Argument Control and Mapping Theory : Evidence from the HO Construction in Taiwanese

Language, Information and Computation(PACLIC 11), 1996, 247-256 Argument Control and Mapping Theory: Evidence from the HO Construction in Taiwanese Jiun-Shiung Wu CKIP, Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica Abstract The Lexical-Mapping Theory (LMT) in Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) predicts syntactic representations by mapping from the lexical predicate argument structure of the verbs (Bresnan and Kanerva 1989). Yet the widely followed account of control still is Bresnan's (1982) functional control based on grammatical functions and structural terms. In this paper, we try to propose a theory of control in line with the LMT theory. The new control mechanism is called Argument Control. Facts involving the HO construction in Taiwanese will be given first to show the inadequacy of Functional Control. Then, based on the observation that the HO construction in Taiwanese manifests a semantic alternation determined by both the property of the matrix subject and of the embedded subject, we propose the theory of argument control. In this theory, the control relation lies between two thematic roles. 1. Introduction Bresnan and Kanerva (1989) proposes Lexical-Mapping Theory (LMT) to correlate the syntactic structures and representations with the predicate argument structure of verbs. In this theory, the syntactic representation is determined by the predicate argument structure of a verb. However, widely accepted LMT account has not been given to the control structure : the widely adopted theory of control is still Bresnan's functional control based on grammatical functions and structural terms instead of the predicate argument structure of verbs. Examining the semantic alternation of the ho construction in Taiwanese, which will be given in Section 2, we find that functional control cannot account for the phenomenon satisfactorily and then we propose argument control both to replace functional control and to try to be in line with the essences of LMT. 2. The HO Construction in Taiwanese 2.1 HO as a Control Verb In this section, we prove that ho is a control verb that takes an open complement as one its arguments. 1. a. i kong i u� lu-peng-yu he say he have girl-friend `He said that he had a girl-friend.' b. i ane kong ke he so say PST `He said so.' 247 2. a. a-bin ho in bo chin siong-sim A-bin CST' his wife very sad `A-bin made his mother very sad.' b. *a-bin ane ho goe A-bin so CST PST 3. a. ma-ma ho Ian khi khoan tian-yian mother PMS us go see movie `Mother allowed us to go to a movie.' b. *ma-ma ane ho koe mother so PMS PST 4. a. ma-ma kho-khng a-bin khi khoan i-sing mother persuade A-bin go see doctor `Mother persuaded A-bin to see a doctor.' b. *ma-ma ane kho-khng koe mother so persuade PST kong 'to say' is a verb taking a sentential complement, and kho-khng 'to persuade' is a verb taking an object and an open complement whose subject is the matrix object, that is, i u lu-peng-yu 'he had a girl-friend' in (la) is a constituent, but a-bin `A-bin' and khi khoan …

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