Natural languages are systems of forms and meanings; language understanding and language production are processes of establishing mappings between linguistic forms and meanings. The principles and rules governing the mapping between semantic roles and syntactic positions have long been a fundamental topic in contemporary linguistics. Such a mapping is usually called argument realization, argument mapping or argument linking. On the basis of the previous language specific and cross linguistic researches on this issue, this thesis picks out two tasks. One is the empirical task of the investigating the principles and rules governing the mapping between semantic roles and linear syntactic positions in Mandarin Chinese. The other is the theoretical task of the exploration of how argument realization principles and rules play their roles in the live temporal linear comprehension and production of sentences. On the empirical side, this thesis mainly investigates the phenomenon of argument alternation, that is, the non-one-to-one mapping between semantic roles and syntactic forms (linear positions) in Mandarin and argues that alternative syntactic forms in which semantic roles are realized are not arbitrary but semantically motivated. More specifically, it proposes that alternative patterns of argument realization encode different types of events. This thesis concentrates on three major cases of argument alternation. The first is the argument alternation in the resultative verb construction (RVC) that involves two verbs and expresses a complex event consisting of a first (activity) subevent and a second (resultative) subevent. The arguments of the two verbs are mapped onto the subject and the object alternatively and the argument sharing between the verbs results from syntactically constrained pragmatic inference. The argument realization principles and rules of RVC are used to account for two puzzling cases of argument alternation in Mandarin, i.e. the locative alternation and the agentive alternation. This account of inverse argument realizations has the implication that argument alternations are semantically motivated rather than the result of arbitrary syntactic operation. To facilitate the discussion of how different semantic representations arise in different process of comprehension, I adopt Dynamic Syntax (Kempson et al 2001; Cann et al 2005) which provides a package of working hypotheses about human language grammars and the formal tools for representing how grammars work. It is hypothesized in Dynamic Syntax that the grammar of a natural language is a set of constraints over language comprehension; sentences are understood and produced in context through left-to-right word-by-word parsing processes. Parsing processes are driven by the axiomatic requirement of establishing complete logical forms that can be enriched to full propositions. Such processes have the characteristic of semantic underspecification, including underspecified semantic relationships and underspecified semantic contents; semantic underspecification can and must be updated through non-demonstrative inference implemented in linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts. Using the framework I hypothesize that in RVC constructions the first verb provides a condition on the sort of event expressed by the second verb, encoding this in terms of event semantics. It is argued that only the argument of the latter are required to be realized in the string (or be contextually strongly determined) through pro-drop. Those of the activity predicate, however, are inferred through pragmatic means given the arguments that are realized. This directly accounts for the attested patterns of argument realization in RVC and explain the apparent gaps. This analysis is extended to locative and agentive inversion constructions where it is hypothesized that there is null resultative predicate that explains why a non-agent can be realized as subject, even in the presence of a more agentive noun phrase in the string. This thesis thus maintains the hypothesis that the mapping between semantic roles and syntactic positions is direct though not one-to-one. Although there is no one-toone mapping between syntactic forms, the argument mapping rules can ensure efficient comprehension and production when they are applied in context. This thesis provides a uniform account of different argument alternation phenomena that have been seen as unrelated to each other in the literature. The successful uniform explanation of the ‘unrelated’ phenomena of argument alternation can be generalized as a methodology: a thorough semantic analysis of various alternative syntactic constructions can reveal the subtle semantic differences between them and the importance of these subtle semantic difference for a theorectic account of argumenty alternation has been largely underestimated in the literature. This constitutes the foundation of a uniform explanation of syntactic phenomena that seem to be unrelated to each other. This success lights the hope of seeking semantics-based uniform accounts of other different kinds of syntactic phenomena in a single language and across languages in future research.

This study aims to explore how English-speaking learners of Chinese acquire Resultative Verb Compounds (RVC). The specific research questions are: Do learners think that change of state is achieved by using an RVC? Do learners assign resultative meaning to V₁-le uniformly or only in certain types of situations depending on how result is expressed in their L1? Lastly, do learners realize that RVCs are a highly productive construction? This thesis provides linguistic analysis that can account for differences in how change of state is expressed in Chinese and English. It also presents a second language acquisition study informed primarily by the sentence acceptability judgement task. In English, result is typically expressed by a monomorphemic verb or by a resultative construction. In Mandarin, the most typical way to convey result is to use RVCs. In addition to differences in such phenomena as event conflation, strength of implicature and the incompleteness effect also constitute key differences between English and Mandarin. It is claimed that the major factor in determining the effect of L1 transfer from English to Mandarin is how change-of-state situations are expressed in English. In response, two experiments were conducted. The subjects were 47 learners and 26 native speakers of Chinese. Statistical analysis (ANOVA) was applied in evaluating outcomes of the experiments. The results show that learners understand that RVCs must be used to describe change-of-state situations. However, learners do not habitually take the aspect marker–le as a resultative marker. Instead, the outcomes of the data analysis are compatible with the interpretation of–le as a past tense marker. The analysis also shows that how change-of-state situations with respect to event conflation are expressed in English has some effect on their understanding of RVC-le vs. V₁-le combinations. Lastly, while learners do not reject the idea that more than one RVC can describe a change-of-state event, they do not have full understanding of this phenomenon.

Neste trabalho, retomaremos a questão sobre a existência de construções resultativas no português brasileiro (PB), conforme debatido nos trabalhos de Foltran (1999), Marcelino (2000), e Lobato (2004), inter alia, apresentando evidências teóricas e empíricas contra a afirmação de que existam em PB construções resultativas sintaticamente ou semanticamente equivalentes às construções resultativas presentes em línguas como o inglês, por exemplo. A partir de alguns trabalhos sobre as construções resultativas do inglês, como Hoekstra (1988) e Levin & Rappaport-Hovav (1995), mostraremos que as propriedades básicas dessas construções no inglês se mostram bem distintas das propriedades das construções citadas pelos trabalhos sobre o PB. Com base em um critério que leva em conta as propriedades das construções resultativas no inglês, mostraremos que existe uma diferença semântica quanto ao tipo de modificação que o predicado resultativo exerce sobre a sentença em inglês e em PB, baseados na semântica de eventos neo-Davidsoniana (PARSONS, 1990); enquanto na primeira o predicado resultativo denota o estado resultante da ação, na segunda, o predicado secundário é, na verdade, um modificador do estado resultante, já denotado pelo conteúdo semântico expresso no complexo verbo+argumento interno. Baseados na tipologia de Talmy (2000), estenderemos sua proposta de impossibilidade de amálgama (conflation) de certos elementos semânticos ao verbo em línguas românicas à impossibilidade de formação de resultativas. Incapaz de realizar amálgama de modo ao verbo, o PB realiza, ao invés do modo, a semântica de causa amalgamada ao co-evento no verbo, enquanto inglês realiza a semântica de estado resultante em um satélite, e modo e causa amalgamados ao verbo. A partir dos resultados obtidos pela nossa análise semântica, conduziremos uma análise sintática que explica tanto a restrição de amálgama de modo quanto à impossibilidade de formação de construções resultativas em PB. Baseados na teoria de estrutura argumental de Hale & Keyser (1993, 2002), iremos propor uma estrutura de predicados complexos para as resultativas do inglês a partir da estrutura de verbos deadjetivais, responsáveis pela formação de verbos inacusativos. A restrição de formação desses predicados complexos em PB é explicada pela marcação negativa do Parâmetro de Composicionalidade nessa língua, (SNYDER, 1995), impedindo a inserção de itens lexicais de classe aberta (raízes) em posições marcadas com o traço [+Afixal], condição sine qua non para a formação de predicados resultativos como os do inglês. / In this work, we take up again the discussion of whether resultative constructions exist in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), as discussed in the works of Foltran (1999), Marcelino (2000) and Lobato (2004), inter alia, presenting theoretical and empirical evidence against the claim that there are resultative constructions in BP that are syntactically or semantically equivalent to resultative constructions from languages such as English, for instance. Based on works about Englishs resultative construction such as Hoekstra (1988) and Levin & Rappaport-Hovav (1995), we show that the basic properties of these constructions in English are quite distinct from the properties of the constructions mentioned by the works about BP. With a criterion which takes on the properties of resultative constructions in English, we show that there is semantic difference as for the type of modification applied by the resultative predicate over the sentence when comparing English and BP, considering the neo- Davidsonian event semantics (PARSONS, 1990); while Englishs resultative predicate denotes the actions resultant state, in BP the secondary predicate is, in fact, the modifier of the resultant state already denoted by the semantic content expressed by the complex verb+internal argument. Based on Talmys (2000) typology, we relate his proposal of impossibility of conflation of certain semantic elements to the verb in romance languages to the impossibility of resultative construction formation in these languages. Unable to conflate manner to the verb, BP realizes, instead of manner, the cause semantics conflated to the verbs co-event, while English realizes the resultant state on a satellite, and manner and cause are conflated into the verb. From the results obtained with our semantic analysis, we conduct a syntactic analysis that explains the manner conflation restriction in BP, as well as its inability to form resultative constructions. Based on the argument structure theory from Hale & Keyser (2002), we suggest a complex predicate structure for Englishs resultatives from the deadjectival verb structures, responsible for the formation of the unaccusative verbs. The restriction over the formation of these predicates in BP is explained by the negative setting of the Compounding Parameter in this language (SNYDER, 1995), thus not allowing the insertion of open-class lexical items (roots) into positions marked with the [+Afixal] feature, a sine qua non condition for the resultative predicate formation, such as Englishs resultative predicates.

Neste trabalho, retomaremos a questão sobre a existência de construções resultativas no português brasileiro (PB), conforme debatido nos trabalhos de Foltran (1999), Marcelino (2000), e Lobato (2004), inter alia, apresentando evidências teóricas e empíricas contra a afirmação de que existam em PB construções resultativas sintaticamente ou semanticamente equivalentes às construções resultativas presentes em línguas como o inglês, por exemplo. A partir de alguns trabalhos sobre as construções resultativas do inglês, como Hoekstra (1988) e Levin & Rappaport-Hovav (1995), mostraremos que as propriedades básicas dessas construções no inglês se mostram bem distintas das propriedades das construções citadas pelos trabalhos sobre o PB. Com base em um critério que leva em conta as propriedades das construções resultativas no inglês, mostraremos que existe uma diferença semântica quanto ao tipo de modificação que o predicado resultativo exerce sobre a sentença em inglês e em PB, baseados na semântica de eventos neo-Davidsoniana (PARSONS, 1990); enquanto na primeira o predicado resultativo denota o estado resultante da ação, na segunda, o predicado secundário é, na verdade, um modificador do estado resultante, já denotado pelo conteúdo semântico expresso no complexo verbo+argumento interno. Baseados na tipologia de Talmy (2000), estenderemos sua proposta de impossibilidade de amálgama (conflation) de certos elementos semânticos ao verbo em línguas românicas à impossibilidade de formação de resultativas. Incapaz de realizar amálgama de modo ao verbo, o PB realiza, ao invés do modo, a semântica de causa amalgamada ao co-evento no verbo, enquanto inglês realiza a semântica de estado resultante em um satélite, e modo e causa amalgamados ao verbo. A partir dos resultados obtidos pela nossa análise semântica, conduziremos uma análise sintática que explica tanto a restrição de amálgama de modo quanto à impossibilidade de formação de construções resultativas em PB. Baseados na teoria de estrutura argumental de Hale & Keyser (1993, 2002), iremos propor uma estrutura de predicados complexos para as resultativas do inglês a partir da estrutura de verbos deadjetivais, responsáveis pela formação de verbos inacusativos. A restrição de formação desses predicados complexos em PB é explicada pela marcação negativa do Parâmetro de Composicionalidade nessa língua, (SNYDER, 1995), impedindo a inserção de itens lexicais de classe aberta (raízes) em posições marcadas com o traço [+Afixal], condição sine qua non para a formação de predicados resultativos como os do inglês. / In this work, we take up again the discussion of whether resultative constructions exist in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), as discussed in the works of Foltran (1999), Marcelino (2000) and Lobato (2004), inter alia, presenting theoretical and empirical evidence against the claim that there are resultative constructions in BP that are syntactically or semantically equivalent to resultative constructions from languages such as English, for instance. Based on works about Englishs resultative construction such as Hoekstra (1988) and Levin & Rappaport-Hovav (1995), we show that the basic properties of these constructions in English are quite distinct from the properties of the constructions mentioned by the works about BP. With a criterion which takes on the properties of resultative constructions in English, we show that there is semantic difference as for the type of modification applied by the resultative predicate over the sentence when comparing English and BP, considering the neo- Davidsonian event semantics (PARSONS, 1990); while Englishs resultative predicate denotes the actions resultant state, in BP the secondary predicate is, in fact, the modifier of the resultant state already denoted by the semantic content expressed by the complex verb+internal argument. Based on Talmys (2000) typology, we relate his proposal of impossibility of conflation of certain semantic elements to the verb in romance languages to the impossibility of resultative construction formation in these languages. Unable to conflate manner to the verb, BP realizes, instead of manner, the cause semantics conflated to the verbs co-event, while English realizes the resultant state on a satellite, and manner and cause are conflated into the verb. From the results obtained with our semantic analysis, we conduct a syntactic analysis that explains the manner conflation restriction in BP, as well as its inability to form resultative constructions. Based on the argument structure theory from Hale & Keyser (2002), we suggest a complex predicate structure for Englishs resultatives from the deadjectival verb structures, responsible for the formation of the unaccusative verbs. The restriction over the formation of these predicates in BP is explained by the negative setting of the Compounding Parameter in this language (SNYDER, 1995), thus not allowing the insertion of open-class lexical items (roots) into positions marked with the [+Afixal] feature, a sine qua non condition for the resultative predicate formation, such as Englishs resultative predicates.

單獨的「把」或「被」字本身並沒有言明「使動」語意，但是一旦加上「得」結果補語，就會帶出「使動結果」語意；是故，我們認為「把/被…得」字句是「結果格式」（resultative construction）。本文以「格式語法」（Construction Grammar）的觀點為基礎，分析「把/被…得」字句。本文提出在「把/被…得」字句出現的動詞不侷限於「處置式」動詞 (disposal verbs)；「使動結果」語意是格式和動詞之語意互動的結果。另外，本文也提出「把…得」字句和「被…得」字句均屬於「結果格式」的家族成員，因為這兩個字句包含許多共同的語意特性；例如，兩個字句都包含兩個小事件 (subevent)，一個是動詞事件 (verbal subevent)，另一個則是格式事件 (constructional subevent)，而動詞事件是促使格式事件發生的媒介 (means)。又格式事件通常決定了「把/被…得」字句整句的時態。最後，本文再透過Jackendoff的概念結構 (conceptual structure)，將「把/被…得」字句予以分解成更細部的語意單位，藉此更進一步了解「把/被…得」字句語意的構成。 / The use of ba/bei alone does not imply causative meanings; however, when a de result complement is added to ba/bei constructions, the causative sense will arise concomitantly with resultivity. Therefore, ba/bei…de in the sentences, two discontinous morphemes locking together, mark the whole construction as a resultative construction. By adopting constructional approaches, we show that ba/bei…de resultatives are not limited to disposal verbs and they are made of a family of resultative constructions. Without the inherent disposal property and the causative meaning, stative, perception, and psychological verbs are still compatible with ba/bei…de resultatives. The causative-resultative meaning comes from the integration among all the components of the construction, both structurally and semantically. Also, under such a constructional approach, we will find that many semantic properties of ba/bei…de resultatives can be predicted from their meaning structures: a resultative sentence contains a constructional subevent and a verbal subevent, and this verbal subevent serves as the means by which the constructional subevent takes place. As for their temporal relation, the verbal subevent may be cotemporal with the constructional subevent, or may overlap with it, or may entirely precede it, depending on the pragmatics of the situation. And the end-boundedness of the constructional subevent correlates with the telicity of a resultative construction. And with some modifications of Jackendoff’s conceptual structure, we discern how a resultative concept is characterized in the human mental representation. In terms of a set of primitives, we can easily detect that ba/bei…de constructions are made of two separable subevents, and that the verbal subevent is temporally prior to the constructional subevent.