more In the past decades, corpus-based research has been gaining momentum in contemporary linguistics. While corpora, intended as large collections of naturally occurring texts, have always existed, rapid advances in computation and technology have provided tools for faster and more effective corpus construction and consultation. Chinese makes no exception: corpus data are now considered among the
main resource for many linguists, while large-scale surveys are beginning to be taken as an important tool for linguistic investigation.

Corpus-Based Research on Chinese Language and Linguistics, 2020

In the last few decades, under the influence of foreign languages and net-speak, many word-format... more In the last few decades, under the influence of foreign languages and net-speak, many word-formation patterns emerged in the Chinese lexicon. This paper proposes a corpus-based investigation of three suffixes, i.e. 族-zú, 党-dǎng, and 客-kè, which build words indicating persons with certain characteristics or behaviour, or doing a certain activity. The paper aims at describing and comparing the three word-formation patterns based on these suffixes. It also aims at describing their evolution over time and their grammaticalisation path. In addition, it discusses the diffusion of the three patterns in Chinese and compares their productivity. Summary 1 Introduction.-2 Derivation in Mandarin Chinese.-3 Description of the Three Word-Formation Patterns.-3.1 X-族 zú Words.-3.2 X-党 dǎng Words.-3.3 X-客 kè Words.-3.4 Are X-族 zú and X-党 dǎng Words Collective Nouns?-4 On the Development of 族 zú, 党 dǎng and 客 kè.-4.1 The Evolution of 族 zú.-4.2 The Evolution of 党 dǎng.-4.3 The Evolution of 客 kè.-4.4 A Comparison of the Three Word-Formation Patterns.-5 A Comparison of the Productivity of 族-zú, 党-dǎng and 客-kè.-6 Conclusions. Sinica venetiana 6 240

CAHIERS DE LINGUISTIQUE ASIE ORIENTALE, 2019

Accessible at: https://iris.unive.it/handle/10278/3716399#.YiXB0O7MKEt

In Alberto Manco (ed.), Le lingue extra-europee e l’italiano: aspetti didattico-acquisizionali e sociolinguistici. Atti del LI Congresso Internazionale di Studi della Società di Linguistica Italiana (Napoli, 28-30 settembre 2017), Officina21, Milano, 2018 , 2018

La delimitazione aspettuale in italiano e cinese mandarino: uno studio comparativo In questo cont... more La delimitazione aspettuale in italiano e cinese mandarino: uno studio comparativo In questo contributo sarà esaminata una classe eterogenea di costruzioni morfosintattiche in due lingue tipologicamente distanti, l'italiano e il cinese mandarino. In particolare, saranno analizzate le costruzioni formate da un verbo supporto e un nome di evento in -ata in italiano e la reduplicazione verbale con valore delimitativo in cinese, che hanno entrambe la funzione di delimitare temporalmente un evento atelico. Attraverso l'analisi comparativa di queste costruzioni, si mostrerà come esse siano paragonabili sia dal punto di vista strutturale che nella funzione e nel contenuto semantico.

The lexeme in descriptive and theoretical morphology, 2018

In this chapter, we shed new light on the reduplicative processes of Mandarin Chinese and assess ... more In this chapter, we shed new light on the reduplicative processes of Mandarin Chinese and assess the structural and interpretive properties of the input/base and output of these word formation phenomena. In particular, we focus on the categorial status of the base and address the issue of whether reduplication applies to category-free roots or full-fledged lex-emes. Empirically, the privileged domain of research is increasing reduplication of disyllabic bases, or, as we dub it in the chapter, the AABB pattern, which is compared with diminishing reduplication, expressed by the template ABAB. The comparison between the two phenomena allows us to show that increasing and diminishing reduplication differ in the nature of the input units involved. On the grounds of a wide-ranging class of data, we argue that Mandarin reduplication takes base units of different 'size': word/lexeme-like units provided with category, namely verbs in the case of diminishing reduplication, and categoryless roots in the case of increasing reduplication. Throughout the chapter, we explore some category neutral properties of increasing reduplication and propose a unitary semantic operation capable to derive the various interpretive nuances of this phenomenon across lexical categories.

In G. Booj (ed. ), The Construction of Words. Advances in Construction Morphology, 2018

The lexicon of Modern Chinese is characterised by a preponderance of multimorphemic words, which ... more The lexicon of Modern Chinese is characterised by a preponderance of multimorphemic words, which are typically built from lexical morphemes, either bound or free. Compounding, broadly understood as the combination of two or more lexical morphemes, is by far the most common word formation device in the modern language. While drawing a sharp boundary between compounding and derivation for Chinese has proven difficult, there are indeed a number of items which possess derivation-like features, including bound status, fixed position, and a stable, often bleached meaning. Moreover, bound items, sometimes without morphemic status, may acquire the meaning of a word as part of a construction, and generate new words and constructions with that acquired meaning. In this chapter, we will apply the principles of CxM to the analysis of Chinese complex words, showing how a constructional approach may best explain several phenomena which are characteristic of Chinese word formation, including the genesis of new meanings for lexical morphemes as part of word formation schemas, rather than in isolation. Also, we will show that the parameter of headedness in compounding may not be set for the language as a whole, but is rather specified in schemas.

DEADLINE EXTENDED - Call for papers of the 'Fifth edition of the Study Days on Chinese Linguistic... more DEADLINE EXTENDED - Call for papers of the 'Fifth edition of the Study Days on Chinese Linguistics', which will be held at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy, on November 23 and 24, 2018.
Invited speaker: Marie-Claude Paris, Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7
Abstract submission deadline extended: April 30, 2018

https://linguisticacinese.wixsite.com/ailc/conference-information

Sulla via del Catai (SUONI E COLORI L'EUROPA SCOPRE LA MULTIETNICITA' E IL PLURILINGUISMO DELLA CINA), 2017

This paper aims at providing a short overview of the Chinese language varieties. It first highlig... more This paper aims at providing a short overview of the Chinese language varieties. It first highlights the reasons behind the choice to consider Sinitic languages as varieties strictly related to a single Chinese language. It then pres- ents the classification of Chinese dialectal groups and it stresses the importance of language contact in shaping the differences between Northern and Southern dialects. Fi- nally, it briefly addresses the topic of which Chinese lan- guage was represented in missionary works.

In Istvan Kecskes & Sun Chaofen (eds.), Key Issues in Chinese as a Second Language Research. New York: Routledge, 2017

In Clara Bulfoni (ed.), Linguistica cinese: tendenze e prospettive. Milano: Unicopli. , 2016

In Sandra Augendre, Graziella Couasnon-Torlois, Déborah Lebon, Clément Michard, Gilles Boyé & Fabio Montermini (eds.), Proceedings of the Décembrettes 8th International conference on morphology (Carnets de grammaire, CLLE-ERSS), 2014

Studies in Language , 2015

The topic of reduplication in Sinitic languages has attracted much attention in the literature, b... more The topic of reduplication in Sinitic languages has attracted much attention in the literature, but studies adopting a comparative and areal perspective are still lacking. This paper aims to analyse the correlations between form and function in reduplicating constructions in a sample of twenty Sinitic languages, representing eight branches of the family, comparing them to a set of fourteen non-Sinitic languages of the East-and Southeast Asian area. We will show that the various semantic nuances conveyed by reduplicated verbs could be argued to derive from the core meaning of verbal reduplication as iteration of an event, either over a bounded or an unbounded timespan. On the structural level, a pervasive feature of reduplication lies in its compliance to strict requirements on the morphological makeup of the base. This holds especially in the case of the reduplica-tion of disyllabic and bimorphemic verbs with increasing semantics, a consistent pattern across our sample.

Bologna: Pàtron, 2016

Sommario: Elenco delle abbreviazioni - periodizzazione della storia cinese - prefazione di Emanu... more Sommario:

Presentazione:

Studies on Chinese Language and Linguistics in Italy, 2023

Corpus-Based Research on Chinese Language and Linguistics, 2020

CAHIERS DE LINGUISTIQUE ASIE ORIENTALE, 2019

Accessible at: https://iris.unive.it/handle/10278/3716399#.YiXB0O7MKEt

The lexeme in descriptive and theoretical morphology, 2018

In G. Booj (ed. ), The Construction of Words. Advances in Construction Morphology, 2018

https://linguisticacinese.wixsite.com/ailc/conference-information

Sulla via del Catai (SUONI E COLORI L'EUROPA SCOPRE LA MULTIETNICITA' E IL PLURILINGUISMO DELLA CINA), 2017

In Istvan Kecskes & Sun Chaofen (eds.), Key Issues in Chinese as a Second Language Research. New York: Routledge, 2017

In Clara Bulfoni (ed.), Linguistica cinese: tendenze e prospettive. Milano: Unicopli. , 2016

Studies in Language , 2015

In Clara Bulfoni, Jin Zhigang, Emma Lupano & Bettina Mottura (eds.), 文心 wenxin. L'essenza della scrittura. Contributi in onore di Alessandra Cristina Lavagnino. Milano: Franco Angeli, 2017

In Rint Sybesma, Wolfgang Behr, Yueguo Gu, Zev Handel, C.-T. James Huang & James Myers (eds.), Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill., 2017

Italian Journal of Linguistics, 2017

Mandarin verbal reduplication is generally regarded as a phenomenon conveying an aspectual value ... more Mandarin verbal reduplication is generally regarded as a phenomenon conveying an aspectual value since it temporally bounds the event expressed by the base verb, thus resulting in a (counter-iconic) 'diminishing' semantics. In this paper, we put forward a novel syntactic account of diminishing reduplica-tion in Mandarin, which derives the aspectual semantic properties of these constructs from the syntax of their event structure. In particular, we outline an analysis of reduplication as the spell out of two copies of the same lexical item, whereby the reduplicant is the lower copy sitting as the complement of the verbal head (higher copy), and displaying the distributional and inter-pretive properties of 'weak' verbal classifiers. Focusing on the status of the reduplicant, we present distributional, interpretive and diachronic evidence in support of our analysis. *

Brand names are a crucial component of marketing strategies, since they influence brand perceptio... more Brand names are a crucial component of marketing strategies, since they influence brand perception. Chinese consumers seem to be very sensitive to brand names, and thus the choice of an effective brand name is very important for the acceptance of a particular product or service by the public. Generally speaking, there seems to be a tendency towards localization of brand names: foreign brand names undergo adaptation to various degrees in order to meet the needs of the Chi-nese consumers. A good knowledge of the Chinese language and culture is essential to understand brand naming practices in the Chinese-speaking world and to create suitable Chinese versions of foreign brand names. Here the main linguistic strategies adopted for the creation of Chinese brand names and for the translation of foreign brand names into Chinese are discussed, also highlighting some cultural factors which affect brand naming creation.

Advertising is an interesting site of linguistic creation and language contact. Code-mixing in Ch... more Advertising is an interesting site of linguistic creation and language contact. Code-mixing in Chinese advertising is a powerful tool by means of which copywriters may create a more effective message and, at the same time, it is also a factor in the construction of social identity. Through the analysis of Chinese advertisements in the PRC and Hong Kong, an overview of the role and functions of Chinese dialects and English in code-mixing practices in provided. Besides serving pragmatic functions, dialects emerge as an important part of Chinese cultural heritage and are able to convey a sense of familiarity and authenticity; in contrast, English may be used in the construction of a modern and global identity. Whereas code-mixing in the PRC is constrained by policies aimed at spreading the standard language and at preserving the purity of the Chinese language, the situation seems quite different in Hong Kong, because of the peculiar linguistic and
political situation of this region.

In this talk we will propose a syntactic analysis of Mandarin verbal reduplication, as e.g. 看(一)看... more In this talk we will propose a syntactic analysis of Mandarin verbal reduplication, as e.g. 看(一)看
kàn (一 yi) kan ‘have a look’ and 介绍介绍 jièshào-jièshào ‘introduce/present a little’, focusing on
the nature of the reduplicant.
Verbal reduplication in Mandarin has been widely studied and it is generally said to convey the socalled
'delimitative' aspect (e.g. Chao 1968, Li & Thompson 1981, Tsao 2004). We claim that this
kind of reduplication is a syntactic phenomenon, and does not form lexical units (vs. Hong 1999,
Paris 2013), basing on the following:

its sensitivity to the aspectual structure of its input (on the basis that thematic and aspectual
requirements are directy encoded in syntax; e.g. Travis 2000, Borer 2005, Ramchand 2008):
it only applies to verbs expressing [+controlled, +dynamic, +durative] situations which,
crucially, lack an inherent result state. It therefore excludes achievement, resultative and
(most) state verbs (see Tsao 2004).
the occurrence of the perfective aspect marker 了 le between the base and the reduplicant,
which challenges the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis (see Lapointe 1979);
historical cues, which show that in previous stages of the language the verb and the
reduplicant could actually be separated by an intervening object (see Ōta 1987):

(1) 大官人……不進裡面看他看兒。(金瓶梅 Jīnpíngméi)
dàguānrén …… bù jìn lǐmiàn kàn tā kàn-r
Your Honor not enter inside look he look-SUFF
‘Your Honor….don’t you want to enter and have a look?’

We argue that the reduplicant adds a [+bounded] temporal path to the [-bounded] situation codified
by the base verb. This is proven by the fact that reduplicated verbs, differently from the base verbs,
are incompatible with the progressive aspect marker (正)在 (zhèng)zài and the durative aspect
marker 着 zhe, but are fully compatible with the perfective aspect marker 了 le. We will propose a
syntactic analysis of verbal reduplication, adopting the constructionist framework put forth by
Ramchand (2008), based on a syntactic decomposition of the event structure, according to which
the reduplicant occupies a dedicated position in the the complex structure of vP, identifying the
bounded (temporal) path of the base verb. This analysis is able to provide a straightforward
explanation for the incompatibility between result state and verbal reduplication, since, as we will
show, the result state and the reduplicant would be base-generated in the same structural position.
We will also show the interplay between the reduplicant and different syntactic objects.
As for the categorial status of the reduplicant, we claim that the reduplicant acts as a measure
phrase (see Rothstein 2011). This analysis rests upon the high degree of categorial ambiguity
displayed by Chinese lexical items (see e.g. Kwong and Tsou 2003) and on historical cues, which
seem to suggest that in previous stages of the language the reduplicant had noun-like features (see
ex. 1). We will then propose a parallel between the reduplicant and cognate objects for all instances
of verbal reduplication (cf. Hong 1999, who only considers 一yi V in the V一yi V pattern of
reduplication as an instance of a cognate object construction).
References
Borer H. (2005). In Name Only. Structuring Sense (Volume I). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chao Y. (1968). A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
Hong Z. (1999). “Cognate objects in Chinese”. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 17: 263-
284.
Kwong O.Y. & B.K. Tsou (2003). "Categorial Fluidity in Chinese and its Implications for Part-ofspeech
Tagging". In Proceedings of the Research Note Sessions of the 10th Conference of the
European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL-03). Budapest, Hungary,
2003, 115-118.
Lapointe S. (1979). “A Lexical Analysis of the English Auxiliary Verb System”. GLOT 2: 215-254.
Li C.N. & S.A.Thompson (1981). Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Ōta, T. (1958). 中国语历史文法 [A historical grammar of Modern Chinese]. Beijing: Peking
University Press.
Paris, M.-C. (2013). “Verbal reduplication and verbal classifiers in Chinese”. In Cao G., H.
Chappell, R. Djanouri and Thekla Wiebusch (eds.), Breaking Down the Barriers: Interdisciplinary
Studies in Chinese Linguistics and Beyond. Language and Linguistics monograph series 50.
Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, 257-278.
Ramchand G. (2008). Verb meaning and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rothstein S. (2011). “Counting, measuring and the semantics of classifiers”. In Partee, B.H.,
Glanzberg, M., & Skilters, J. (eds.), Formal semantics and pragmatics. Discourse, context and
models. The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, Vol. 6 (2010).
Manhattan, KS: New Prairie Press, 1-42.
Travis L. (2000). “Event structure in syntax”. In C. Tenny, J. Pustejovsky (eds.), Events as
Grammatical Objects: The Converging Perspectives of Lexical Semantics and Syntax . Stanford,
CA: CSLI Publications, 145–185.
Tsao F. (2004). “Semantics and Syntax of Verbal and Adjectival Reduplication in Mandarin and
Taiwanese Southern Min” in H. Chappell (ed.), Sinitic grammar: Synchronic and diachronic
perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 285–308.

The Mandarin suffix −化 −huà is a very productive element in Modern Chinese morphology (Arcodia & ... more The Mandarin suffix −化 −huà is a very productive element in Modern Chinese morphology (Arcodia & Basciano 2012). Traditionally, −化 −huà is considered to be the rough equivalent of Eng. −ize, −ify, and is generally regarded as an import from Japan which entered the Chinese lexicon following the May Fourth Movement (Wang 1980; but cf. Arcodia 2012); however, the suffix is now largely independent from its English counterparts (Steffen Chung 2006).
The suffix −化 −huà can attach to items belonging to any major word class, but it is typically used with adjectives and nouns. A notable property of −化 −huà verbs is that some of them are always transitive, as 醜化 chǒu-huà ‘to uglify’, whereas others can display the causative/inchoative alternation, as 弱化 ruò-huà, ‘grow feeble’, ‘weaken’; on the other hand, there are virtually no cases of intransitive-only derivates. Previous accounts divided −化 −huà verbs in clear-cut sets, mostly based on their syntactic behaviour: for instance, Zhou (1991) proposes that there are three sets, namely intransitive, transitive and alternating: in his analysis, the difference lies in whether the change of state can be conceived as occurring spontaneously and/or as being caused by an external force (see also Zhang 2002, Zhang & Song 2007).
In this talk we will skectch a new analysis of −化 −huà derived verbs, focussing on their semantic restrictions and features. Basing on data collected from web corpora, press articles, novels, etc., we will show that verbs classified as intransitive by previous authors actually may have transitive usage, and thus their analyses are empirically untenable. We propose that −化 −huà verbs typically have a dyadic structure, and the causative reading is the basic one: in those verbs undergoing the causative alternation, detransitivization is possible when the event can be conceived as occurring spontaneously; if the event is not conceived as occurring spontaneously, then only the transitive structure is available (Tang 2002). We thus assume that the direction of the derivation is from causative to inchoative (Levin & Rappaport 1995, Reinhart 2002).
However, there is also a subset of −化 −huà verbs for which the inchoative interpretation appears to be more prominent, as e.g. 僵化 jiānghuà ‘to become rigid’, which are mostly numbered among intransitive-only verbs in the above mentioned classifications. We argue that these verbs can be actually conceived either as internally- or externally-caused change-of-state verbs: as internally-caused changes of state, they mostly do not allow modification by 自己 zìjǐ / 自身 zìshēn ‘by itself’ (*她的全身自己僵化了 *tā de quánshēn zìjǐ jiānghuà-le ‘her whole body stiffened by itself’) and the causative version is possible only when the event can be conceived as externally caused (e.g.刺骨的寒風慢慢僵化了他的全身cìgǔ de hánfēng mànmàn jiānghuà-le tā de quánshēn ‘the icy wind slowly stiffened her whole body’). Thus, these verbs seem to fall outside the scope of the causative alternation proper.

Cited works

Arcodia, G.F. & Basciano, B. (2012), On the productivity of the Chinese affixes −兒 −r, −化 −huà and −頭 −tou. “Taiwan Journal of Linguistics” 10, 89-118.
Arcodia, G.F. (2012), Lexical Derivation in Mandarin Chinese. Taipei: Crane.
Levin, B. & Rappaport Hovav, M. (1995), Unaccusativity at the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.
Reinhart, T. (2002), The Theta System - An Overview. “Theoretical Lingusitics” 28, 229-290.
Steffen Chung, K. (2006), Mandarin Compound Verbs. Taipei: Crane.
Tang, T. (2002), 漢語派生動詞‘......化’的概念結構與語法功能. “Zhongguo Yuwen Yanjiu” 13, 9-25.
Wang, L. (1980 [1957]), 漢語史稿. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.
Zhang, Y.F. & Song, J. (2007), “化”尾動詞構成的致使語態句分析. “Fudan Xuebao” 4, 105-110.
Zhang, Y.Q. (2002), “化” 尾動詞功能弱化的等級序列. “Zhongguo Yuwen” 1, 50-54.
Zhou, G. (1991), 也議帶後綴“化”的詞. “Hanyu Xuexi” 6, 12-15.

Corpora

Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese
Corpus of the Centre for Chinese Linguistics, PKU

Most researchers agree that Mandarin Chinese has states (e.g. 愛 ài ‘love’) and activities (e.g. 跑... more Most researchers agree that Mandarin Chinese has states (e.g. 愛 ài ‘love’) and activities (e.g. 跑 pǎo ‘run’), but whether it also has accomplishments and achievements is more controversial. There is a strong tradition, which started with Tai and Chou (1975) and Chu (1976), which claims that Chinese verbs are generally “non-implicative” and that implication must be expressed by “separate syntactic devices” (Chu 1976). Tai (1984) adds that to imply the attainment of a result Chinese has to resort to complex verbs, more precisely to resultative compounds, in which the first element indicates an action and the second element indicates its result, as e.g. 寫完 xiě-wán ‘write-finish’. In this talk I will address this issue, focusing particularly on the class of accomplishments, and I will support the view according to which Mandarin does have simple achievements and accomplishments (see Soh & Kuo 2005).
I will then focus on the issue of telicity in resultative compounds, showing that not all the so-called resultative compounds imply telicity, i.e. the attainment of a result. In particular, I will focus on the two classes of resultative compounds singled out by Yong (1997): 1) simple change resultatives, as e.g. 打破 dǎ-pò ‘hit-break, break’, 學會 xué-huì ‘study-know, learn’; 2) complex change resultatives, as e.g. 拉長 lā-cháng ‘pull-long, lengthen’, 放大 fàng-dà ‘put-big, enlarge’. Simple change resultatives behave like English achievements, since they undergo an instantaneous change of state, but, differently from achievements, they allow a process preliminary to the final change; complex change resultatives do not display the instantaneous properties of achievements and allow a gradual development of the action. Both types are incompatible with the durative aspect marker, but complex change resultatives allow the progressive, while simple change resultatives do not. This suggests that the two types of resultatives have different eventive structures. I will propose a syntactic analysis, arguing that only simple change resultatives imply a result, while complex change resultatives can be considered as degree achievements, able to describe a gradual change of state, which are ambiguous between being telic and atelic (see e.g. Hay et al. 1999, Kearns 2007, Rothstein 2008).

References
Chu, Chauncey C. (1976). "Some semantic aspects of action verbs". Lingua 40: 43–54.
Hay, J., Kennedy, C. & Levin, B. (1999). “Scalar structure underlies telicity in "degree achievements"”. In T. Mathewsand & D. Strolovitch (eds.), SALT IX. Ithaca: CLC Publications, 127–144.
Kearns, Kate (2007). "Telic Senses of Deadjectival Verbs". Lingua: 26–66.
Rothstein, Susan (2004). Structuring Events: A Study in the Semantics of Lexical Aspect. Oxford: Blackwell.
Soh, Hooi Ling & Jenny Yi-Chun Kuo (2005). “Perfective Aspect and Accomplishment Situations in Mandarin Chinese”. In Angeliek van Hout, Henriette de Swart & Henk Verkuyl (eds.), Perspectives on Aspect. Dordrecht: Springer, 199-216.
Tai, James H.-Y. & Jane Y. Chou (1975). “On the Equivalent of ‘Kill’ in Mandarin Chinese”. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 10 (2): 48–52.
Tai, James H.-Y. (1984). "Verbs and Times in Chinese: Vendler’s four categories". In David Testen, Veena Mishra & Joseph Drogo (eds.), Papers from the Parasession on Lexical Semantics. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 289-296.
Yong, S. (1997). “The grammatical functions of verb complements in Mandarin Chinese”. Linguistics 35 :1-24.

Mandarin verbal reduplication (VR), e.g. kàn-kan ‘look-look, have a look’, and adjectival redupli... more Mandarin verbal reduplication (VR), e.g. kàn-kan ‘look-look, have a look’, and adjectival reduplication (AR), e.g. gāo-gāo ‘tall-tall, rather/very tall’, have been widely discussed in the literature (e.g. Tang 1988, Tsao 2004). However, many aspects are still under debate (e.g. Wang & Xie 2009, Liu 2013).
In this paper we will propose a syntactic account both for VR and AR, and we will argue that they are both processes affecting boundedness.

Verbs:
1. VR is sensitive to the aspectual structure of the base verb but not to its morphological structure.
2. VR turns an unbounded event into a (temporally) bounded one.

We will propose, adopting Ramchand’s (2008) constructionist framework, that the reduplicant occupies a dedicated syntactic position in the complex structure of vP, providing a bounded (temporal) path to the base verb.

Adjectives:
1. AR requires gradable bases (e.g. Paul 2010, Liu 2013).
2. AR of disyllabic bases (AABB) is morphologically constrained (see Paul 2010); the constituents of the base must be either coordinate or headless.
3. AR affects boundedness, understood as linked to gradability (Paradis 2001, Alexiadou 2010): reduplication turns a gradable adjective into a non gradable one.

We will argue that AR is not a purely morphological phenomenon (cf. Paul 2010): its input is morphological conditioned, but it can be accounted for in syntax. Basing on the idea that AR conveys a kind of degree meaning (see Liu 2013), we will follow Alexiadou’s (2010) syntactic analysis, claiming that AR is an instantiation of the specific degree of a scalar adjective through Move. Extending this analysis to disyllabic adjectives, we will argue that the AABB pattern results from phonological adjustment. In contrast, the adjectival ABAB pattern (e.g. xuěbái ‘snow-white’→xuěbái-xuěbái) is a distinct phenomenon: the modifier (A) of the compound AB base is itself an instantiation of degree (the AB base, indeed, is not gradable), thus ABAB reduplication cannot be accounted for in terms of gradability/boundedness.

Cited works
Alexiadou A. (2010). “Reduplication and doubling contrasted: implications for the structure of the DP and the AP”. Linguística – Revista de Estudos Linguĺsticos de Universidade do Porto 5: 9-25.
Liu C.-S. L. (2013). “Reduplication of adjectives in Chinese: a default state”. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 22: 101-132.
Paradis C. (2001). “Adjectives and boundedness”. Cognitive linguistics 12 (1): 47-65.
Paul W. (2010). “Adjectival modification in Mandarin Chinese and related issues”. Linguistics 43 (4): 759-793.
Ramchand G. (2008). Verb meaning and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tang T. 1988. “国语形容词的重叠规律”. In T. Tang (ed), 汉语词法句法论集. Taipei: Student Book, 29-57.
Tsao F. (2004). “Semantics and Syntax of Verbal and Adjectival Reduplication in Mandarin and Taiwanese Southern Min”. In H. Chappell (ed.), Sinitic grammar: Synchronic and diachronic perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, 285–308.
Wang G. & X. Xie (eds.) 2009. 汉语重叠问题. Wuhan: Huazhong Shifan Daxue Chubanshe.

It has often been claimed that Chinese does not have an independent class of adjectives, which ar... more It has often been claimed that Chinese does not have an independent class of adjectives, which are seen by many authors as a subclass of verbs (cf. Li & Thompson 1981, Hengeveld 1992, Tang 1998, among others). In this talk, we shall first provide evidence for the status of adjectives as an independent word-class in Mandarin Chinese, both as the instantiation of a universal prototype (Croft 2000, 2001) and as a language-specific category, following Paul’s (2005, 2010) distributional analysis. Secondly, we shall show that the category of adjectives in Mandarin Chinese includes at least two subclasses, namely predicative adjectives (“verb-like” adjectives), as e.g. 小 xiǎo ‘little’, and non-predicative adjectives (non-verb-like; cf. Lü & Rao 1981), i.e. those property-denoting words which can neither fill a nominal slot nor be stand-alone predicates but may act as modifiers of a noun, as 良性 liángxìng ‘positive, benign’ (cf. Li 1996); most of the ‘verby’ features which are typically attributed to adjectives clearly do not apply to the latter subclass. We shall also discuss the category of “non-attributive” or “predicative-only” adjectives (Hu 1979, Deng, Wang & Li 1996), as 妥 tuǒ, i.e. property-denoting words which should never be used as modifiers of a noun, but only as intransitive predicates, and we shall argue that they actually do not represent a separate (sub-)class in Mandarin Chinese, as they often behave just as ‘regular’ adjectives. Moreover, we shall show that a set of (predicative) adjectives may actually behave as inchoative verbs (e.g. 我胖了 wǒ pàng-le ‘I put on weight’), but their two categorial identities are easily separated. We will then discuss the implications of this theoretical issue for teaching Chinese as a second language: to this end, we shall propose an overview of how adjectives are treated in a sample of recent Chinese-language, English-language and Italian-language coursebooks and reference materials (descriptive grammars, etc.) for language learners.

Cited works

Croft, William. 2000. “Parts of speech as language universals and as language-particular categories”. Approaches to the Typology of Word Classes ed. by Petra M. Vogel & Bernard Comrie, 65-102. Berlin-New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deng Xiaoyong, Qilong Wang & Jian Li. 1996. “A statistical study of special adjectives”. Pan-Asiatic Linguistics: proceedings of the fourth international symposium on languages and linguistics, 232-241. Mahidol University at Salaya.
Hengeveld, Kees. 1992. “Parts of Speech”. Layered Structure and Reference in a Functional Perspective ed. by Michael D. Fortescue, Peter Harder & Lars Kristoffersen, 29-56. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Hu, Mingyang. 1979. 北京话初探 (A preliminary study of the Peking dialect). Beijing: Shangwu Yinshuguan.
Li, Charles N. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. Mandarin Chinese. A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Li, Yuming. 1996. 非谓形容词的词类地位 (“Lexical category of non-predicative adjectives”). Zhongguo Yuwen 1.
Lü, Shuxiang & Changrong Rao. 1981. 试论非谓形容词 (“Tentative remarks on non-predicative adjectives”). Zhongguo Yuwen 2. 81-90.
Paul, Waltraud. 2005. “Adjectival modification in Mandarin Chinese and related issues”. Linguistics 43. 757- 793.
Paul, Waltraud. 2010. “Adjectives in Mandarin Chinese: The rehabilitation of a much ostracized category”. Adjectives. Formal analyses in Syntax and Semantics ed. by Patricia Cabredo Hofherr & Ora Matushansky, 115-152. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Tang, Sze-Wing. 1998. Parametrization of features in syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Irvine.

In this paper we will take into account two kinds of Mandarin resultative compounds (Yong 1997): ... more In this paper we will take into account two kinds of Mandarin resultative compounds (Yong 1997): simple change resultatives (1), which express an instantaneous change but allow a process preliminary to the final change, and complex change resultatives (2), which allow a gradual development, with different stages, toward a predetermined culmination.

(1) dǎ-pò 'hit-break, break'
(2) lā-cháng 'pull-long'

According to Yong, while all resultative compounds are incompatible with the durative aspect marker zhe, the two kinds of resultatives in (1) and (2) differ in their (un-)ability to be used with the progressive marker zài/zhèngzài, which is generally allowed only with activities but ungrammatical with achievements, i.e. it is incompatible with the encoding of a result (see Xiao & McEnery 2004). While simple change resultatives never allow the progressive, complex change resultatives do allow the progressive, e.g. zài cā-gān 'PROG wipe-dry', zài lā-cháng 'PROG pull-long'; see (3):

(3) wājuéjī zhèngzài wā-kuān lùjī
escavator PROG dig-wide roadbed
'The escavator is digging the road wide' (www.baiyang.gov.cn/news/xinmao/2011/623/J761.shtml)

To account for these differences, we will propose a syntactic analysis along the lines of those proposed by Ramchand (2008), Son & Svenonius (2008), and Basciano (2010) for Chinese resultative compounds, which are similar in spirit to Sybesma's (1999) small-clause approach. The event structure can be decomposed into a maximum of three subevents: the causing subevent, the process subevent (the core of dynamic predicates) and the result subevent, which provides a telos. Lexical items contain category features, which allow particular configurations to be built. We will show how this kind of decomposition enables to account for the different behaviour of the compounds at issue, capturing the differences at the structural level. We will argue that only compounds like those in (1) actually have a result in their event structure, thus being real resultatives, while those in (2) do not necessarily have a resultative layer in their eventive structure. This is possible due to the nature of the V2 involved: while pò 'break' in (1) is a change of state verb that necessarily possesses a [+result] feature, result constituents like the one in (2) can be considered as degree achievements (see Tham 2009), since they are able to express gradual change of state and, as such, do not necessarily entail result (see e.g. Hay, Kennedy & Levin 1999). We will show that the different properties of the V2s involved would lead to different structures, resulting in different aspectual behaviour too.

References

BASCIANO, B. (2010). Verbal compounding and causativity in Mandarin Chinese. PhD dissertation, University of Verona.
HAY, J., C. KENNEDY & B. LEVIN (1999). Scalar structure underlies telicity in "degree achievements". In T. Matthews & D. Strolovitch (eds.), SALT IX. Ithaca: CLC Publications, 127–144.
RAMCHAND, G. C. (2008). Verb Meaning and the Lexicon: A First-Phase Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SON, M. & P. SVENONIUS (2008). Microparameters of cross-linguistic variation: Directed motion and resultatives. In N. Abner & J. Bishop (eds.), Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla, 388-396.
SYBESMA, R.P.E. (1999). The Mandarin VP. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
THAM, X.W. (2009). Building resultatives in Mandarin (from the result). Handout, Tenth Stanford Semantic Fest, Stanford University, March 2009.
XIAO, R. & T. MCENERY (2004). Aspect in Mandarin Chinese: A Corpus-based Study. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
YONG, S. (1997). The grammatical functions of verb complements in Mandarin Chinese. Linguistics 35:1-24.

Following the successful editions of the Study Days on Chinese Linguistics held in Venice (2014),... more Following the successful editions of the Study Days on Chinese Linguistics held in Venice (2014), Milan (2015), Rome (2016), Naples (2017), and Milan (2018), we are glad to announce that the Sixth edition of the Study Days on Chinese Linguistics promoted by the Italian Association of Chinese Linguistics (AILC) will be held at the Department of Interpretation and Translation of the University of Bologna, Forlì, Italy, 24-26 June 2020.

Invited speaker: Prof Wolfgang Behr

Asien-Orient Institut - Universität Zürich