Synthetic Compounds in Mandarin

Synthetic Compounds in Mandarin ∗∗∗∗ Shuang Hong Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong cthong@polyu.edu.hk Abstract. This paper takes Chinese five-syllable compounds as examples to re-examine the derivation of Chinese synthetic compounds. With phonological evidences which show that Chinese synthetic compounds are left stressed, the paper proves that Chinese synthetic compounds are derived in the interface of lexicon and syntax, based on argument structures of the root verbs. The paper assumes that Chinese synthetic compounds should have the same derivation process, although some seem to have different argument structures from others. Keywords: synthetic compounds, main stress, argument structure, light verb, movement ∗ The work reported in this paper was supported by the postdoctoral project of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University-Peking University Research Centre on Chinese Linguistics (4-ZZ86). Copyright 2010 by Shuang Hong 1 Introduction In Mandarin Chinese, the construction of synthetic compound is very productive. As for its derivation, the recent literature mainly has two different analyses. One discusses that the compounds are derived on the basis of argument structures of the root verbs and a number of changed argument structures of the root verbs (Gu and Shen, 2001); the other argues that Chinese compounds are not the same as English synthetic compounds so that they should not be analyzed in the same way but can be generated directly without referring to VP structure (Shi, 2003; He, 2004). This paper takes Chinese five-syllable compounds as examples, and provides some phonological evidences to prove that Chinese synthetic compounds are derived in the interface of lexicon and syntax, based on argument structures of the root verbs. 2 Stress in Compounds Duanmu (1990) claims that ‘in a head-nonhead structure, stress the nonhead’, which he calls ‘non-head stress’ (NHS). For example, in ‘niu nai’ (cow’s milk), ‘niu’ (cow) modifies ‘nai’ (milk), so ‘nai’ is the head and ‘niu’ is the non-head. According to NHS, ‘niu’ obtains the main stress. In the verb phrase ‘chao fan’ (to fry rice), the noun ‘fan’ (rice) is a complement of the verb ‘chao’ (fry), so ‘chao’ is the head and ‘fan’ is the non-head which obtains the main stress. (1) 牛 奶 niu nai cow milk cow’s milk PACLIC 24 Proceedings 409 (2) 炒 饭 chao fan fry rice to fry rice According to NHS, Chinese five-syllable compounds should be left-stressed. For example, in ‘qiche-xiuli-gong’ (car repair workers), ‘gong’ (worker) is the head, so the non-head ‘qiche- xiuli’ (car repair) should be stressed. In ‘qiche-xiuli’, ‘xiuli’ (repair) is a verb and ‘qiche’ (car) is a object of the verb, so the main stress should fall on the nonhead ‘qiche’. The whole compound is left-stressed. (3) 汽车 修理 工 qiche xiuli gong car repair worker car repair workers Although compound ‘jiaoshi-xiuxi-shi’ (teacher’s resting room) has a different argument structure from ‘qiche-xiuli-gong’, it is also left-stressed. In the whole compound, ‘shi’ (room) is the head, so the non-head ‘jiaoshi-xiuxi’ (teacher resting) has the stress. In ‘jiaoshi-xiuxi’, ‘xiuxi’ (rest) is the main …

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