Mechanisms of Syntax-Semantics Mismatch: Some Particular Verb-Object Constructions in Mandarin Chinese

Shu-Ling Wu, East Asian Languages and Literatures

This paper aims to offer a new treatment to deal with a specific syntax-semantics mismatch which occurs in Mandarin Verb-Object (VO) constructions.  Despite various attempts to find an underlying reason for these occurrences, there has been no agreement thus far (see Xing, 1996; Wang, 2000; Quo, 1999; He, 2003; Li, 2005).  Usually, in a Chinese SVO construction, the subject often bears the agent role, the verb describes the action, and the object takes the patient role. However, there are two notable exceptions 1) the object as location construction and 2) the object as agent construction. For example, in the first exception, Zhang1san1 chi1 guan3zi0, ‘Zhangsan eats at the restaurant’, the object guan3zi0 is the location and not the patient. In the second example, Zhang1san1 shai4 tai4yang2, ‘Zhangsan is sunbathing, or the sun gives Zhangsan pleasant warmth’, the object is the agent rather than the patient. In addition to these exceptions, others will be discussed in which the object is not a patient but carries a different thematic role. This paper will first propose that these unconventional VO constructions are cases of syntax-semantics mismatch in which the nominal bearing the information focus, such as guan3zi0 in example one and tai4yang2 in example two, is mismatched with the position of direct object. Then, this mismatch will be explained as being generated by the mechanism of cognitive compression because of the speakers’ need to conform to the dominant SVO structure. In this way, the syntax-semantics mismatch occurrences can be explained for these exceptions.