Lü divides *bei* sentences with a retained object into five categories according to the syntactic properties they share, specifically according to the transformational possibilities between *ba*, *bei* and 'middle' sentences (active sentences with a passive meaning). The syntactic approach he uses is evident in the description he gives of the retained object passive (1965:289):

> In passive constructions ... there is usually no object because the undergoer is already being used as the subject. ... However, an object occurring after the main verb ... is rather frequent ... The kind of object ... is either a noun, measure word or pronoun.

As a result, he classifies any passive with a noun following the verb to be a case of the 'retained object'. After sifting through the 53 examples he gives and groups into 5 categories, 18 of these proved to be cases of the predicate containing a verb-object compound and thus, denoting an action or activity as its overall meaning. That is, the retained object could not be thought of as being part of a larger entity affected by the passive event. In fact, the object in the V-O compound was not even a concrete entity, one of the semantic conditions pertaining for the postverbal noun as we will see below. The V-O compounds were all of the form:

VERB + OBJECT VERB COMPOUND MEANING

kai 'open' wanxiao 'joke' = 'play a joke'

fen 'divide' lei 'category' = 'classify'

mian 'discharge' zhi 'duty' = 'fire'

Since such V-O compounds denote an activity or action, examples involving them such as (10) below should be reclassified as belonging to the basic form of the *bei* passive and thus be considered as forming one of the regular kinds of predicates found to co-occur with it, in terms of the meaning they express. These
compound verbs have been discussed earlier in section 1.2 along with
idiomatic expressions.

10. Ta bei pengyou kai - le ge wanxiao.
he BEI friend open:COM CL joke
He had a joke played on him by his friends.

Similarly, idioms of the verb-object form found in the predicate of a passive cannot be regarded as an example of the retained object passive. The following examples show that the idiomatic meaning of this kind of V-O compound is equally bereft of any concrete entity which can be thought of as part of a larger entity, as far as the Chinese expressions are concerned.

da 'hit' erguang 'earslap' = 'box the ears'

jiang 'check' jun 'army' = 'put in check', 'embarrass'

kou 'cover' maozi 'cap' = 'put a label on someone'

Not only is the semantic evidence for discounting these predicates as forming examples of this construction convincing but also the syntactic evidence: Neither the O of the V-O compounds nor the O of the V-O idioms can be foregrounded into the subject position to form a possessive NP with the NP denoting the undergoer, unlike the case for parts of the body as shown above by example (3).

11. *Ta de wanxiao bei renjia kai - le.
he GEN joke BEI people open:COM

Example (11) shows that (10) cannot be transformed into the regular passive with a possessive NP as subject: *"His joke was played on him by them"*.
Similarly:

12. Ta bei baba da le erguang.
he BEI dad hit:COM earslap
He had his ears boxed by dad.

13. *Ta de erguang bei baba da -le.
he GEN earslap BEI dad hit:COM
(*His slap was hit by dad.)

14. Li Si bei renjia kou-shang-le fan geming de maozi.
(name) BEI people put:on : COM anti-revolutionary REL cap
Li Si was labelled as an anti-revolutionary by them.

15. *Li Si de fan geming maozi bei renjia kou-shang le.
(name) GEN anti-revolutionary cap BEI people put:on COM
(*Li Si's anti-revolutionary cap was put on by them.)

(N.B. The verb 'put on' with reference to hats and caps is *dai* and not *kou-shang* and only the latter may be used in this idiom.)

Thus passives composed of these predicates can be viewed
as functioning syntactically in the same way as the regular passive
and not as the 'retained object' passive.

Although half the examples gathered for these two kinds
of predicates with V-O compounds are to be found in Lü's category C,
which he points out contain several examples of a "strong idiomatic
flavour" (1965:290), many are also found scattered throughout the
other four groups. Since these 18 examples can be reclassified in
with the regular form of the *bei* passive, let us now investigate the
remaining examples closely to ascertain if, indeed at all, there are
cases of the 'retained object' to be found among them, as I define
it in terms of 'part' and 'whole', that is, apart of the body and
the person.
Of the remaining 35 examples, four involve verbs of 'giving away' and have been discussed separately in section 1.1. Here it was shown that the recipient (Chu's Benefactive Case) of a verb of giving may occur postverbally in the regular passive as in (17) but never in the subject position as (16) demonstrates since the recipient as subject is not appropriate in an adversity passive.

16. *Mali bei ta gei -le liangben shu le.
(name) BEI he give:COM two:CL book INC
(*Mary was given two books by him.)

17. Wo liangben shu bei ta gei -le Mali le.
my two:CL book BEI he give:COM (name) INC
Two of my books were given (away) to Mary by him.

As only the owner of the object to be transferred may occur as (part of) the subject, a postverbal 'recipient' NP as in (17) cannot be moved into this position unless it is interpreted anew as an 'owner'. This is clear from the fact that a new recipient NP must follow the verb *gei* 'give' as well or else the sentence is ungrammatical. Compare (18) with (19), where (18) lacks the postverbal NP denoting the recipient:

18. *Mali de liangben shu bei ta gei - le.
(name) GEN two:CL book BEI he give:COM
(*Mary's two books were given by him.)

19. Mali de liangben shu bei ta gei - le pengyou le.
(name) GEN two:CL book BEI he give:COM friend INC
Two of Mary's books were given (away) by him to friends.
These sentences may therefore be considered as belonging
to the basic form of the passive as well.

A further 11 examples in Lü's analysis which seem to have
a 'retained object' in fact, involve a noun which expresses the
resulting state of the undergoer and neither a part of nor a
possession belonging to the undergoer. These should also be
reclassified in with the regular *bei* passive, since this kind of
noun serves the purpose of fulfilling the semantic restriction of
encoding completiveness by specifying a change of state, a feature
that was discussed in section 1.3 above. Examples (20) and (21)
contain a postverbal NP expressing a resulting state:

20. Gu Daniang de liangge gang-li bei ta guan-man -le shui.
grandma GEN two:CL urn:in BEI he pour:full:COM water
Grandma Gu's two urns were filled with water by him.

21. Zhei kuai di bei shizheng fen-cheng-le san xiao kuai.
this piece land BEI council divide:into:COM three little pieces
This piece of land was divided into 3 small ones by the city
council.

The syntactic evidence is decisive here as well, since
neither can this kind of *bei* construction be transformed into the
regular passive by transposing the final noun phrase to the head of
the sentence to make a possessive NP: Compare (20) with (22) and
(21) with (23) respectively:

22. *Liangge gang-li de shui bei ta guan-man-le.
    two:CL urn:in REL water BEI he pour:full:COM
    (Two urns of water were poured full by him.)
23. *Zhei kuai di de san xiao kuai bei shizheng fen-cheng-le.
this piece land REL 3 small piece BEI council divide:into:COM
(The 3 small pieces of this land were divided up by the city
council.)

Consider two final examples:

24. Yuchi-li bei ren reng-jin-le yangyou.
pond:in REL sb throw:in:COM kerosene
The fishpond had kerosene thrown into it by people.

25. *Yuchi-li de yangyou bei ren reng-jin-le.
pond:in REL kerosene BEI sb thrown:in:COM
(*The fishpond's kerosene was thrown in by people.)

In example (25) with a possessor-possessed NP as subject,
even if we replace 'kerosene' with 'fishfood', the sentence remains
unacceptable.

26. *Yuchi-li de yushi bei ren reng-jin-le.
pond:in REL fishfood BEI sb throw:in:COM
(*The pond's fishfood was thrown in by people.)

Examples (25) and (26) are interpreted to mean that the 'kerosene'
or 'fishfood' is already in the pond, producing a semantic clash
when the predicate following the passive marker re-iterates the
event of the kerosene or fishfood being thrown into the pond. A new
event needs to be indicated by the verb that will show some change
of state resulting for the subject, such as in (27):

27. Yuchi-li de yushi bei hama chi-diao-le.
pond:in REL food BEI toad eat:away:COM
The food in the fishpond was eaten up by toads.
Hence, the subject must indicate the pre-change of state entity in *bei* passives and not the entity in its resultant state of affairs.

To satisfy this semantic requirement, the predicate needs to refer to an event distinct from any that could be inferred from the NP denoting the subject.

It is clear that the examples above with a postverbal noun denoting a resultant state cannot be regarded as having a retained object from both syntactic and semantic points of view. Firstly, none is able to undergo the syntactic test of transposing the postverbal noun into subject position to form a possessive NP. Only the passive of bodily effect which expresses a part-whole relationship has a corresponding regular passive of this type - with a possessive NP as subject.

Secondly, the postverbal NP in examples (20), (21) and (24) is not semantically related to the undergoer as its part. Consequently, such examples will be considered to belong to the regular passive.

Lü's remaining 20 examples genuinely belong to either the passive of bodily effect or the partitive passive. This is verified by the fact that they may be "converted" into the regular passive which we have shown is impossible for predicate NPs which do not denote parts of the body.
## 3.2 THE SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIATION OF THE PASSIVE OF BODILY EFFECT FROM THE REGULAR PASSIVE

The passive of bodily effect conceptualizes the passive event in a different way to that of the regular passive: Let us consider the semantics of (28) and (29) in which both these constructions are exemplified:

### Passive of Bodily Effect:

28. Ta bei diren da-shang -le tui.
he BEI enemy hit:wounded:COM leg
He was leg wounded through the enemy's firing.

### Regular Passive:

29. Ta de tui bei diren da-shang -le.
he GEN leg BEI enemy hit:wounded:COM
His leg was wounded through the enemy's firing.

The implication of (29), the regular passive, is that only the subject's leg was aimed for, hit and wounded, whereas in (28), the subject's whole body was beaten up (or indiscriminately shot at), with the outcome of one of his legs specifically being injured. (Note that the verb *da* may mean either 'beat' or 'fire [a gun]').

Thus, in the passive of bodily effect, the main verb of transitive action *da* 'hit' refers to an event involving the whole person and the second verb which is a resultative complement verb of state *shang* 'wounded' refers consistently to the resulting state of the given part of the body. We could paraphrase it in this way: "He was beaten up so that his leg became wounded."
Since this passive construction expresses the inalienableness or "identity" of the given part of the body with the person, the combined semantic effect of the stative verb and the noun designating this body part is to refer to some lasting effect on the subject who is also the undergoer.

The semantic constraint requiring that the passives of inalienable relationship encode lasting effect (i.e. a change of state) for the undergoer is another feature which distinguishes it from the regular passive. The regular passive only needs to encode the completed nature of the event (1.3).

Evidence for this semantic characterisation of the passive of bodily effect lies in the unacceptability of this syntactic construction if there is no specification of the resultant state of the body part in question - when only the action is specified. Example (28) would be ungrammatical if the second verb *shang* 'wounded' were removed, while example (29) could be shortened in this way and remain perfectly acceptable. The same case applies for (30) as opposed to (31):

30. *Ta bei Li Si da-le bizi yi-quan.
he BEI (name) hit:COM nose one:CL
(He had his nose given a punch by Li Si.)

31. Ta de bizi bei Li Si da-le yi-quan.
he GEN nose BEI (name) hit:COM one:CL
His nose was given a punch by Li Si.

Example (30) is unacceptable due to the confusion over interpreting whether it was 'he' who has been punched (without specifying where on the body) or 'his nose', and so a kind of semantic contest arises between 'he' and 'nose' as to which one will gain interpretation as
the undergoer. Thus, the body part term 'nose' in this example acts
as a second object and not as part of the verb complement following
the resultative verb as did <u>tui</u> 'leg' in (28) above.

This semantic feature is also syntactically manifested in
the requirement at this level of a resultative verb compound in the
predicate. All the acceptable examples of the passive of bodily
effect in this chapter contain these verb compounds made up of two
verb constituents, the first one denoting an action and the second,
the state resulting from the action, for example, <u>la-kai</u> 'pull open'
and <u>xi-ganjing</u> 'wash clean'.<sup>6</sup>

Similarly, if the main verb refers to an action
specifically affecting the body part and not the person as a whole,
then only the basic form of the <u>bei</u> passive may be used with a
possessive NP as subject, since this means that the verb compound
refers as a whole exclusively to the body part:

32. *Ta bei jiqi zhen-huai - le erduo.
he BEI machine vibrate:damage:COM ear
(He had his ears hurt through the vibrating of the
machinery.)

33. Ta de erduo bei zhen-huai - le.
he GEN ear BEI vibrate:damage:COM
His ears were hurt through the vibrating of the machinery.

Here it is not the person who is being caused to vibrate
all over until a part of his body - his ears - suffer injury. Only

<footnote n="6">6 For a detailed description and analysis of resultative verb compounds, see Sandra A. Thompson, (1973), "Resultative Verb Compounds in Mandarin Chinese: A Case for Lexical Rules" in *Language* 49.</footnote>
the part of the body itself is understood to undergo the event.
More syntactic evidence of this lies in the fact that in Chinese one
can't say:

34. *Ta bei jiqi zhen-le.
he BEI machine vibrate:COM
(He was caused to vibrate by the machinery.)

as opposed to:

35. Zhen-le ermo.
vibrate:COM eardrum
(It) vibrated the eardrums.

Similarly, if only one's voice is specifically affected
by an event, then "voice" is being thought of as the undergoer and
not the person as a whole, so that the former must be placed in
subject position in order to form a regular passive, as in (37).
The passive of bodily effect in (36) is unacceptable:

36. *Ta bei jiqi de zaoyin yan-mo-le shengyin.
he BEI machine REL noise drown:COM voice
(He had his voice drowned out by the noise of the
machinery.)

37. Ta de shengyin bei jiqi de zaoyin yan-mo-le.
he GEN voice BEI machine REL noise drown:COM
His voice was drowned out by the noise of the machinery.

Idioms give striking evidence of the difference in
meaning between the two kinds of *bei* passive. When it is possible
to split idioms of the V-O form apart which involve a body part
term, the latter become part of the new subject of a regular passive
and the meaning changes to a literal interpretation with the consequent loss of the idiomatic meaning. Consider the idiom *jiu-zhu bianzi* in (38) which means 'seize upon somebody's shortcomings':

38. Ta bei ren jiu-zhu-le bianzi.
he BEI sb grab:hold:COM pigtail
He had his shortcomings seized upon by people.

(n.b. Example (38) would have originally been a "body part" passive with the meaning "He was pigtail grabbed hold of by people" which has undergone semantic change, producing the idiomatic meaning.)

When the idiom is split apart in the formation of the regular passive, exemplified by (39), it reverts to its literal meaning:

39. Ta de bianzi bei ren jiu-zhu-le.
he GEN pigtail BEI sb grab:hold:COM
His pigtail was grabbed hold of by people.

That the 'retained object' passive lends itself to the use of such idioms, but not the regular passive, gives weight to the syntactic analysis of the 'retained object' or postverbal noun as being part of a complex predicate which expresses the extent and kind of harm inflicted upon a person in terms of a part of the body.

Therefore, in the passive of bodily effect, the constraint on the predicate requiring a syntactic form that will express a change of state semantically is a stringent requirement as opposed to the case for the regular passive, where it is absent.

Consequently, this passive must be used with resultative verb compounds as well as with the aspect marker -le in order to
encode the completed nature of the event which results in this
change of state.

Example (40) is used to show how passive sentences
belonging to this construction become unacceptable once the
completive aspect marker is removed. Compare (40) with (28) above:

40. *Ta bei diren da-shang tui.
he BEI enemy hit:wound leg

In this section, the passive of bodily effect has been
syntactically and semantically differentiated from the regular
passive. The passive of bodily effect is distinguished by the
syntactic features of a postverbal noun denoting a body part and the
requirement of a resultative verb compound. On the semantic level,
it is distinguished from the regular passive by encoding not only
that the undergoer is adversely affected but more specifically that
the undergoer is adversely affected by the state of affairs which
comes about for a part of the body.

Since the meaning grammaticalized by each construction is
distinct, separate semantic structures must be postulated for them.
They cannot be freely 'transformed' one into the other. The
semantic representation proposed for the passive of bodily effect is
as follows:
## PASSIVE OF BODILY EFFECT

### Syntactic Schema:

NP<sub>p</sub> BEI NP<sub>p</sub> VR LE N<sub>Bp</sub>
Undergoer Agent Part of the Body

### Example

Ta bei diren da-shang - le tui.

he BEI enemy hit:wound:COM leg

Person A

Person B

Body Part Z

He was leg wounded through the enemy's firing.

Thinking of this person (A)

I say:

Something happened to person A (event Y)

because person B did something to A

a body part Z came to be in a certain state
because of this

(Z can be thought of as part of person A's body)

I don't need to say any more about body part Z

Person A became unable to do something
because of this.

I am thinking of Y as something that was bad for A.

The justification for the postulation of each component
in the semantic representation is carried out in the sections which
follow.
## 3.3 SEMANTIC FIELD OF THE POSTVERBAL NOUN

In this section I will examine from which semantic categories the postverbal noun may be selected for the passive of bodily effect. Conclusive evidence will be given to show that only nouns designating parts of the body are acceptable.

Special constructions expressing 'inalienable' relationship are a well-known phenomenon to both linguists and anthropologists (c.f. Sapir's 1917 article). Nonetheless, 'inalienable' is only a cover term for a number of different though related semantic categories, the referents of which cannot be taken for granted. What exactly then is characterized as 'inalienable' by this particular Chinese construction and over how many semantic fields can it be applied?

Charles Bally in his article "L'expression des idées de sphère personnelle et de solidarité dans les langues indo-européennes" provides an extensive list of semantic categories which may be potentially regarded as 'inalienable' through their expression in these special constructions (1926:69):

> (The personal domain) ... includes generally the body, its parts, sometimes its dimensions, the soul of the individual, and in certain cases the voice, the name. It may also include to a differing degree, everything which holds an habitual relationship to it: clothing, familiar objects, utensils etc, associated persons, family, servants, friends and in each of these sub-categories there is further opportunity for delicate distinctions. (My translation)

Bally shows that for several Indo-European languages, the use of the dative of personal pronouns in conjunction with the definite article (determining the noun designating the 'inalienable' entity,) is a common means of expression of this special relation-
ship, in contrast to the use of the possessive pronoun and no dative
personal pronoun. These two kinds of constructions exist side by
side in French, which is of course, his main reference language.
Compare (41) with (42):

Dative construction with the definite article:

41. Je me lave les mains (*sales).
I to me wash the hands (*dirty)
I wash my hands for myself.

Possessive pronoun with body part term:

42. Je lave mes mains sales. cf. Je lave mes vetements sales.
I wash my hands dirty
I wash my dirty hands.
I wash my clothes dirty
I wash my dirty clothes.

Sentence (41) exemplifies one of the reflexive-type constructions
that employ the dative in opposition to the use of the genitive,
exemplified by (42).

Let us now ascertain precisely which of these semantic
categories are permissible in the Chinese construction, comparing it
with the corresponding dative constructions in several European
languages, namely French, German, Italian and Polish.

3.3.1 Kinship:

Kinship is excluded from this passive construction in
Chinese. However, in the literature on this topic, one such example
was uncovered. (Wang Huan 1957:38, her example (27).)

43. Ni gei dizhu hai-si die, wo gei dizhu hai-si niang.
you GEI landowner kill father, I GEI landowner kill mother

You were father killed by the landowner, I was mother
killed by the landowner. [i.e. You had your father
killed on you by the landowner, and I, my mother.]
Apparently, this is no longer acceptable in colloquial Chinese. The regular S-V-O construction of (44) must be used, or the basic passive form as in (45):

44. Dizhu hai-si - le ni de die.
landowner harm:die:COM you GEN father
The landowner killed your father.

45. Ni de die gei dizhu hai-si - le.
you GEN father GEI landowner harm:die:COM
Your father was killed by the landowner.

Similarly, example (46) is unacceptable with 'child' placed in postverbal position:

46. *Ta bei lang chi-diao-le haizi.
she BEI wolf eat:up:COM child
(= She had her child eaten by a wolf.)

As one would expect from the unacceptability of (46), the kinship category cannot be extended to include pet animals:

47. *Wo bei gou yao-si - le mao.
I BEI dog bite:die:COM cat
(= I had my cat killed by a dog.)

To the contrary, in European languages, kinship may be freely encoded in these dative constructions, although it is not a construction exclusively encoding this category as an inalienable relationship.

48. French: Ils lui ont tué le (*son) père.
they to him have killed the (*his) father
49. **German:** Sie haben ihm den (seinen) Vater getötet.
they have to him the (his) father killed

50. **Italian:** Gli hanno ucciso il (*suo) padre.
to him have killed the (*his) father

51. **Polish:** Zabili mu ojca.
they:kill to him father

In French and German, when the dative pronoun is deleted
to form neutral constructions, the definite article is typically
replaced by a possessive pronoun in complete (non-coordinate)
sentences. Retention of the definite article would be understood
contrastively, if part of a complex sentence or to mean "religious
father" rather than "real father" for a complete utterance.

52. Ils ont tué son (le) père.
they have killed his (the) father

53. Sie haben seinen (den) Vater getötet.
they have his (the) father killed

The main difference in meaning is that the dative constructions exemplified by (48) and (49), carry the implication that the son was specifically affected by this event, which is not the case for the neutral S-V-O constructions exemplified by (52) and (53).

For the semantic category of kinship, German can use
either the possessive pronoun or the definite article in conjunction
with the dative pronoun, whereas French and Italian use only the
definite article for the non-alienable entity, as in (48) and (50)
and the possessive article only when the dative pronoun is not
present in the neutral non-affective construction as in (52) and
(54).<fnref n="7" /> (Note that the dative construction is the preferred form in Italian.)

54. Hanno ucciso suo (il) padre.
have killed his (the) father

They killed his father.

In Chinese, there is a special 'affective' construction for kinship, different to this passive construction, where no agent is stated and the subject refers to the affected person. It takes the form NPₚ V NPₚ where the second NP denotes a person related by kin to the first NP and subject.

55. ta si-le muqin.
he die:COM mother

As for him, his mother is dead.

Some European languages also have similar one-argument non-agentive constructions that place the affected person in the dative case obligatorily. French cannot use this construction however.

56. French: *La mère m'est morte.
the mother to me is dead

57. Ma mère est morte.
my mother is dead

58. German: Ihm ist die Mutter gestorben.
to him has the mother died

<footnote n="7">7 See Wierzbicka (1979a:315-17) for more discussion on the variety of dative constructions in French with and without the definite article.</footnote>

<footnote>I would like to thank the following people who were consulted on the European data: Martine Raibaud, Maryse Equuy and Mrs J. Mayrhofer (French); Andrea Pohlmann, Klaus Ecker and Karl Rensch (German); Anna Ravanno and Francesco Consentino (Italian) and Anna Wierzbicka (Polish).</footnote>
59. Seine Mutter ist gestorben.
his mother has died

60. Italian: Gli è morta la madre.
to him has died the mother

61. E' morta sua madre.
has died his mother

62. Polish: Matka mi umarła.
mother to me dead

63. Moja matka umarła.
my mother died

The above constructions from these four particular
European languages (32) to (35) may be extended to possessions as
well, that is, they are not special constructions expressing how a
person is affected by something happening to their kin. The realm
of 'inalienable' entities does, in fact, extend to belongings for
the two-place argument dative constructions exemplified by (64) to
(67).

64. French: Ils lui ont brûlé sa maison.
they to him have burnt his house

65. German: Sie haben ihm das Haus angezündet.
they have to him the house set:on:fire

66. Italian: Gli è bruciata la casa.
to him is burnt the house

67. Polish: Dom mu się spali.
house to him itself burn
This is not the case in other language families such as American Indian languages where special constructions are to be found which differentiate inalienable kinship from material possessions by means of special affixes: Edward Sapir points out in his review of an article by C.C. Uhlenbeck that in Iroquois, personal relations are expressed as transitive verbs (1917-1920:887):

> [T]hus, one cannot say MY GRANDFATHER or MY GRANDSON... but (Iroquois) uses formal transitives which may be respectively translated as HE GRANDFATHERS ME or I GRANDFATHER HIM.

The 'delicate distinctions' that Bally claims may be found within each semantic category (with the classification as 'inalienable' depending on the particular language) are clearly exhibited by many of these American languages: Body part terms and kinship terms may either be classed together morphologically or given separate sets of possessive affixes. This is the case for Chimariko as opposed to Sioux and Haida. In Nootka, body part terms are marked by the passive affix, expressive of the identity of the body part with the person with the result that body parts, in their not being physically separable from the person are viewed differently from possessions. Nootka reflects this fact in its morphology by encoding this class of nouns as 'inert elements' (1917-1920:87).

The semantic field of personal relationships may be further subdivided into 'non-controllable' kinship - blood relationships such as *mother* and *uncle* - as opposed to relationships which may be regarded as exclusive, depending on the particular culture associated with the language. These include the relational terms 'husband', 'wife', 'sweetheart' and 'friend'. Nootka and Takelma treat these two subsets differently in their morphology.
Interestingly enough, 'sweetheart' and 'friend' are classified in
with the kinship terms in these two languages, whereas 'husband' and
'wife' are not (1917-1920:88).

Sapir's Iroquois example displays the fine distinction
between syntax and morphology, as well as highlighting the fact that
in some languages, kinship may be specially singled out by the
morphology or syntax as opposed to other noun classes, inalienable
or alienable as they may be.

In Chinese, kinship and body part terms in possessive
expressions that are non-bound are grouped together as opposed to
other kinds of possessive relationships. This is demonstrated by
the possibility of deletion of the possessive marker de:

Kinship: Ta de mama / Ta mama Her mother

Exclusive relation:

Ta de zhangfu / Ta zhangfu Her husband

Other personal relationships:

Ta de duixiang /*Ta duixiang Her sweetheart

Ta de pengyou /*Ta pengyou Her friend

Body part:

Ta de bizi / *Ta bizi Her nose

Animate possession: (e.g. pets)

Ta de xiao mao /*Ta xiao mao Her kitten

Inanimate possession:

Ta de shu / *Ta shu Her book

In contrast to the situation for possessive NPs, an even
more restricted subset is all that is permissible in the passive of
bodily effect. Not only is the kinship category excluded, but also
all kinds of material possessions:
### 3.3.2 Material Possessions

#### (a) Clothes being worn on the body:

The dative constructions in these four European languages also have the potential to treat an event that involves clothing being worn on the body as affecting the person who is wearing them. If this is the case, then the clothes can be thought of as 'being not separable from the person". This identification occurs in English syntax too where sentence (68) is acceptable but neither (69) or (70) are:

68. I saw Tim with his dog/umbrella/bicycle.

69. *I saw Tim with his clothes.

70. *I saw Tim and his clothes.⁸

Such an identification of clothing and the wearer is certainly made by the dative constructions in these four European languages, and also for owners and their possessions as we will see below.⁹

8 Examples (69) and (70) are starred for the interpretation that Tim was wearing these clothes at the moment when I saw him.

9 Note that in French there are different degrees of identification encoded by the various dative constructions depending on whether or not the object affected is a body part or a possession. Material possessions such as jupe 'skirt' in (71) and chapeau 'hat' in (72) must be qualified by the possessive pronoun and never by the definite article. Body part terms may be qualified by either depending on which dative construction is selected by the speaker. For example, adjectival modification of the body part term combines only with the possessive pronoun:

Marie lui a lavé ses (*les) mains sales
(name) to:him has washed his (*the) hands dirty
Mary washed his dirty hands for him.
71. French: *Il lui a dechiré sa jupe.* (*la jupe)
he to:her has torn her skirt

72. *Il lui a fait tomber son chapeau.* (*le chapeau)
he to:her has made fall her hat

73. German: Er hat ihr den Rock zerissen.
he has to:her the skirt torn

74. Sie hat ihm den Hut vom Kopf geschlagen.
she has to:him the hat from head hit:off

75. Italian: Pietro le ha strappato la gonna.
to:her has torn the skirt

76. Pietro le ha tolto il cappello.
to:her has hit the hat

77. Polish: Podarł Hance sukienke.
he:tore to:Anna dress

78. Stracił Hance kapelusz z głowy.
he:knock to:Anna hat from head

Do we have the corresponding examples to 'She had her skirt torn (on her) by him' and 'She had her hat knocked off (her head) by him' in Chinese? If these two expressions are translated by means of the passive of bodily effect, comprehensible although substandard sentences are the end-product: It is more orthodox to use the regular passive in both these cases:

79. ??Ta bei Zhang San che-po - le qunzi.
she BEI (name) tear:break:COM skirt
? She was skirt torn by Zhang San.
80. ? Xiao Mei bei ta da-diao-le maozi.
(name) BEI he hit:off:COM cap

? Xiao Mei was cap knocked off by him.

The awkwardness of the two examples (79) and (80) is once again eliminated by changing them into the regular passive construction with a possessive noun phrase as the subject:

81. Ta de qunzi bei Zhang San che-po - le.
she GEN skirt BEI (name) tear:break:COM
Her skirt was torn by Zhang San.

82. Ta de maozi bei Zhang San da-diao-le.
she GEN cap BEI (name) hit:off:COM
Her cap was knocked off by Zhang San.

(b) Other possessions:

Can a person be affected by an event which involves their belongings - a real possession with which there is no prolonged physical contact (as with clothing) and thus is ordinarily thought of as separate from the person and that person's body? In fact, German widely uses dative constructions to link a person with their possessions: Examples (83) and (84) exemplify two kinds of dative constructions in German and (85) the neutral counterpart of (84).

83. Ihm ist ein Baum aufs Auto gefallen.
to:him has a tree on the car fallen

84. Johann nahm ihm sein Buch fort.
(name) took to:him his book away

85. Johann nahm sein Buch fort.
(name) took his book away
So does Italian and French, exemplified by (86) and (87) respectively:

86. Pietro mi ha preso il libro.
(name) to:me has taken the book

87. Pierre m'a pris le livre des mains.
(name) to:me:has taken the book from:the hands

There are literary examples to be found in Chinese of this construction with a postverbal noun designating an inanimate entity. They all prove to be unacceptable in modern colloquial Chinese, however, such as this one given by Wang Li in *Theory of Chinese Grammar* (1944:183):

88. Ta bei ta de lao mazi tou - le xuduo dongxi. 10
he BEI he GEN amah steal:COM many things
He was many things stolen by his amah.

With regard to Wang Li's example, we find that even if such an example is acceptable in literary Chinese, it, too, can no longer be used in colloquial Chinese where a possessive NP must be made into the subject:

89. Ta de xuduo dongxi bei ta de lao mazi tou - le.
he GEN many things BEI he GEN amah steal:COM
Many of his things were stolen by his amah.

Guo Derun (1981:32) claims that such sentences are a matter of incorrect usage even in the written language. With respect to this claim, he discusses two examples of a *bei* sentence

<footnote n="10">10 Note that this example, (88), is given as acceptable by Wang Li.</footnote>
where the postverbal noun does not denote a part of the body (his numbering):

(29) *Jishi zai zuowan kanxi de shihou,
even:if at yesterday: watch: REL time
evening play

ye bei ta faxian - le diqing.

also BEI he discover:COM enemy:situation

(Even while watching the play yesterday evening, the enemy's situation was discovered by him.)

(30) *Jinnian chunji yundong hui shang,
this:year spring athletics meeting -at

bei ta dapo - le sanxiang quanguo jilu.
BEI he break:COM three:CL national record

(At the athletics meeting in spring this year, three national records were broken by him.)

These two sentences have both had *bei* added to the beginning of a sentence with the agent as subject ... with the result that both clearly lack a subject and are very awkward to read.

Guo concludes that it is better to delete the superfluous *bei* and use an active form sentence in these cases.

In reference to example (88), we find another comment about undergoers: Wang Li asserts that in this "special passive form", "many things" is the true undergoer and "he", although it is the subject, only represents "the person related to the undergoer". He continues with the following statement (1944:183):

> To generalize, this kind of subject doesn't represent the undergoer but rather its owner. This allows the passive form to keep its object position. It is a flexible usage of the passive.

As is already apparent from the preceding discussion, I would dispute such a syntactic and semantic characterization of the
passive of bodily effect as being merely a flexible usage of the
passive. For a start, it serves the different semantic function of
being an identifying expression, expressing the inseparability of a
certain part of the body from the person denoted by the subject.
Furthermore, this construction encodes that whatever happens to the
part of the body in question has consequences of a lasting nature
for the person. Thus, in contradistinction to Wang Li's analysis,
the subject must be regarded as the undergoer and not the postverbal
noun denoting the body part. In this point, my analysis agrees with
that of Wang Huan who states with regard to examples (43) and (45)
above that it is always the subject who is the undergoer of the
event (1957:184).

Hence, this construction proves to be much more limited
in its semantic scope than the corresponding dative expressions in
some of the European languages: Consider a final example with a
postverbal noun denoting a possession:

90. *Fangdong lao taitai bei tamen qiangzhan-le fangzi.
landlady BEI they occupy :COM house
(The landlady had her house occupied on her by them.)

3.3.3 Name, Soul and Emotions

Let us consider two last semantic fields that Bally lists
as potential categories that may be encoded in identifying
expressions: 'name' and 'soul'. Are there constructions which
encode the association of a person's name or soul with the actual
person themself?

According to Bally, 'soul' may be utilised in one of the
dative constructions in French:
91. <u>se torturer l'esprit</u><fnref n="11" />
(Dat) torment the spirit

He claims (1926:77) that Modern French "restricts the
domain of the subjective self to the body and the soul, excluding
those in one's social entourage and other things...."

In Chinese, neither of these categories is possible.
Given the semantic restrictions that an adversative and agentive
event must be encoded, it is difficult to find any examples for
'name' at all. Possible adversative events involving a person's
name such as 'forget one's own name': <u>wang le ziji de mingzi</u>, or in
the broader sense where name means 'reputation', as in 'lose one's
own good name' and we have the expression <u>diu lian</u>: 'lose face', all
prove to be one-argument intransitive events and thus not
appropriate for this construction. A two-argument predicate such as
'save someone's reputation' is also inappropriate, not only because
it is a beneficial event but also for the reason which brings us to
the next major semantic restriction on the postverbal noun in the
passive of bodily effect: <u>It must refer to a concrete and tangible
entity</u>. All abstract concepts are thus excluded. This constraint
will become more apparent in Section 3.6 detailing kinds of body
parts which may be encoded in this construction. Thus, abstract
concepts such as 'name' and 'soul' are excluded and this constraint
extends to the semantic field of emotions as well: Compare the
acceptability of the passive of bodily effect in (92) with the
regular passive in (93) and for the following two pairs of (94) and
(95) and (96) and (97):

<footnote n="11">11 The use of the definite article here is contrary to
expectation since it is not permitted with clothing terms in
the French dative constructions.</footnote>
92. *Ta bei pengyou zheng-huilai-le mianzi.
she BEI friend retrieve :COM face

93. Pengyou ti ta zheng-huilai-le mianzi.
friend for she retrieve :COM face
Her friends saved her reputation.

94. *Ta bei shangdi zhengjiu-le linghun.
he BEI God save :COM soul

95. Shangdi zhengjiu-le ta de linghun.
God save :COM he GEN soul
God saved his soul.

96. *Xiao Mei bei ta jiqi -le aiqing/lianmin.
(name) BEI he stir up:COM love/compassion

97. Xiao Mei dui ta chansheng -le aiqing/lianmin.
(name) to him produce :COM love/compassion
Xiao Mei started to feel love (compassion) for him.

This section has shown that only body part terms may be encoded by the postverbal noun in the 'retained object' construction with a person as the subject in contradistinction to other semantic fields such as kinship, clothing being worn on the body, possessions, the soul, the name and emotions.

Hence, it is a special construction encoding events which happen to the body. To be specific: how a person is affected in a lasting and adversative manner by an event involving a part of the body. That an identifying expression of this nature is encoded syntactically by means of a passive construction is not remarkable either, given the exclusive relationship between a person and their body parts: ('My arm' belongs to me and to nobody else in contrast
to 'my father' who may also be my siblings' father, or 'my car'
which others can use or borrow and which is physically separate from
me as are my kin.) Secondly, with regard to American Indian
languages, Sapir notes Uhlenbeck's conclusion that when "the
possessive pronouns are related to the pronominal affixes of the
verb, they agree in form, not with the subjective or energetic, but
on the whole, with the objective or *casus inertiae*" (1917-20:89). In
Nootka, there is a special suffix for body parts indicating
inseparability, preceding the general possessive suffix and it is
identical to the passive suffix on verbs (1917-20:87). It appears
that what applies for the case of morphology in certain American
languages is reflected syntactically in Chinese through the linking
of the person and their body parts in this special passive
construction.

We note also that for the dative expressions in the four
European languages, the scope of use is more extensive and the
semantic restrictions correspondingly fewer. The 'milder' effect
possible on the person (designated morphologically by the dative
case) compared to what is always a lasting effect encoded in the
Chinese construction must be seen as a consequence thereof. - The
dative constructions generally express that the person *feels*
something as a result of a certain event rather than their
undergoing some change of state as is the case in Chinese.<fnref n="12" />

If it is semantically natural to link a person and their
body parts in a passive construction while excluding other semantic
categories as I claim, then it is interesting to note that the

<footnote n="12">12 See Wierzbicka (1979a:343-350) for an analysis of the
experiencer-type constructions in English and German.</footnote>
converse does not hold: In English and Chinese, there are no
special constructions encoding an agent (a person in the agentive
case) and how they cause an event to happen to some other entity by
means of an active part of the body. It is indisputable that
instrumental clauses may be added to actor-action constructions, but
this does not signify a special construction, rather only further
specification of how an event is caused. Moreover, when a body part
is an instrument, in English one must express the possessive
relationship. We cannot say:

98. *I hit Jim with { a } hand.

but only

99. I hit Jim with my hand.

in contrast to

100. I hit Jim with { a the } stick.

Similarly:

101. *My leg kicked him.

102. ?I kicked him with my leg. (n.b. "I kicked him with my right leg" is, however, acceptable.)

103. *I caused my leg to kick him.

104. *My hand punched him.

105. ?I punched him with my fist.
(Again, an example such as "I punched him with my right fist, then my left" is acceptable, with the use of the instrumental clause to introduce the contrastive adjective.)

106. *I made my hand punch him.

There appear to be no special constructions in English or Chinese which syntactically separate the agent from the body part used as an instrument in the action, while semantically identifying these two entities to the effect that "What is done by the body part to something else is thought of as what is done by the person". This would be the converse of the meaning expressed by the dative constructions in European languages and the Chinese passive of bodily effect: "What happens to the body part is thought of as happening to the person as a whole." The reason for the absence of such constructions is, of course, quite obvious: A body part used as an instrument to carry out some action cannot be thought of as separate from the person - the agent who wills and controls the action and then be re-identified with it. When a certain (active) part of the body moves, it is what the person is doing, one and the same action. On the other hand, for 'body part' constructions, there are two ways of treating it: Either the body part is expressed as a separate entity, to be regarded in the same way as any other object, or else it may be expressed as inseparable from the person. Both these kinds of constructions can be found in English, exemplified by (109) and (110) as opposed to (107) and (108) respectively:

107. She kissed him on the lips. O = person

108. ?She kissed the table on the legs. O = inanimate object
109. She kissed _his lips_.

0 = inanimate

110. She kissed _the photograph_.

The affective constructions in (107) and (108) require a personal NP as their direct object, demonstrated by the infelicity of (108). Neither could we say "She kissed his photograph on the lips", yet *an* is acceptable for the neutral S-V-O construction exemplified by (109) and (110) where any kind of object NP is permitted: "She kissed his photograph"/"She kissed his lips"/She kissed him." Why is a sentient entity required as the direct object in the affective English construction where the relevant body part follows in a prepositional phrase? Presumably this is closely tied to the component of meaning which states that the undergoer "feels something" as a result of the agent's action, and explains why such a proposition as "Mary kicked the car on the tyres" is not to be found.<fnref n="13" />

The fact that parts of the body are singled out in Chinese for special treatment is therefore indicative of their being viewed as the most inalienable of possessions.

By comparison, an event involving a related person or possession is only considered to have at best an indirect effect on the subject, since such categories are excluded from the construction.

If the postverbal noun denoting the body part were the undergoer, as Wang Li claims, then how could it be placed away from

<footnote n="13">13. The reader is referred to a detailed analysis of this English construction in Anna Wierzbicka's article "Ethno-Syntax and the Philosophy of Grammar" (1979a:343-6).</footnote>
the subject position? The 'retained object' passive incorporates
the body part term as part of a complex predicate because it is so
central to the change and enduring adversative effect felt by the
undergoer who is denoted by the subject. The body part is thus not
understood as the undergoer unless it is placed in subject position
and forms a regular passive.<fnref n="14" />

In this section, I have shown conclusively that only
parts of the body may be denoted by the postverbal noun. In the
following section, the kind of event encoded by this passive
construction is discussed with continuing reference to the four
European languages.

<footnote n="14">14. I would like to acknowledge my debt to Tim Shopen here for helping me so much to clarify the ideas contained in these two paragraphs, and also for his incisive editing of the whole chapter.</footnote>
## 3.4 SEMANTIC NATURE OF EVENT ENCODED:

### 3.4.1 Pleasant Events Affecting the Body

In general, bodily events of a pleasant nature cannot be encoded in this construction which is adversative in nature as are all the passive constructions in Chinese. In contrast to this, many of the dative constructions in European languages are neutral with respect to any component of good luck or misfortune in their meaning: Compare the French example in (112) with the Chinese in (111):

111. *Ta bei Xiao Ying rou-le bei.
he BEI (name) rub:COM back
(He had his back massaged by Xiao Ying.)

112. Xiao Ying lui a massé le dos.
(name) to:him has massaged the back

The use of a non-telic verb in (111) *rou* 'rub' which is an activity verb, engenders a situation where *bei* 'back' vies for interpretation as the real semantic undergoer with the subject *ta* 'he'. (This feature of non-V<sub>R</sub> verbs was discussed in Section 3.2 of this chapter.)

The 'adversity' component of this construction is totally predictable from the semantics of the regular passive with *bei* and is not a unique feature of this related construction. Thus, if we transform (111) into a regular passive with *bei*, the resultant form is equally unacceptable:

113. *Ta de bei bei Xiao Ying rou-le.
he GEN back BEI (name) rub:COM
(His back was massaged by Xiao Ying.)
'Pleasant' actions applied to the body are also excluded because they do not cause a change of state in the affected body part; the latter being a major semantic constraint of the passive of bodily effect as outlined in Section 3.2.

## Passive of Bodily Effect

114. *Ta bei Mali fumo - le yi-xia lian. he BEI (name) caress:COM one:CL face (He had his face caressed by Mary.)

115. Marie lui a caressé le visage. (name) to:him has caressed the face

### 3.4.2 Good Health and Body Improvement

Are there any fortunate events where the action which affects the whole can cause a change of state in some part of the body of a beneficial nature? The answer is an unconditional no. If a person regains their health, even if it be through the aid of medical treatment, it will be expressed as a gradual change in Chinese by means of intransitive verb constructions or 'active form' S-V-O sentences.

Thus, such events are proscribed from the passive as they are seen as happening within the person themself and not caused by some external agent. Secondly, such terms as 'health' and 'illness' cannot be encoded by the postverbal noun as they denote abstract concepts, not parts of the body in any sense of this term and the semantic formula thus excludes such concepts from occurring in this construction.

Consequently, it cannot be said in Chinese "She was skin shone on by the sun so that she became tanned" (116) or "He was acne shone on by the sun so that it all dried up" (117):
116. *Ta bei taiyang shai-hei -le pifu.
she BEI sun shine:black:COM skin

117. *Ta bei taiyang shai-gan -le geda.
he BEI sun shine:dry:COM acne

For beneficial events where the change is gradual and
almost imperceptible, only intransitive predicates or S-V-(O)
sentences may be used:

"Active-form": S-V

118. Ta lianshang de geda zhi-hao -le.
his face: on GEN acne cure:well:COM
The acne on his face has cleared up.

"Active Form": S-V

119. Ta huifu -le jiankang.
he restore:COM health
He was restored to health.

## Passive

120. *Ta bei zhei-zhong xin liaofa huifu -le jiankang.
he BEI this: kind new treatment restore:COM health
(He had his health restored by this new kind of
treatment.)

"Active Form": S-V

121. Ta de bing zhi-hao-le. / Ta hao le.
he GEN illness cure:well:COM / he good INC
His illness has been cured. / He's better now.

## Passive

122. *Ta bei daifu zhi-hao -le bing.
he BEI doctor cure:well:COM illness
(He had his illness cured by the doctor.)
Other transitive verbs with animate agents which form predicates interpretable as beneficial events also prove to be unacceptable.

123. *Xiao Ying bei minjian yisheng jie-he -le tuigu.
(name) BEI folk:doctor set:together:COM femur

Example (123) is excluded because both the action and the resulting state referred to by the main verb does _not_ extend over the person's body as a whole, but is restricted in scope to the particular body part. This constraint was also discussed in detail in Section 3.2. Neither does the English translation make sense:

* Xiao Ying was set by the doctor so that a leg became together.

The same situation applies for beneficial states of affairs resulting from corrective surgery and the use of cosmetic aids, for example, perming of the hair or straightening of the nose:

124. *Ta bei lifayuan tang-juan - le toufa.
 she BEI hairdresser perm:curl:COM hair
 *She was permed so that her hair became curly.*

125. *Ta bei daifu nong-zheng - le bizi.
he BEI doctor do:straight:COM nose*

*He was done something to by the doctor so that his nose became straight.*

### 3.4.3 Neutral Events

Not only are beneficial states of affairs excluded but also those of a neutral nature: In some European languages it is possible to use a dative construction for events such as "washing the hands":
126. **French:** Marie lui a lavé les mains.
(name) to:him has washed the hands

127. **German:** Marie hat ihm die Hände gewaschen.
(name) has to:him the hands washed

128. **Italian:** Marie gli ha lavato le mani.
(name) to:him has washed the hands

129. **Polish:** Piotr umył Hance ręce.
(name) wash to:Anna hands

As predicted, this is not possible in Chinese as it is not the whole person who is undergoing the washing but only the particular body part which is affected:

130. *Ta bei Mali xi-ganjing le shou.*
he BEI (name) wash:clean COM hand

*He was washed (all over) by Mary so that his hands became clean.*

Some of the European languages under discussion also permit 'invasion of a person's private space' in dative constructions, for example, German:<fnref n="15" />

131. Die Katze sprang mir auf den Tisch.
the cat jumped to:me on the table

132. Er warf dem Studenten ein Steinchen aufs Buch.
he threw to the student a pebble on:the book

French and Italian may also use the dative construction to express a similar kind of event:

<footnote n="15">15 See Neumann (1981, Section VII) and Wierzbicka (1979a:330-2) for more information on this category of dative sentence. Examples (131) and (132) taken from Neumann.</footnote>
133. **French:** Il lui court derrière.
he to:her runs behind

134 **Italian:** Pietro le è corso dietro.
to:her has run behind

In Polish, however, only when a part of the body is
explicitly stated in conjunction with this kind of event may the
dative personal pronoun be used:

135. *Biegł mi obok.
he was running to me behind

136. Ciągle stoi mi za plecami.
he is constantly standing to me behind (my) back

In Chinese, even though the relevant part of the body can
be overtly expressed with this kind of event, the passive is still
not acceptable:

137. *Ta bei Zhang San pao zai ta de houmian.
she BEI (name) run at she GEN behind
(She had Zhang San running behind her.)

In this section, it has been shown that neither
beneficial nor neutral events can be encoded in the passive of
bodily effect, in contradistinction to the dative constructions in
the four European languages. The passive of bodily effect encodes
that an adverse state of affairs comes about for the undergoer, a
feature it shares with other passive constructions in Chinese.
## 3.5 SEMANTIC RESTRICTIONS ON THE DETERMINACY OF THE BODY PART TERM

Having established in Section 3.3 that only parts of the body may be encoded as the predicate NP of this construction, in this section I propose to discuss the restrictions on the modification of this NP, comparing it with one of the French dative constructions.

When parts of the body are encoded as the inanimate subject of a regular *bei* passive construction, it is possible for such a subject to be highly specific and individuated. In contrast to this, in the passive of bodily effect, the body part terms located postverbally in the predicate may not be modified, that is, only non-modified, non-specified parts of the body are permissible in the postverbal position.

138. Ta de ying-gou bizi bei Li Si da-wai -le. he GEN eagle:hook nose BEI (name) hit:crooked:COM His Roman nose was knocked out of shape by Li Si.

139. *Ta bei Li Si da-wai -le ying-gou bizi. he BEI (name) hit:crooked:COM eagle:hook nose (He had his Roman nose knocked out of shape by Li Si.)

Due to this restriction on postverbal NPs [exemplified by (139)], it is only possible to say:

140. Ta bei Li Si da-wai -le bizi. he BEI (name) hit:crooked:COM nose He was nose knocked out of shape by Li Si.
This rule is not unique to Chinese. In French, the dative construction with the definite article + body part term cannot be modified by adjectives either. The neutral construction with a possessive pronoun + body part term is the only one which can be used if there is an adjective involved.

### Dative Construction:

141. Pierre lui a lavé la tête (*sale)
(name) to:him has washed the head (*dirty)

### Genitive Construction:

142. Pierre a lavé sa tête sale.
(name) has washed his head dirty
Pierre has washed his dirty hair.

Bally explains the semantic purpose of these two kinds of construction as this (1926:77):

> A part of the body may be regarded as an integral part of the person or as detached from it ... as a simple thing. It's for an analogous reason that the idea of an integral part is obliterated when the object is characterized in whatsoever manner ... In all these cases, the object acquires a kind of personality itself, detached from the individual of which it is a part.

In other words, adjectival modification of the body part term causes it to be thought of as a separate, independent entity and thus to be no longer appropriate in an identifying expression.

If, however, the 'injury' is serious, the body part term may be modified by a numeral and a measure word for the Chinese construction. However, only the numeral 'one' may be employed as it is non-specific in meaning. - It does not indicate exactly which one of certain body parts occurring in pairs such as legs, ears, arms, eyes, hands and feet has been affected and the same applies
for the extremities - the fingers and toes. As a result, (143) is acceptable but not (144). In the following five examples, I use _gebo_ 'arm' and _tui_ 'leg' as being representative of all the body parts which occur in pairs:

143. Ta bei zidan da-duan -le yi-tiao gebo.
he BEI bullet hit:break:COM one:CL arm
He was one arm hit and broken by a bullet.

144. *Ta bei diren da-duan -le liang-ge gebo.
he BEI enemy hit:break:COM two:CL arm
??He had two arms hit and broken by the enemy.

Sentence (144) would imply that the subject had more than two arms, only two of which were wounded due to its being so specific as to employ a numerical modifier.

If a verb such as _da-shang_ 'to wound by hitting' is employed, where the injury is less serious in nature, then only a _completely non-modified_ body part term may be combined with this predicate:

145. *Ta bei diren da-shang -le yi-tiao tui.
he BEI enemy hit:wound:COM one:CL leg
?He had one of his legs wounded through the enemy's firing.

146. Ta bei diren da-shang -le tui.
he BEI enemy hit:wound:COM leg
He was leg wounded through the enemy's firing.

The underlying principle here seems to be that if the injury is of a minor nature in the first place [as "wounding" is in (145)], then it is difficult to interpret an overall lasting effect
on the person when the extent of the injury is even further minimized by using the numerical modifier "one" and thus confining the wounding to only one of a pair of body parts.

Note that the adjective **shuang** 'both' which does not take an intervening measure word can serve as a modifier of body parts which occur in pairs, but again, only for events of a serious nature. The use of "both" is not to enumerate but rather to encode that for certain kinds of body parts, the total was affected rather than just one of the two.

147. Ta bei diren da-duan (*da-shang) -le shuang tui.

he BEI enemy hit:break (*hit:wound):COM both leg

He was both legs broken (*wounded) in the enemy attack.

For small parts of the body such as **fingers** or **fingernails**, the use of numerals to specify exactly how many were affected by an event proves to be even more bizarre:

148. *Wang Xiao Er bei tamen ba-diao le liuge zhijia.*

(name) BEI they pull:out:COM six:CL fingernails

(Wang Xiao was six fingernails pulled out by them.)

149. Wang Xiao Er bei tamen ba-diao -le shou zhijia.

(name) BEI they pull:out:COM hand fingernail

Wang Xiao Er was fingernails pulled out by them.

In the case of a pianist or violinist where the number of fingers injured would be of extreme importance, the regular **bei** passive with the body part as subject NP would be used.

If numerals cannot be employed to specify the exact number of the kind of body part affected, then it is even less likely that demonstratives can be used, given their deictic function. This indeed proves to be the case:
150. Ta bei bunuren ge-diao le (*nei-zhi) erduo.
he BEI slavetraders cut:off:COM (*that:CL) ear
He was (*that) ear cut off by the slavetraders.

The final piece of evidence that the postverbal body part
term is linked inalienably to the person encoded as subject rather
than being regarded as a separate entity, is the exclusion of
possessive pronouns as modifiers of it:

151. Ta bei bunuren ge-diao-le (*ta de) erduo.
he BEI slaver cut:off:COM (*he GEN) ear
He was (*his) ear(s) cut off by the slavetraders.

Yet, all these non-occurring examples may be changed into
fully acceptable regular passives with the body part term as subject:

152. Ta de erduo bei bunuren ge-diao-le.
he GEN ear BEI slaver cut:off:COM
His ears were cut off by the slavetraders.

The conclusion to be gained from this data is that the
body part term may be modified by 'one' or 'both' for events which
cause bodily harm of a serious nature. Otherwise, this term must
remain totally unspecified so that it can form part of a complex
VP. Neither demonstratives, adjectives nor possessive pronouns are
permitted to modify the body part term as such a modification would
cause it to be understood as 'an entity in its own right' and so it
could no longer be identified with the person designated by the
subject but would need to be made into the subject NP of a regular
passive.

In other words, the construction roughly has this
meaning: "I think of what happened to a part Z of Y's body as of
something that happened to the person Y (not to something other than Y)".

If the injury is of a minor degree, exemplified by action verbs which combine with the stative verb "wounded" to form the resultative compound verbs which are obligatory in this construction, then this 'injury' cannot be further minimized by indicating that it was only _one leg_ or _arm_ that was wounded, nor through the specification of 'both' for body parts which occur in pairs. The philosophy behind this rule seems to be of the nature that there is not much difference in effect for the person concerned if one or both legs are wounded, but there is if it is a case of one or both legs being broken or disabled in some way. Hence, the degree of bodily harm is 'adequately' serious in the case of either one leg or both legs being broken and here the modification of the body part term does not cause the latter to be thought of as something separate from the person, whereas this is what happens when the resultant state of the subject is less easily interpretable as one of 'lasting effect' as in the case of 'wounded'.

Therefore, the second part of the conclusion is that the construction also encodes that "person Y is now unable to do something" as a result of the harm inflicted by the given event. The presence of this component in the semantic structure of this construction will be justified in the following section.
## 3.6 SEMANTIC NATURE OF THE BODY PART TERMS PERMISSIBLE:

### 3.6.1 Parts of the body versus places or areas on the body

Only parts of the body which are well-defined in form and easily individualizable can be encoded as the postverbal NP in this construction. These are: gebo 'arm', yanjing 'eye', erduo 'ear', ya 'tooth', bizi 'nose', toufa 'hair', naodai 'head', shou 'hand', zhitou 'finger', zhijia 'fingernail', tui 'leg', jiao 'foot' and jiaozhi 'toe'. Moreover, they all have a specific function with which they are associated. Many of these parts of the body have been exemplified above in the course of the discussion. We will see below that this semantic category is not confined purely to external parts of the body. - Some internal organs are intended to be included by this (informal) description, and by the subsequently formulated semantic explication.

As a consequence of the requirement of form, places on the body or areas of the body are not permissible. Thus, huai 'ankle', xigai 'knee', xigaigu 'kneecap', jianbang 'shoulder', lian 'face', etou 'forehead', xiongtang 'chest', duzi 'belly', datui 'thigh' and yao 'waist' are all excluded as they are designate either joints of the body or surface areas. To refine the description of body part terms permissible, only functional parts of the body that are put into direct use by us can be encoded as the postverbal NP in this passive construction in Chinese.

From an anatomical point of view, places on the body all have their own specific function too: They may enable other parts of the body to move, for example, the knee and the elbow enable the leg and the arm to bend, respectively. Nonetheless, their exclusion from this construction seems to imply that in Chinese they are not
viewed as *directly* enabling the person to do anything, unlike other
parts of the body such as *eyes*, *ears*, *legs* and *arms* whose primary
function is to directly enable the person to see, hear, walk and
hold things, respectively.<fnref n="16" /> Hence, the reason for the exclusion
of places and areas on the body from the passive of bodily effect is
the non-direct effect of their respective functions to the person as
a whole. It is consequently difficult to interpret the disabling
consequences of an event where these are involved.

153. Ta de huai bei zidan da-sui -le.
he GEN ankle BEI bullet hit:smash:COM
His ankle was smashed when a bullet hit it.

154. *Ta bei zidan da-sui -le huai.
he BEI bullet hit:smash:COM ankle
(He had his ankle smashed when a bullet hit it.)

155. Xiao Ying de yao bei ta da-shang-le.
(name) GEN back BEI he hit:wound:COM
The small of Xiao Ying's back was hurt when he hit it.

156. \*Xiao Ying bei ta da-shang-le yao.
(name) BEI he hit:wound:COM back
(Xiao Ying had the small of her back hurt when he hit it.)

Examples (153) and (155) show the acceptability of the regular
passive with places or areas of the body as the subject in contrast
to the passives of bodily effect in (154) and (156) which are non-
interpretable.

<footnote n="16">16 In Dyirbal, a language of north-eastern Queensland, it is the knee which is viewed as enabling the leg to move, as opposed to the situation in Chinese (Bob Dixon - personal communication). See also Dixon (1972).</footnote>
This constraint accounts also for the exclusion of very
small parts of the body such as <u>muzhi</u> 'thumb' and <u>bilianggu</u> 'bridge
of the nose'. It is difficult to interpret, even slightly bizarre to
imagine how such tiny sections of the body could have any kind of
overall and sustained effect on the person as a whole.

157. *Ta bei chemen zhuang-po - le biliang-gu.
he BEI car door knock:break:COM bridge:of:nose
(He had the bridge of his nose broken when the car door
hit it.)

158. *Zhang San bei tamen kan-diao-le you shou de muzhi.
(name) BEI they chop:off:COM right hand REL thumb
(Zhang San had the thumb of his right hand chopped off by
them.)

In English too, it seems we can commonly talk about using
the eyes to see or the legs to walk and so on while we can't talk
about using areas or places on the body such as the face or kneecap
or bridge of the nose to do anything. These intuitions are reflected
in the unacceptability of the English sentences in (160):

159. a. Use your eyes why don't you!
b. I saw him with my own two eyes.
c. You've got two legs, haven't you? Well use them!

160. a. *Use your kneecap to bend your leg.
b. *I kneed him with my kneecap.
c. *I used my face to see, by pointing it in the right direction.

Thus, it is only functional parts of the body which are
put into direct use by us that may be encoded by the Chinese
construction.
### 3.6.2 Internal Body Parts

Is this construction restricted to external body parts?

To a very limited extent, internal body parts may be used in the passive of bodily effect, being subject to two kinds of constraints: The first one is the concrete vs non-tangible dichotomy, previously touched upon in the course of discussion. The observability factor comes into play to the effect that wherever an external part of the body is substitutable, it will be preferred.

161

Ta bei zhuankuai zhen-shang le (*xiao nao/ naozi)

she BEI brick vibrate:wound COM (*cerebellum/brain)

naodai.

head

She was head (*cerebellum/brain) wounded through
concussion from a brick.

162.

Ta bei qiche ya-sui -le (*tuigu) tui.

she BEI car crush:smash:COM (*femur) leg

She was legs (*femur) crushed by a car.

This has analogues in English where it is more likely for
(163) to be said than (164) in colloquial speech:

163. She broke her back/neck/arm.

164. She broke her spine/*neckbone/?ulna.

Secondly, functional systems within the body such as
hearing, sight and the vocal organs are likewise excluded, due to
their non-tangible or non-observable nature.

165.

*Ta bei jiqi de zaoyin sunhai-le tingli.*

he BEI machine REL noise impair:COM hearing

(He had his hearing impaired by industrial noise.)
Generally, an active construction will be preferred in
this semantic area, such as (166) over (165):

166. Jiqi de zaoyin sunhai le ta de tingli.

machine REL notice impair:COM he GEN hearing

Industrial noise impaired his hearing.

In sum, the sense faculties as opposed to the sense
organs are proscribed, and even the small parts that go to make up
such systems. Once again, the effect produced over the entire
person is difficult to interpret. This category includes such small
parts as **eardrum** and **appendix**.

167. *Ta bei Li Si ci-chuan -le ermo.
he BEI (name) pierce:through:COM eardrum
(He had his eardrum pierced right through by Li Si.)

168. *Li Si bei yisheng qie-chu-le lanwei.<fnref n="17" />
(name) BEI doctor cut:out:COM appendix
(Li Si had his appendix cut out by the doctor.)

Due to this constraint, very few examples with internal
body parts are to be found, excepting those with *leigu* 'rib' and
*gutou' bones'. Perhaps these are able to be interpreted as
"tangible" if not "observable" in the sense that the shape of the
body is determined by the skeletal framework and so the form of the
ribs and other bones of the body are, in this sense, observable from
the outside as opposed to the case for the appendix and eardrum.
Consequently, body part terms denoting internal organs are mainly

<footnote n="17">17 Note that the English *have* construction used here to give the meaning that was sought for the Chinese examples is *not* subject to the same restrictions on its body part term.</footnote>
excluded from the passive of bodily effect. This list includes
**ganzang** 'liver', **pi** 'spleen', **yaozi** 'kidney', **houlong** 'throat',
**sangzi** 'voice' or 'throat', **xinzang** 'heart', **duzi** 'guts' or 'belly'
and **naozhi** 'brain'.

**Gutou** 'bones' when used in the sense of most of the
skeletal framework (not just a few insignificant bones!) may be
felicitously employed in this construction:

169. Ta bei qiche ya-sui -le gutou.
    she BEI car crush:smash:COM bones
    She was bones crushed by a car.

However, 'heart' is not acceptable which brings us to the
second constraint: This construction does not permit an interpretat-
ion of the subject being affected by an event which involves a part
of the body to the extent that death results. In other words, death
is excluded as one kind of "lasting effect" encoded by this
construction.

This explains why **da-si** 'die from being beaten' (or any
other resultative compound verb formed with **si** 'die') cannot co-
occur with a body part term in this construction. Only personal NPs
can have death predicated of them and not parts of the body, and as
pointed out earlier, the stative verb of the resultative verb
compound always refers exclusively to the resultant state of the
body part.

Therefore, this construction can neither encode minor
injury nor can it encode serious injury that results in death. This
feature of meaning also accounts for the rarity of examples with
internal body parts. Large internal organs such as the stomach as
opposed to the heart are just barely acceptable when they co-occur
with predicates such as "pierce through" or "perforate" in (70) but
not with "wound by hitting". (The latter is obviously restricted to
external body parts.) Moreover, it is unacceptable for semantic
reasons as well to say "Li Si was heart pierced by a bullet" rather
than simply "Li Si died" or "Li Si was killed" shown by (170). This
situation is ameliorated somewhat by changing the body part term in
(170) to "stomach", since such an event is less certain to result in
death:

170. ?Li Si bei zidan chuan-tou -le wei (*xinzang). (name) BEI bullet pierce:through:COM stomach (*heart) ?Li Si was stomach (*heart) perforated by a bullet.

This section has set out to examine precisely what kind
of body parts are permissible in the passive of bodily effect.
Areas and places on the body were shown to be excluded as were non-
tangible parts of the body mainly comprising the internal organs.
Only those parts, therefore, which are tangible and functional may
fill the role of the postverbal noun.

Conclusion

In the preceding semantic analysis of the passive of
bodily effect, I have claimed that it exclusively encodes an
inalienable relation between a person and a part of the body. The
inalienable nature of this relation is seen first of all in the
interpretation of both the person and the body part as undergoing
the action. Although the state resulting from this action refers
exclusively to the body part, the person is understood to be
adversely affected by this new state of affairs as well. In this
manner, the identification of the part of the body with the person
is complete - and inalienable.

The semantic principle underlying this construction may
be paraphrased in the following way: The change of state in the
part of the body which is caused by the passive event can only be
one which affects the normal functioning of the whole and the person
becomes unable to do something as a result. However, this effect
cannot go so far as to cause the destruction of the whole and end in
the death of the person nor can it be so minor as to have no
disabling effect on the person. Both these interpretations are
proscribed from being made.

These semantic features were unfolded during the course
of the presentation with each being argued for successively and are
explicated in terms of the following semantic formula:

## SEMANTIC FORMULA

### PASSIVE OF BODILY EFFECT

Syntactic Schema:

NP<sub>p</sub> BEI NP<sub>p</sub> V<sub>R</sub> LE N<sub>BP</sub>
Undergoer Agent Part of the body

Example:

Ta bei feitu nong-xia -le yanjing.

he BEI bandit do:blind:COM eye

Person A Person B Body Part Z

"He was done something to by bandits so that his eyes became blind."
Thinking of this person (A)

I say:

Something happened to person A (event Y)
because person B did something to A
a body part Z came to be in a certain state
because of this
(Z can be thought of as part of person A's body)
I don't need to say any more about body part Z
Person A became unable to do something because of this
I'm thinking of Y as something
serious and something that was bad for A.

I want to say something about person A
not because I want to say something
about anything else
I say something about person B and body part Z
because I want to say something about A.
# THE GET PASSIVE IN ENGLISH

In what we could call the 'traditional' analysis of the *get* passive only the syntactic structure has been considered with the result that the observation of its formal similarity to the *be* passive has concealed an underlying semantic structure which is unique. The task of the analysis presented here is to explicate the semantic structure of the *get* passive and show how it differs from the *be* passive.

The chapter begins with an outline of the attitudes of earlier grammarians towards the use of *get*, followed by a brief description of two kinds of different passive constructions in Vietnamese and Greek.

An appraisal of two comparatively recent articles that specifically deal with the *get* passive precedes the main section where the semantic analysis of the *get* passive is presented. Here the argument in favour of postulating six *get* passive subconstructions is given. Informal descriptions of the *get* passive in terms of it being a construction which expresses both adversity and benefit and where responsibility for the event is attributed to the subject are reduced into the less complex but more precise and easily understood terms of the semantic formulae.

This analysis of the *get* passive is presented prior to the analyses of the *rang* and *jiao* passives in Chinese in order to enable certain parallels to be drawn between the adversative *get* passive and the *rang* passive.

Components of meaning present in both the *get* passive on the one hand and the *rang* and *jiao* passives on the other have been
independently hinted at in previous analyses in the feature of all three being considered more colloquial and somehow more 'expressive' if not 'emotive' than either the _be_ passive or the _bei_ passive (respectively).

That the _rang_ and _jiao_ passives in Chinese have generally been claimed to be the mere colloquial variants of the _bei_ passive is also tied closely to the formal similarity of these three passive constructions. This formal similarity is however only superficial, revealed by the syntactic and semantic differentiation of both colloquial passives from the _bei_ passive in Chapters 5 and 6 of Part II.

Moreover, in Chapter 5 of Part II below which specifically deals with the _rang_ passive, I claim that this construction shares the following components of meaning with one of the _get_ passive constructions - The Non-Reflexive Adversative _Get_ Passive: the causal involvement of the subject, the adversative yet avoidable nature of the passive event and the inference of blame which can be made by the speaker.

The fact that a passive construction exists in English similar to the _rang_ passive in Chinese enhances the case argued below for the latter.

Chapter 4, "The _get_ passive in English", has been published under the title of "Is the _get_ passive adversative?" in *Papers in Linguistics: International Journal of Human Communication* 13 (3) 1980:411-452.

The original publication has been slightly modified for the purpose of incorporating it into my doctoral thesis and an introduction has been added. One paragraph was also rewritten, this being indicated in the appropriate footnote.
## 4.1 EARLIER ATTITUDES TO THE USE OF _GET_

In English, the use of the _get_ passive has remained relatively unanalysed. In the past, grammarians have tended to view the choice of _get_ as the passive auxiliary, rather than _be_, as only causing a negligible difference in meaning. On the other hand, the multifarious uses of _get_ have long been a contentious point of discussion in traditional grammar books and handbooks of style.

In the earlier approaches, predominantly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, _get_ was generally condemned as vulgar and colloquial.<fnref n="1" /> Later grammarians such as Jespersen and Curme, in opposition to these prescriptive (and proscriptive) tendencies, characterized the difference between the passive constructions having either _get_ or _be_ as their auxiliaries, as one of a dynamic-stative contrast, although they continued to regard _get_ as an 'expressive colloquialism' whenever it wasn't necessary to disambiguate an adjective from the past participle of the passive. (Jespersen 1949:109; Curme 1931:445-46) Jespersen provides the following example where _get_ is able to distinguish 'state' from 'transition' (1949:108):

"At that time he was not married. He got married in 1920." (where, presumably, 'married' is an adjective in the first instance, but a past participle in the second) - yet, such a description gives us only a glimpse of the underlying semantics of the _get_ passive.

<footnote n="1">1 See Wallace Rice, (1932), "Get and got" for a survey of representative attitudes to the many uses of _get_ from the late 18th century to the 20th century.</footnote>

<footnote>* I would particularly like to thank Avery Andrews and Tim Shopen for their valuable comments and criticism of an earlier draft of this chapter.</footnote>
Despite this lone observation concerning the active-stative contrast between *get* and *be*, most descriptions of the passive remain based on an underlying assumption that the two constructions are formally identical from the point of view of syntax, and thus, the choice of auxiliary is considered arbitrary. It is this view which hindered the search for the semantic properties that differentiate the *get* passive from the *be* passive.

On the other hand, when data is examined from other languages, we find the use of alternative passive markers or passive constructions does, in fact, signal semantic differences.

## 4.2 TWO UNUSUAL KINDS OF PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION

In recent studies of Asian languages, several analyses have singled out a certain kind of passive construction which grammatically codifies the notion of adversity or misfortune, in contradistinction to neutral or other types of passives.² A well-known example is the Vietnamese adversative passive, which uses a special morphological exponent, *bi*, to encode this feature. Compare

2. Apart from the preceding chapters on the adversative *bei* passive in Chinese, see particularly:

(a) Marybeth Clark, (1974b), "Submissive verbs as adversatives in some Asian languages" for Japanese, Thai, Lao and Cambodian.

(b) Wang Li, (1944), *Zhongguo Yufa Lilun (The Theory of Chinese Grammar)* In Vol.I, pp.175-85, Wang Li points out that active form sentences cannot be paraphrased by passives (and retain the same meaning) because of the intrinsically adversative nature of *bei*, the passive marker.

(c) Anna Wierzbicka, (1979b), "Are grammatical categories vague or polysemous? The Japanese 'adversative' passive in a typological context."
the following related active and passive sentences (cited in Clark,
1974b: 94-95; her numbering and translation):

10. ho _giết_ ông _ày_
they kill man that
They killed him.

11. ông ày bi (ho) _giết_ man that Pass. (they) kill
(He underwent adversely: They kill him.)
He was killed.

Even when the active form describes a desirable state of
affairs, the corresponding passive with _bi_ can only depict the
contrary situation: (examples taken from Keenan, 1978: 20; his
numbers)

21. a. <u>Bao</u> _thương_ <u>Quang</u>
Bao love Quang
Bao loves Quang.

b. <u>Quang</u> <u>bi</u> Bao <u>thương</u>
Quang Pass. Bao love
Quang is loved by Bao. (ironic: she is loved by Bao
despite her wishes)

From this kind of data, it is possible to conclude that
the adversative connotation of the _bi_ passive in Vietnamese is not
determined by the meaning of the verb, but rather by the meaning of
the syntactic construction taken as a whole.

Moreover, in contrast to the other Asian languages whose
adversative passive constructions have been described (such as those
in Japanese, Thai, Lao, Cambodian and Mandarin Chinese), Vietnamese
also has a passive of good fortune, formed with the submissive verb
*duoc* (Keenan, 1978: 20):

b. Quang duoc Bao thuong

Quang Pass. Bao love

Quang is loved by Bao. (beneficial for Quang)

In Chinese, no choice between adversative and beneficial passives exists as all the passive constructions are uncompromisingly adversative in nature:³

1. * Mali bei (rang) (jiao) ta gei - le yiben shu.
(name) (Passive markers) he give:COM one:CL book

2. Mali bei (rang) (jiao) ta piping - le yixia.
(name) (Passive markers) he criticize:COM one:CL

Mary was criticized by him.

In contrast to the adversative passive construction of Asian languages, (possibly an areal feature of this region), another kind of passive has been described in Modern Greek, which conveys the subject's causal involvement in the event; while excluding reference to specific agents (examples from Warburton, 1975: 563, my numbering and her translations):

Active form:

3. a. o janis skotose to niko
Nom. John kill Acc. Nick

John killed Nick.

3. In the original publication, I claimed that the *rang* passive was a neutral construction encoding neither adversity nor good luck. After further research, this proved to be false, requiring a rewriting of this paragraph. See Chapter 5 of Part II for the results of my investigation into the semantic and syntactic properties of the *rang* passive.
### Passive with non-specific agent:

b. o nikos skotothike apo tus 'exthrus
Nom. Nick kill:Pass. by the enemy

Nick got (himself) killed and the source or cause of his death was the enemy.

### Passive with specific agent:

c. ?o nikos skotothike apo to jani
Nom. Nick kill:Pass. by John

In Modern Greek, the only way that 'Nick' can be encoded as the theme (or topic) but, at the same time, the semantic 'patient' of the event, including reference to a specific agent, is by means of a patient-focus construction which has the normal active verb morphology. However, it requires a different word order from the active sentence construction as well as the obligatory presence of the verbal enclitic, indicating that 'Nick' is grammatically the direct object. Moreover, there is no implication of causal involvement on the part of 'Nick'.

### Patient-focus construction:

d. to niko ton skotose o janis
Acc. Nick enclitic Acc. kill Nom. John

Nick was killed by John.

These examples from two languages, one related to and the other genetically distinct from English, reveal several important dimensions along which passives vary, not only within the one language but also cross-linguistically. In the next section, I will show that such semantic parameters are also crucial in distinguishing the *get* passive from the *be* passive in English.
## 4.3 OTHER ANALYSES OF THE _GET_ PASSIVE

Despite the traditional view that censured the use of _get_ as 'inelegant' and 'colloquial', it persisted in its function as an alternative auxiliary to _be_, and became increasingly popular in use (see, for example, Visser, 1969:2031). Nevertheless, this was the dominant trend in analysis until the appearance of Anna Granville Hatcher's article in 1949, entitled "To Be/Get Invited", a detailed though-be-it non-formal examination of the semantics of the _get_ passive construction. She effectively argues against the traditional description of the _get_ passive as merely the colloquial alternative to the _be_ passive with hard evidence of many cases where _get_ cannot be substituted for _be_, concluding with the remarks "the use of _get_ as a passive auxiliary is greatly limited" (1949:435). Even more significant is her view that "_get_ will be used for only two types of events - those felt as having either fortunate or unfortunate consequences for the subject" (1949:441). Hatcher's article clearly points to the possibility of the _be_ and _get_ passives possessing different semantic structures.

Robin Lakoff has similarly noted this polarization of the _get_ passive in her 1971 article "Passive Resistance": "The _get_ passive in English, unlike the _be_ passive, is frequently used to reflect the attitude of the speaker toward the events described in the sentence: whether he feels they are good or bad, or reflect well or poorly on him..." (1971:154).

In addition to this, both writers have independently reached the conclusion that the _get_ passive conveys the notion of 'responsibility' on the part of the subject (similar to the passive
in Greek), which Lakoff also characterizes elsewhere as the "active
involvement" of the subject in the event (Lakoff, p.151; Hatcher,
p.437). In the _get_ passive, then, the subject is thought of as
having more control in determining the resulting situation than for
the corresponding _be_ passive where the subject is purely an
undergoer.

Although Hatcher provides very clear-cut examples to
prove her point about the restrictions on the use of _get_, her
evidence is not conclusive for either the 'responsibility' factor or
for the dichotomization of events into fortunate and unfortunate.
In the end, she gives a diachronic explanation of the development of
get as a passive auxiliary rather than formalizing the semantic
properties of get which she has skilfully singled out in the main
body of her article. The situation is similar for Lakoff's article:
She concludes that the _get_ passive has a different semantic
structure from the _be_ passive without, however, proposing one.

Subsequent to these two thought-provoking articles by
Hatcher and Lakoff, Marybeth Clark has tentatively suggested that
get functions like the submissive verbs in the adversative passives
of Asian languages (This proposal was independent of reference to
the two earlier analyses) (1974b:104-5). This only serves to
enlarge the area of tantalizingly unresolved questions concerning
the nature of the _get_ passive. Is the _get_ passive adversative,
then? The following semantic analysis will show that such a
characterization only constitutes part of the answer.

4.4 THE _GET_ PASSIVE IN GENERAL

In fact, the _get_ passive can be divided into several
related constructions, which although formally identical from the
point of view of syntax, differ conceptually. Furthermore, only
some of these *get* passives are 'adversative', others codify the
beneficial nature of the passive event for the subject (foreshadowed
by the evidence and remarks of earlier investigators).

In this chapter, I will proceed one step further in the
differentiation of the *get* passive from the *be* passive by under-
taking a semantic analysis of the *get* passive which will result in
the formalization of its semantic properties.

Ideally a thorough analysis of the semantics of the *get* passive would include an analysis of all the *get* constructions in English, related through their sharing of certain semantic components. For example, what is the relationship of the *get* passive:

Jane got invited.

to the causative use of *get*:

Jane got her friend to invite Mary.

as well as to the passivized causative:

Jane got Mary invited.

and even its relationship to the simple *get* construction?:

Jane got an invitation.

The discussion of such questions cannot be confined within the
limits of this analysis, so I will concentrate here solely on the
*get* passive.

The constructions I wish to analyse have either this form:

Np got $V_{Tr}...ed.^4$

Jane got fired/promoted.

<footnote n="4">4 The past participle of any transitive verb is the intended meaning here of the schematization $V_{Tr}...ed$. I use *-ed* rather than *-en* to indicate the past tense suffix since weak verbs with this ending are in the majority.</footnote>
or this form:

N<sub>p</sub> got + reflexive pronoun V<sub>Tr...</sub>.ed.
Jane got herself fired/promoted.

with incidental remarks on the related constructions where an
inanimate noun is the subject of the _get_ passive:

N<sub>p</sub>'s N<sub>IN</sub> got V<sub>Tr...</sub>.ed.
Jane's bike got stolen/fixed.

where

N<sub>p</sub> = personal noun

N<sub>IN</sub> = inanimate noun

V<sub>Tr</sub> = transitive verb

At this point, I will make some general observations
about the _get_ passive, while pointing out which _get_ constructions
are being excluded from the analysis.

The _get_ passive has a two-argument semantic structure: An
external agent is either implied or explicitly expressed in the
surface structure by means of an agentive _by_ phrase:

Jane got fired by the director.

Initially, I will propose this semantic representation
for the passive:

Something happened to Jane (X)
because someone else (the director) (Y) did something

where the semantic component "Something happened to Jane" is used to
show the change of state that occurs, which can be stated informally
as "Something different can be said about Jane", i.e. "Jane no
longer had that job after that".
person or thing denoted by the subject must be an entity that is
identifiable for at least the speaker, that is, a specific image in
the speaker's mind, before an event involving the subject can be
predicated of it.⁶ Thus, verbs of 'creation' are not likely to be
compatible with the _get_ passive, no matter how definite in reference
the subject is made in the surface structure:

6. a. A baby { was { 'got } } born on Christmas eve.

b. My little sister { was { 'got } } born in January.

c. A house { was { 'got } } built on the vacant lot.

Further proof of this constraint is shown in the
following examples, where a _get_ passive can only be interpreted when
the speaker is thinking of a specific person, and not the body of
that person:

7. a. Grandma { was { 'got } } cremated yesterday

b. Lord Mountbatten { was { 'got } } buried in state.

c. The corpses { were { 'got } } buried quickly to prevent the
spread of disease.

It is easy to confuse the _get_ passive construction with
an inchoative use of _get_, which often takes an adjectival
predicative:

6. The same case holds for the _bei_ passive in Chinese. This semantic property of the Chinese construction was discussed above in Section 1.2.
Np got + adjective

Jane got angry/upset.

I have already pointed out that two components of the *get* passive
are:

Something happened to this person (X)
because someone else (Y) did something

where the action of a second person(s) is integral to the meaning,
although the action is always left unspecified, if not the agent in
the actual surface structure. The inchoative *get* construction
however has a *one*-argument semantic structure: An entity (the
subject) begins to be in a new state as the result of some event,
usually unspecified. The confusion arises when an adjective is
identical in form to the past participle. Despite this formal
identity, the two constructions are able to be distinguished
syntactically as the inchoative *get* construction takes adverbial
modification, particularly adverbs of degree and intensity such as
*very*, in contrast to the impossibility of this with the *get* passive:

8. a. John got very upset.

b. *John got very killed.*

The semantic representation of the inchoative *get* construction could
be roughly formulated like this:

9. a. Jane got beautifully tanned in the November sun.

b. Jane got injured by a falling rock. (by John)

Jane came to be in a certain state
because of something that happened at that time.
There is also another small subset of *get* constructions,
which have the usual passive interpretation when a second person is
implicit, but a kind of 'reflexive' interpretation when the subject
is the only person involved:

10. a. John got married

b. John got married by Mary.

11. a. John got engaged.

b. John got engaged by Mary.

12. a. John got dressed. (he did it himself)

For the construction where only one person is involved,
and the inception of a new state of affairs is depicted, the
following semantic representation is proposed:

> John came to be in a certain state that he wanted
> because he did something

There is also a passive interpretation available for the
latter class of *get* sentences:

13. a. John got married by the Pope. (the Pope performed the ceremony)

b. John got engaged as an apprentice.

c. John got dressed by his valet.

The semantic structure of these *get* passives will be accounted for
in the analysis of one of the major *get* passive constructions in the
following presentation. (q.v. 4.5.2 (i) The Non-Reflexive
Beneficial Get Passive.)
In each section, I will make some general observations about the *get* passive, contrasting it with the *be* passive to highlight the semantic properties of the former; then, I will adduce evidence for the semantic representation of each construction.

## 4.5 THE *GET* PASSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

### 4.5.1 'Adversative' *Get* Passives with a Person as the Undergoer

#### (i) THE NON-REFLEXIVE 'ADVERSATIVE' GET PASSIVE

N<sub>P</sub> got V<sub>Tr</sub>...ed.

Jane got fired.

The notion of the subject's causal involvement in the passive event is realized differently in the semantic structure of each *get* passive - subtle distinctions blurred by the use of vague terms such as 'control', 'initiative on the part of the subject' or 'responsibility'. In fact, the latter turn out to cover several components of meaning, although only in the form of an inexact correspondence.

The implication of the non-reflexive adversative passive is that the subject *could have prevented* the unfortunate state of affairs from coming about. If the speaker considers the subject an innocent victim of circumstances, then the *get* passive is not appropriate, and the *be* passive must be used instead:

14. a. Half the population of Kampuchea { was { 'got } } systematically annihilated under the Pol Pot regime.

b. Vietnamese women and children { were { 'got } } massacred in the My Lai offensive.
Similarly, the *get* passive is not suitable if the subject is thought of as completely under the control of another person, and consequently has no choice but to do whatever is desired by the agent. The ability to prevent misfortune is not brought into question, and because of this, the subject is considered to be totally passive:

15. a. "Women, especially black activists, have uncovered countless stories of Aboriginal women who { were } { got } sterilized without their consent or knowledge." (from a New South Wales WAAC newsletter, early 1978)

b. The platoon { was } ordered to march. { got }

c. Seven slaves { were } bought. { got }

d. Germany { was } forced to surrender. { got }

A clear-cut example of this *be/get* distinction is taken from the story of the crucifixion. In a discussion of the theological subtleties, either *be* or *get* could be used, but with different implications:

16. Christ { was } crucified. { got }

If the predestined nature of the crucifixion is uppermost in the mind of the speaker, then *be* is most appropriately used, since in this case, Christ would be considered to have no choice in determining the outcome. On the other hand, perhaps an enemy (for example, Judas) would use *get* to imply that Christ could have
prevented it from happening, thinking of his refusal of each of
Pontius Pilates's offers.

This clear semantic distinction between _be_ and _get_ can be
precisely captured by two additional components in the semantic
representation of the _get_ passive:

> This person could've done something else
> because of which it wouldn't have happened

which forms part of the full explication of the causal chain in this
way:

> Something bad happened to this person (X)
> because someone else (Y) did something
> X could've done something else
> because of which this wouldn't have happened

These features are very clear in the following example:
McMurphy, the anti-hero of the novel *One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest* relates his personal history as a gambler-brawler to the other inmates of the asylum, explaining how he ended up in gaol:

> To tell the truth, this 'sault and battery I
> was doing in Pendleton was the first hitch in
> close to a year. That's why I _got busted_. I
> was outa practice; this guy was able to get up
> off the floor and get to the cops before I left
> town. (Ken Kesey, 1962:22-23, my underlining.)

The semantic components in the formal explication are
manifested in this way: If McMurphy had been more wary, and perhaps
in better fighting condition, he wouldn't have been caught.
Similarly, the warning addressed to a gang of professional robbers
in a scene from a 'Wild West' show, by a young man who is being
pressured to join their ranks:

> "Stealing - I can't see anything wrong with it
> - as long as _you don't get hung_."
contains the implication that one of the risks involved in earning a living in such a way, _could_ be avoided, for instance, if they changed their lifestyle. Therefore, in both cases, the subject is thought of as being able to prevent the particular undesirable state of affairs.

There is another reason why the _get_ passive is not likely to be chosen to express a passive event such as:

16. Christ { was } crucified.
{ egot }

which involves a further restriction on the usage of _get_ as opposed to _be_. The improbability of _get_ (we wouldn't expect to hear it from the followers of Christianity, for example, although it would be appropriate in the words of an enemy such as Judas: "Jesus refused to establish a kingdom on earth, so he got crucified instead, the fool!") is accounted for by the frequent negative inference made by the speaker with regard to the subject. This arises, I believe, from the last two components of the semantic representation, explicating the subject's failure to prevent an 'avoidable' misfortune. It is manifested in diverse ways, for example: disapproval of or contempt for the subject's ineptitude or foolishness.

The subject's inverted causal role (in allowing an undesirable situation to come about that could have been avoided) is thus intimately connected with the inference of 'blame', 'contempt' or 'disapproval', if it is made by the speaker. On the contrary, in the _be_ passive, where the subject is not depicted as having any causal role (the subject plays no part in determining the resulting situation), allusion to fault or negligence cannot be made. It is
not an inference that arises from the meaning grammaticalized by the
*be* passive.

However, I cannot claim this to be a semantic invariant
of the *get* passive, since we can also find examples where the
speaker is in sympathy with the subject's predicament, even though a
*get* passive has been used to show that the subject could have
avoided the particular misfortune:

17. a. My friend, Joe, got arrested every time he went to Panama.

b. My younger brother went to Israel and got drafted.

Lakoff, who also points out the objective-affective
contrast between the *be* and *get* passives in her article, phrases it
in terms of the "speaker's involvement in the event", an observation
left unclarified. She writes (1971:155):

> If we think of ... an item on a news program
> ... (where a reporter will at least try to
> present the appearance of objectivity toward
> the news he reports) *get* will be very odd, and
> *be* normal, indicating that the speaker has no
> feelings about what took place...

14(a) My cache of marijuana got found by Fido the police dog.

14(b) A cache of marijuana was found by Fido the police dog.

In (14a) the sense of the speaker's involvement in the
action and his unhappiness with it, are very clear.

She concludes that "the *get* passive, often suggests the active
involvement, emotional or otherwise, of the superficial subject..."
(1971:160).

Although I agree with the spirit of all these
observations, Lakoff's use of 'involved' is extremely misleading. In
some places, she uses it to mean 'emotionally involved' and in
others 'actively involved' and this is further confused when the
roles of subject and speaker are not properly distinguished either:
In (14a), the subject and speaker are identical, whereas this is not
the case in (14b). In her article, examples such as (14a) are
generalized as the typical case. Ultimately, the lack of
clarification concerning whether or not it is the speaker or the
superficial subject who is 'involved' in the event, and whether or
not this involvement is 'active' or 'emotional' and with regard to
who, detracts from her argument. A counterexample is easy to find
for one of the combinations of these four variables:

Che Guevara got assassinated.

Here the speaker and the subject are not the same person,
and it is impossible to think of the subject as being 'emotionally
involved' in the sense of feeling something as a result of this
event. That is, we could not borrow Lakoff's terminology and say
that "Guevara's unhappiness with the event is clear". Therefore,
'emotional involvement' as far as the subject is concerned is not
part of the semantic structure of the *get* passive.

To the contrary, I claim that the 'affective nature' of
the *get* passive is explained by the presence of the components:

> This person could've done something else
> because of which this wouldn't have happened

- the components explicating the causal role of the subject that
allow the speaker to make an inference of a negative nature about
the subject, if desired.

(ii) **THE REFLEXIVE 'ADVERSATIVE' GET-PASSIVE:**

Np got + reflexive pronoun V<sub>Tr...</sub>ed.

Jane got herself fired.
In the reflexive form of the adversative passive, the
*source* of the misfortune is explicitly attributed to some action
performed by the subject. These features are explicated by the
components:

Something bad happened to Jane (X)
because someone else did something
because Jane had done something

which distinguishes it clearly from the non-reflexive adversative in
which the third component is missing. The reflexive adversative is
more appropriately used, the clearer the subject's causal action or
activity is made by the context:

18. John gets violent when he's drunk. That's why he got
himself bashed up in the pub last night.

19. That backyard abortionist got himself arrested.

In each case, the activity or actions preceding the
unfortunate event are clear whether due to aggressive behaviour or
due to an illegal medical operation. Thus, this construction is
very compatible for occasions when the speaker wants to depict the
subject as 'tempting fate' through provocative actions or perhaps
what the speaker judges to be some kind of ill-considered behaviour,
expected to lead to an unfortunate state of affairs. Hence, the
reflexive adversative also encodes a component to the effect that if
the subject had refrained from this particular action or activity,
the misfortune would have been prevented. This is explicated by the
last two components in the fuller representation:
Jane got herself fired.

Something bad happened to Jane (her firing)

because someone else did something (her employer)

because Jane had done something (she was always
late to work)

Jane could've not done this (been late)

because of which it wouldn't have happened (she
wouldn't have been fired)

(In the _get_-passive, unless the speaker resorts to the use of
subordinate clauses, he or she cannot specify exactly how the event
came about, and not always who else was involved, so these variables
are, suitably, left unexpressed in the representation. Examples of
these variables are supplied in parentheses for what otherwise,
context would supply.)

The attribution of 'fault' or 'blame' is an inference
available with the reflexive adversative as well, due to the
explicit causal involvement of the subject, and particularly due to
the last two components:

Jane could've not done this
because of which it wouldn't have happened

In fact, it is a much more conspicuous overtone in the reflexive
form than in the non-reflexive passive.

20. Joe got himself kicked in the shins for that remark. (The fool!)

The combination of all these semantic components gives
the overall effect of this _get_ passive where the misfortune is
imagined to be the result of intentional causation on the part of
the subject:

In the example: Jane got herself fired, the passive event
is thought of as if Jane wanted it to happen, by the speaker. For
example, she kept coming to work late and this is viewed by the
speaker as if she wanted to cause her employer to fire her. This
does not mean that Jane really wanted to cause her own firing, but
rather is the way in which the speaker imagines the situation.

In Bernardo Bertolucci's film "1900", there is a scene
evocative of the social changes occurring in the aftermath of World
War I. The padrone of a small village in southern Italy berates the
peasants who work for him in a feudal-style relationship:

"What happened to all the men? - They went off to war and
got themselves killed."

The *get* passive is used here to insinuate that the men deliberately
set off to meet their death in war and so, deprive the padrone of
labour. In fact, he is trying to justify his recent purchase of
farm machinery to gradually replace the peasant workforce by
apportioning 'blame' to the peasant men.

The component of supposed intentional causation ("It can
be thought of as if this person wanted it to happen") is manifested
clearly in this example: The sequence of events is viewed as if the
men wanted to die in the first place, which caused them to decide on
an 'appropriate' course of action (enlisting, going to war) to
achieve this end.

It should be stressed that in the reflexive adversative,
the speaker is not saying that the subject actually wants to cause
the misfortune by acting in a way conducive to it, but rather
implies that this kind of behaviour ultimately causes the same
situation to arise as encoded by syntactic constructions that do
express intentional causation (for example, the beneficial *get*
passive).

In the initial example, *Jane got herself fired*, if the
subject is viewed as wanting this state of affairs to come about,
(Jane preferred to live on the dole, so she tried her hardest to displease her employers to make them fire her), then the interpretation is that of a beneficial _get_ passive (4.5.2 (ii)). Equally, in the case of a suicidal 'Jane' in _Jane got herself killed_, (where she didn't want to kill herself, but induced someone else to do it), although this may be generally regarded as unfortunate, from the point of view of the subject, it is a state of affairs she wanted, and therefore does not fit the formula for the adversative (and reflexive) _get_ passive. Therefore, I claim that none of the adversative passives encode these features:

> Something bad happened to Jane (X) that she wanted
> because someone else (Y) did something
> that Jane wanted Y to do

The full semantic representation of the reflexive adversative passive has instead this form:

> Jane got herself fired.

> Something bad happened to this person (X)
> because someone else (Y) did something
> because X had done something
> X could've not done this
> because of which it wouldn't have happened
> It can be thought of as if X wanted it to happen
> because of this

As a result of the combined effect of all these components, this construction lends itself to expressions of irony and satire with ease:

21. "The Sioux is about to get itself killed off." (A comment on the warlike behaviour of this American Indian tribe.)

22. "If I put the stereo on at that time of night, I'd get myself killed."
4.5.2 'Beneficial' _Get_ Passives with a Person as the Undergoer

(i) <u>THE NON-REFLEXIVE 'BENEFICIAL' GET-PASSIVE:</u>

$N_P$ got $V_{Tr}...ed.$

Jane got promoted.

The causal role of the subject is manifested in a
completely different way in the non-reflexive beneficial <u>get</u>
passive: With reference to the first example, the subject, 'Jane',
is characterized as <u>wanting</u> a certain state of affairs to come
about, and consequently trying to cause it in the attempt to induce
someone else (the external agent) to act in her benefit.

Significantly, it does not encode that the subject
actually succeeded in doing this, unlike the reflexive form - <u>Jane</u>
<u>got herself promoted</u> - where intentional causation is an explicit
rather than hinted component of the meaning. (Jane did something,
which caused someone else to act in her behalf and bring about the
desired state of affairs.)

Robin Lakoff has shown convincingly (although she hasn't
separated out the two kinds of constructions - adversative and
beneficial) that in this _get_ passive, due to the intentional nature
of the subject's role, certain adverbial modifiers, infinitival
clauses and appositional nouns are excluded when they refer to the
action of the agent or the agent alone. Similarly, the _be_ passive
is excluded when these elements refer to intention on the part of
the subject. Here, only _get_ is permissible. (Lakoff, 1971:156;
her numbers)
19. a. Mary got shot on purpose, *the bastards.

b. Mary was shot on purpose, the bastards.

18. a. Radicals must get arrested to prove their machismo.

b. ?Radicals must be arrested to prove their machismo.

19. c. Radicals must be exterminated ruthlessly.

d. ?Radicals must get exterminated ruthlessly.

(It should be noted that (19a) and (18a) are not adversative passives - the subject desires the state of affairs to be brought about.) Clearly, in the *get* passives, intention is attributed to the subject (Mary/the radicals wanted it to happen). Therefore, the following representation is proposed:

Jane got promoted.

Something good happened to this person (X) (her promotion)
because someone else (Y) did something (her employer)
that X wanted Y to do

X had done something (worked hard, requested or hinted
at a promotion)

because X wanted it to happen

Y could've done it because of that

I use the component "Y (the external agent) could've done it because of that (Jane's action)" to show that the subject's action is not necessarily the cause of the agent acting for her benefit to bring about the state of affairs she wants (her promotion), unlike the semantic representation of the reflexive passive where it is explicitly stated as the cause.

This *get* passive expresses that although the desired state of affairs eventuated, it may have been due to other reasons - in this example - we can imagine that perhaps Jane's employers disliked the other candidates, so they chose her instead. Thus, the
construction is vague as to the exact cause of the agent's action,
and this is appropriately reflected in the semantic representation
by the last component: "Y (the agent) could've done it because of
that".

Again, the causal role of the subject, explicated by the
components: "Jane had done something because she wanted it to
happen", is responsible for any inferences made by the speaker about
the subject. In contrast to the adversative passives, this
inference may be either of a negative or positive nature:

23. Jane got examined by a Macquarie St specialist! (What good news!)

24. Mary got admitted to Harvard! (Isn't she lucky!)

25. John got promoted instead of me, the ingratiating...

This _get_ passive is often conducive to a hint of
subterfuge or scheming on the part of the subject, as a possible
inference. This explains why the following example is not likely to
be found with _get_ as the auxiliary:

26. Einstein { was } awarded a Nobel Prize.

If _get_ is used, it has this implication: It would seem
that the goal of Einstein's research was to win a Nobel Prize (he
did his research because he wanted to win it). The use of _get_ is
thus conditioned by the speaker's intentions.

Similarly, if the speaker wants to indicate some kind of
disapproval of a person who appears to have been 'blessed' by good
fortune, the _get_ passive can be used effectively to make the
inference that this desirable state of affairs only seems to be
purely 'good luck', since it encodes the subject's attempt to play a
causal role in bringing it about.

In the following examples, if the speaker wants to cast
aspersions over the reasons for success of these various political
figures, then _get_ matches perfectly all the requirements to make
this inference, in contrast to _be_ which is neutral in this respect.

27. Napoleon { was } crowned Emperor.

28. The Trades' Union President { was } selected
as the Labour Party candidate for a blue ribbon seat in
Victoria, of course.

29. Deng Xiaoping { was } rehabilitated again, after having been purged twice from the Chinese Communist Party.

On the other hand, that this negative inference cannot be
regarded as a semantic invariant of the meaning of this _get_ passive
construction either is clear from other cases where extralinguistic
information is available:<fnref n="7" />

30. John got elected president.

There is not necessarily an overtone of 'devious strategy' or
'behind the scenes' work here, since the subject's prior actions,
for example, a pre-election campaign, are of a conventionally-
expected nature, unlike the strongly pejorative nuance which arises
from the reflexive form:

<footnote n="7">⁷ This discussion of the inferential possibilities of the _get_ passive owes much to discussion with Avery Andrews.</footnote>
31. John got himself elected president. (He rigged the voting system.)

The case is similar for the following examples:

32. I got paid yesterday.

33. We got invited to the Chinese Embassy for a banquet!

34. Jane got chosen to lead the delegation!

Although the attitude expressed towards the subject is an inference rather than a semantic invariant, the *get* passive enables the speaker to say something either 'good' or 'bad' about the subject concomitantly, whereas this choice is not available for the *be* passive, simply because the latter lacks the components referring to the causal role of the subject.

(ii) THE REFLEXIVE 'BENEFICIAL' GET PASSIVE

Np got + reflexive pronoun V<sub>Tr...</sub>.ed.
Jane got herself promoted.

In the reflexive form of the beneficial passive, an unspecified action of the subject is encoded as the explicit cause of the agent's subsequent action (equally unspecified as to its nature), responsible for the good fortune.

Intentional causation on the part of the subject is very clear: Compare the following examples to their corresponding *be* passives:

35. Napoleon { was
         got himself } crowned Emperor.

36. The Revolutionary Council { was
                                  got itself } elected.
37. Einstein {was} awarded the Nobel Prize. {got himself}

38. The Queen {was} invited to tour Australia. {got herself}

39. Ayatollah Khomeini {was} christened spiritual {got himself} leader of Iran.

In this construction, in contrast to the non-reflexive passives, a pejorative nuance is conspicuous, especially in the examples above. A negative inference about the subject is easily made due to the explicit rather than hinted causal role of the subject. Again, it is only an inference rather than a semantic invariant, as the following examples bear out:

40. We got ourselves put on the waiting list for a new house!

41. I got myself enrolled in an exclusive drama school!

Hence, the pejorative nuance is not formalised as a component in the semantic structure of the reflexive beneficial _get_ passive.

With these considerations in mind, a semantic representation of this form is proposed:

Jane got herself promoted.

Something good happened to this person (X)
because someone else (Y) did something
that X wanted Y to do
because X had done something
because X wanted it to happen
### 4.5.3 Get Passives with an Inanimate Subject

#### (i) THE 'ADVERSATIVE' GET PASSIVE WITH AN INANIMATE SUBJECT

(N<sub>P</sub>'s) N<sub>IN</sub> got V<sub>Tr</sub>...ed.

Jane's bike got stolen.

A similar polarisation into adversative and beneficial exists for the *get* passive with inanimate subjects, although it has no reflexive form.

The affected entity in this construction is not the inanimate subject, but rather the person who owns it, or else stands in a relationship to this object equivalent to that of ownership. In other words, the topic of this *get* passive is *not* the grammatical subject (as is the case for the previously-discussed constructions with personal subjects) but the underlying 'owner', which may or may not be overtly expressed. To clarify this point, consider the following example:

42. The cricket pitch got torn up when they played football on it.

This *get* passive construction is most successfully used when it is clear *who* is affected by this state of affairs, for example, the manager of the cricket ground (but not a cricket fan - see below).

Similarly,

43. Three telephone boxes got smashed up outside that post office.

is most effectively used when spoken by those responsible for them, for example, personnel from Telecom, but not by a user of public telephones. This is represented by:
Something happened to this thing (Y) (telephone boxes)
which can be thought of as something bad that happened
to this person (X) (those responsible for the upkeep)
Because someone else did something (e.g. a vandal)
(Y can be thought of as X's Y)

The adversative passive with an inanimate subject also
encodes an identical component to the non-reflexive adversative
passive:

X could've done something else
because of which this wouldn't have happened

The ability on the part of an 'owner' to prevent misfortune, is
equally integral to the meaning:

44. Jane's bike got stolen yesterday. (She always forgets to lock it up.)

45. (Manager of a cricket ground:) The cricket pitch got torn up. (I shouldn't have given permission to the football club to use it.)

46. (Personnel from Telecom:) Three telephone boxes got smashed up outside that post office. (We shouldn't have built them in such an unprotected area.)

From non-linguistic considerations, the last two examples
may be unfortunate events equally for cricket fans and public
telephone users as for those responsible for their upkeep, however,
a kind of ownership relation is not usually conceivable for the
former group. Neither is it likely that such states of affairs can
be thought of as being prevented by those not 'responsible' for the
entity in question. A _be_ passive is more likely in the latter cases.

The complete semantic representation for the adversative
passive with an inanimate subject is presented below:
It was her last two movies which got shredded by the critics.

Something happened to this thing (Y) (last two movies)
which can be thought of as something bad that happened
to this person (X) ('her')

because someone else did something (the critics)

X could've done something else (e.g. made better movies)

because of which this wouldn't have happened
(Y can be thought of as X's Y)

(ii) THE 'BENEFICIAL' GET-PASSIVE WITH AN INANIMATE SUBJECT:

(Np's) N<sub>IN</sub> got V<sub>Tr...</sub>ed.

Jane's bike got fixed.

Similarly, the topic of this _get_ passive is the _person_ and 'owner' who is affected by the resulting state of affairs and not the inanimate entity itself. The semantic properties are otherwise identical to the non-reflexive beneficial passive: A state of affairs desired by the 'owner' is brought about by another person's actions, which the 'owner' wanted to cause. Cases where it is not clear who the 'owner' is as in (47a), or where an 'owner' is inconceivable as in (48) are very unlikely to take form as a _get_ passive. This is also the case for verbs of 'creation', exemplified by (49):

47. a. A proposal { was } accepted.
{ 'got }

b. Jane's proposal { was } accepted.
{ got }

48. The Blue Mountains { were } crossed in 1813.
{ 'got }

49. The steam engine { was } invented by James Watt.
{ 'got }
In the initial discussion, I showed that the subject must refer to a specific image in the mind of the speaker before a passive event can be predicated of it which is another reason why (47a) is unacceptable. This was also shown to explain the restriction on verbs of 'creation', as in (49), where the entity referred to by the subject comes into being as a result of the passive event described. In Lakoff's article, there seems to be a counterexample to my claim (1971:154; her numbering):

13. A shoddy house like that can get built in 10 days.

This sentence is acceptable for the following reasons: Despite the presence of the indefinite article, the addition of 'like that' makes the reference specific. Moreover, the statement is generic, referring to a class - the class of 'shoddy' houses, and in such also refers to a specific concept without violating the constraint.

The semantic representation of the beneficial *get* passive
with an inanimate subject is presented below:

Jane's bike *get* fixed.

Something happened to this thing (Y) (the bike)
which can be thought of as something good that happened
to this person (X) (Jane)

because someone else (Z) did something that Jane wanted
(Z) to do (e.g. a mechanic)

Jane had done something (e.g. asked for it to be mended)

because she wanted it to happen

Z could've done it because of that
(Y can be thought of as X's Y)

In conclusion, it does not depend on the meaning of a
particular passive verb, whether a *get* passive is interpreted as
'beneficial' or 'adversative'. In other words, verbs occurring in
*get* passives cannot be divided into an 'adversative' set and a
'beneficial' set. The speaker's intentions, aided by the context,
determine which of the two interpretations is appropriate:

50. Jane got photographed dancing with Prince Charles.

The _get_ passive in (50) could either be construed as
'adversative' for the 'Jane' who is supposed to be an uncompromising
anarchist, or 'beneficial' for the 'Jane' who is a socialite. This
example is not a 'borderline' case. It has two interpretations and
the speaker makes it clear which one is intended.

Thus, it is not merely a matter of the semantic nature of
lexical items, but rather the semantic representation of each
construction as a whole which predicts the suitable interpretation
for each speaker (given a context) and subsequently, which verbs are
not likely to be compatible with the meaning of each construction.

Moreover, the several components of meaning in the
semantic representation of each _get_ passive are all mutually inter-
dependent to the effect that none of the components can be deleted,
nor any of the constructions collapsed without losing crucial
semantic distinctions.

Any characterization of the _get_ passive which does no
more than to describe it as 'adversative' or 'showing responsibility
on the part of the subject' barely skims the surface of a complex of
underlying semantic structures, which can only be explicated
adequately in terms of several distinct though related
constructions. Moreover, I have shown that only one type of these
constructions can properly be labelled 'adversative', this term
being selected as an abbreviation from a choice of several
components of meaning which form the hard semantic core of this
construction.
The different way in which the subject's causal role is encoded is contingent upon the polarization of the *get* passive into 'adversative' and 'beneficial' as well as upon its syntactic form - whether reflexive or non-reflexive. The frequent negative inference made by the speaker about the subject is especially clear for both kinds of reflexive passives. This was explained as a function of the explicit causal role of the subject in the sequence of events grammaticalized by the 'adversative' and 'beneficial' reflexive *get* passives. In the non-reflexive constructions, the causal role of the subject is hinted at, rather than stated. Consequently, any inferences the speaker wishes to make are correspondingly more subtle in nature.

The polarisation of passive events into either fortunate or unfortunate and the possibility of making an inference of a negative or positive nature about the subject due to the latter's causal involvement are the features of the semantic structure of the *get* passive that not only set it apart from the *be* passive but also account for the emotive overtones that grammarians have been sensitive to in the past and incorrectly attributed to the colloquial nature of *get*.
APPENDIX:

In earlier drafts of this paper, there was one extra
component appended to the semantic representations of all the *get*
passive constructions. This was of the form:

Something bad can be said about this person (the subject)
because of that

(where "that" refers to the particular kind of causal involvement of
the subject).

The negative inference is particularly clear for the
adversative passives, especially in the reflexive form:

John got (himself) kicked in the shins for saying that.

This was the earlier form of the semantic representation for the
adversative *get* passive:

John got kicked in the shins.

Something bad happened to John
because someone else did something
John could've done something else
because of which this wouldn't have happened
Something bad can be said about John
because of that

The main argument against this last component took this
form: In examples such as

My Jewish friend, Rafael, went to Israel and got drafted.

the speaker is often in sympathy with the plight of the subject and
is not saying anything "bad" about "Rafael". First of all, to
counter such an objection, I don't think it is necessarily contra-
dictory for the speaker to remain sympathetic to the subject's
predicament in the real world situation while conveying that the
subject could have prevented the misfortune at the same time (by
means of a *get* passive). (Why did Rafael go to Israel when he knew
such a risk was involved?)

Moreover, the component "Something bad can be said about
this person because of that", as part of the semantic metalanguage,
cannot be paraphrased in ordinary language to mean that the subject
was a 'bad person', although perhaps, this explains why many
objected to its presence in the semantic representation. In this
example, we can imagine that the speaker uses the *get* passive to
convey that Rafael should have been wiser to the facts or that his
travelling plans were ill-conceived (and so on) even though the
speaker may be genuinely upset about the situation. In the final
stages, however, it seemed advisable to leave this particular
component out of the semantic representation since the components
representing the causal role of the subject, especially in the two
reflexive *get* passives, clearly accounted for the negative inference.

**********
CONCLUSION TO PART I

In Part I, the view was upheld that the *bei* passive in its traditional and colloquial use is an adversity passive. This view was supported by several different points in the argument, these being:

(i) the restricted usage of the *bei* passive in comparison to the neutral topic-comment constructions which also express the passive meaning

(ii) the historical consideration of the evolution of the verb *bei* 'cover' or 'suffer' to become used as the syntactic exponent of the passive, and most importantly

(iii) the synchronic semantic analysis where it was shown that adversity is an inherent semantic property of the *bei* passive in that even for verbs which express either fortunate or neutral events when considered as single lexical items, on occurring in the *bei* passive, the overall interpretation remains nevertheless one of adversity. The fact that the *bei* passive serves as a warning when it is used in the negative form of the imperative mood (to the effect "Don't have misfortune befall you") also acted as a piece of supporting evidence.

A subsidiary topic to the argument in favour of considering *bei* an adversative passive was the evaluation of two other methods of analysis - the verb classification method and the Case Grammar approach. It was pointed out that all the data cannot be accounted for by looking at co-occurring verbs alone and categorizing them into either semantic classes or as 'disposal' or 'transitive verbs'. Counter examples in the form of verbs of
happening and experiencer (Psych. Movement) verbs were presented at this point. Accounting for the data in terms of case roles permitted in the subject position proved to be inadequate to the same extent. Some examples with Benefactive Case nouns in subject position were shown to be acceptable despite claims to the contrary with respect to this case.

Following upon the justification of adversity as an intrinsic feature of this passive, the other general semantic properties of the *bei* passive were examined. I claimed that there were three further requirements of interpretation for every *bei* passive: an "identifiable" undergoer, a syntactically overt agent and the completive nature of the passive event.

"Identifiability" of the undergoer was seen as a pre-requisite to the use of the *bei* passive in that the speaker could not otherwise predicate any event of the subject NP unless they were able to think of it or bring it readily to mind at the moment of speaking. The presence of this feature results in the exclusion of the objects of verbs of creation and all cognate objects from subject position. The concept of "identifiability" was claimed to be a refinement of the description of the subject NP as either "definite" or "specific".

Secondly, the postulation of a component of completiveness was justified by the inability of modals, negative markers and durative aspect markers to occur in the predicate of the *bei* passive as they violated this semantic requirement by expressing either that the event had not taken place yet, but could happen in the future or that it had never taken place at all or that it was ongoing at the moment of speech.
The argument for the third requirement of the overt expression of the agent was a corollary to the argument for the polysemy of the *bei* passive and constituted a second claim made in Part I following on from the claim of adversity, namely that the general *bei* passive structure subsumes two distinct types of passive construction:

(i) the traditional *bei* passive which retains the semantic features described above and

(ii) the Europeanized *bei* passive which has lost the features of adversity and individualizable agent, being a modified form of the traditional *bei* passive which arose from the impact of European languages on Chinese in the form of translated works, and is confined to the written language.

The Europeanized passive may be further sub-divided into two subconstructions - one being agentless and the other requiring a collective and thus non-individualizable agent. These two passive constructions were shown to occupy a different semantic space to that of the traditional *bei* passive which is itself four-ways polysemous, the different meanings grammaticalised depending on the kinds of entities and events permitted to co-occur with each sub-construction.

Following upon the division into these two main types of passive construction, the *bei* passive with a person as the undergoer, the *bei* passive of possessions and the *bei* passive with a natural force were postulated and discussed and their semantic components justified. Finally the *bei* passive of bodily effect was singled out for in-depth analysis due to its unusual syntactic feature of a postverbal noun and the semantic consequences of this.
In the case of this fourth subconstruction of the *bei* passive, it was shown that the postverbal noun always denotes a part of the body and moreover one which is both tangible and functional; that this NP may not be modified by adjectives or possessive and demonstrative pronouns, and that the construction serves as a part-whole identifying expression with the resultant state of the body part affected by the event being viewed as causing an adverse state of affairs for the person. Furthermore, the passive of bodily effect was shown to be semantically distinct from the regular *bei* passive with parts of the body as the subject NP.

In the final chapter, the polysemy of the *get* passive in English was investigated. It was seen that the *get* passive, unlike the *bei* passive dichotomizes into subconstructions expressing benefit and subconstructions expressing adversity for the undergoer. An argument was presented in favour of the postulation of six distinct subconstructions of the *get* passive.

The adversative nature of three of the subconstructions in the *get* passive complex linked this analysis to the preceding analysis of the *bei* passive while the feature of its colloquial use links it to Part II as well where the colloquial passives formed by *rang* and *jiao* are the subject of investigation. In particular, the non-reflexive adversative *get* passive will be seen to have its counter-part in Chinese in the *rang* passive, both being considered to be passives of avoidable events in this presentation.
# PART II

## CAUSATIVE AND PASSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

### FORMED BY RANG AND JIAO
0

INTRODUCTION TO CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN CHINESE

That passive and causative constructions in Chinese share the basic syntactic pattern of NP-RANG(JIAO)-NP-VP probably accounts for the fact that apart from T.N. Nikitina's article "Causative and Passive Constructions in Chinese" (1958), virtually no analysis has been undertaken of the use of *rang* and *jiao* as causatives, not to mention as passives. Typically, their causative use is either subsumed under discussion of the verb *shi* 'cause', for example, in Jiang Tian (1980); Guo Derun (1980) and Lü and Zhu (1952), or else the observation is made that *rang* and *jiao* have at least two further meanings of 'allow' (or 'let someone do as they please') and 'cause' apart from their use forming passive constructions (Ding Shengshu 1979: 100; Lü 1981: 267, 405).

In a way, the latter observation is an underlying recognition of the use of *rang* and *jiao* in forming both intentional and unintentional types of causatives. Thus, such analyses can be understood to implicitly separate *rang* and *jiao* into several different constructions of both passive and causative types through the listing or mentioning of their different meanings. Nonetheless, despite this classificatory approach, *rang* and *jiao* are given the same treatment, no differentiation of their usage being made.

When *rang* and *jiao* are explicitly discussed by noting their use in sentences with the meaning of 'command' or 'cause', then we find - not a discussion of causative semantics - but rather random though observant remarks of the kind "the second predicate expresses the goal or result of the first one" (Jiang Tian 1980: 231).
A detailed syntactic and semantic analysis of *rang* and *jiao* constructions with both causative and passive meanings is presented in the following five sections. - Although passive and causative constructions in Chinese are identical in their basic syntactic form of NP-RANG(JIAO)-NP-VP, they can nevertheless be successfully differentiated according to both their more complex syntactic behaviour and more significantly by their semantic structure.

In this introductory section, the question of whether *rang* and *jiao* causatives may be classified as serial verb constructions is considered first of all and then a third complex of causative constructions formed by *shi* is briefly discussed for the purposes of later comparison with *rang* and *jiao* causatives. The *shi* causatives, however, do not form any passive constructions.

## 0.1 ARE RANG AND JIAO CAUSATIVES SERIAL VERB CONSTRUCTIONS?

In grammar books of Chinese, *jiao* and *rang* are typically classified as forming pivotal constructions (*jianyushi*) of the kind which express 'ordering' (Chao 1968: 126; Jiang Tian 1980: 232; Tang Qiyun 1980: 83). Thus, the causative use of *rang* and *jiao* is described mainly in order to illustrate the syntax of the pivotal construction in Chinese, not to describe the semantics of causative constructions. Pivotal constructions are defined by these grammarians as sentences where the object of the first verb acts as the subject of the second verb. The syntactic constituent with this double function is consequently labelled as the pivot nominal:
NOUN PHRASE VERB NOUN PHRASE VERB PHRASE
Subject (rang) Pivot
(jiao)

1. Wo jiao ta bie xie zheizhong wenzhang.
I tell him don't write this:kind article
I told him not to write this sort of article.

Is the pivotal construction a type of serial verb construction then?

The serial verb construction (liandongshi) is typically
defined as one where there may be two or more verb phrases, none of
which have any conjunctions intervening and all of which are
predicated of the first syntactic subject (Ding Shengshu 1979: 112;
Jiang Tian 1980: 224; Schachter 1974: 252-3):

NOUN PHRASE VERB PHRASE VERB PHRASE VERB PHRASE...
Subject

2. Zuo Xiansheng qu da dianhua jiao che
(name) go telephone call cab
Mr Zuo went to make a phone call to call a taxi.

Serial verb constructions thus contain no pivot nominal
which serves the semantic role, for example, of acting as the
'causee' in some types of causative constructions such as ta 'he' in
(1). That is, pivotal constructions contain two NPs which can be
considered to be the subject of their following VPs, whereas serial
verb constructions have only one such NP.

Schachter (1974: 257) states the case for serial verb
constructions in an even stronger form:

[S]erial constructions ... always have exactly
one subject noun phrase, and this noun phrase
always precedes the first verb phrase ...
It is interesting to find that in contrast to this, Li and Thompson (1981: 594; 607-610) treat causative sentences as a subtype of the serial verb construction, the latter being defined as

[A] sentence that contains two or more verb phrases or clauses juxtaposed without any marker indicating what the relationship is between them ... there are many sentences that all have the same form ... but ... convey different types of messages because of the meanings of the verbs involved and the relationships that are understood to hold between them. (1981: 594).

This treatment is forced to be so broad in its generalisations, in order to include four different types of syntactic constructions, that the semantic and syntactic features of the kind to be proposed in this analysis are necessarily precluded. For example, when the verb phrase in a serial verb construction contains a noun which is semantically the patient of the verb, it may never be regarded as the subject of the following verb phrase as opposed to the case for the pivot nominal in causative constructions:

3. Dajia suibian mai xie dongxi chi ba!
everyone casual buy some thing eat RP

How about everyone buying some things to eat, if they want.

In (3), *dajia* 'everyone' is the subject of both *mai* 'buy' and *chi* 'eat'. It is not possible to interpret *xie dongxi* 'some things' as the subject of the verb *chi* 'eat'.

In contrast to the serial verb construction, the pivotal construction cannot be defined as having the syntactic form of NP-VP-VP(VP) as the causative verb never forms a larger verb phrase - neither with the following pivot nominal nor with any other kind
of syntactic constituent. For example, the pivot nominal in (4) does not form a semantic unit or VP with the preceding causative verb as does the V-NP unit *mai xie dongxi* 'buy some things' in (3):

4.

Wo rang ta zou.

I RANG he leave.

I had him go.

*rang ta

Causative Pivot
Verb Nominal

In other words, we cannot analyse (4) as NP-VP-VP as we do for (3) but only as NP-Causative Verb-NP-VP. Similarly, *xie dongxi chi* 'some things to eat' extracted from (3) is not an independently occurring syntactic unit unlike the combination of the pivot nominal with its following verb phrase which may stand as a complete sentence in its own right: *Ta zou* "He goes". This distinction is lost by classifying pivotal constructions in which serial verb constructions, as these constructions represent in fact two completely different syntactic phenomena.

A second characteristic of serial verb constructions which is also not a feature of causative constructions in Chinese is that all the verbs in the sentence must agree in either tense, aspect or mood, defined by Schachter (1974: 270) in the following way:

> [T]here is no independent choice of tense or aspect for the several verb phrases that occur in a serialized construction. Instead, once the tense-aspect of the first verb is specified, that of all subsequent verbs in the serial constructions is automatically determined.

In causative constructions in Chinese, only the second verb (the main verb) and not the causative verb may take aspectual marking. This is so despite the fact that *jiao* and *rang* both occur
elsewhere as independent verbs where they fully retain their verbal
characteristics (v. Section 1.1 and Section 2.1 below). Compare (5)
with (6), the latter being the only acceptable sentence:

5. *Shuji rang (jiao)-le ta chuli zheijian shi. secretary CAUS COM she handle this:CL matter

6. Shuji rang (jiao) ta chuli-le zheijian shi. secretary CAUS she handle:COM this:CL matter

The party secretary had (made) her deal with this matter.

Thus, on forming causative constructions, *rang* and *jiao* lose their verbal characteristics, a feature which has also been remarked upon by Nikitina (1958: 212):

> All three verbs **jiao**, **rang** and **shi** (shide) in
> auxiliary function, cannot occur either as
> independent predicates or without a second verb
> and cannot take any verbal markers - aspectual
> temporal or resultative, that is, they lose not
> only the semantic but also the grammatical
> properties of a verb.

(Here, Nikitina's "auxiliary function" refers
to the causative usage of these verbs.)

From these two pieces of evidence, I conclude that the
***rang*** and ***jiao*** causative constructions cannot be classified as serial
verb constructions as suggested by Li and Thompson (1981: Chapter
21), and I will treat them as a separate syntactic phenomenon
forthwith.

## 0.2 CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS FORMED BY SHI:

It was remarked upon above that the **rang** and **jiao** causative constructions are often subsumed under the discussion of the verb **shi** 'cause' in Chinese grammar books. There is a third
complex of causative constructions formed by the verb *shi* which is
similar to *bei* in the feature of mainly being used in written rather
than spoken Chinese. As Nikitina points out (1958: 212):

It [shi] is used in newspaper jargon, in
political literature and in literary works of
the type where colloquial language is totally
absent.

*Shi* is not however used to form passive constructions and thus will not constitute a major topic of analysis in this presentation. For the purposes of comparison with *rang* and *jiao* causatives, let us briefly examine its semantic structure before proceeding to the analysis of *rang* and *jiao*.

### 0.2.1 Comparison of *Shi* with *Rang* and *Jiao*

The basic meanings of *shi* as an independent verb are
'send' or 'use':

7. Shi ren qu dating xiaoxi.
send s.o. go enquire news

Send someone to go and enquire about the news.

8. Ni de bi jie wo shi-shi.
you GEN pen lend me use-TENT

Let me use your pen for a while.

As expected, *shi* retains its fully verbal characteristics with these two meanings, for example, reduplication of the verb in (8) above to render the tentative aspect or the use of the aspect marker -zhe in (9) below to render the durative aspect:

9. Qianzi wo zheng shi-zhe ne!
pliers I right:now use-DUR RP

I'm using the pliers right now!
Distinct from the *rang* and *jiao* causatives, the three *shi* causative constructions to be examined below are all either unintentional or agentless event causatives. This is identical to the situation of the periphrastic causatives formed by *cause* in English. All the subconstructions of the *cause* and *shi* causatives are so defined in that the new state of affairs or event is caused either unintentionally through a person's action or behaviour or by another prior event that does not involve an agent.<fnref n="1" />

In the first construction with *shi*, both the syntactic subject and the pivot nominal denote persons:

```
NOUN PHRASE      SHI NOUN PHRASE      VERB PHRASE
Subject           Pivot

10. Ta              shi              wo              hen gaoxing (shiwang).
He caused me to be very happy (disappointed).<fnref n="2" />
```

The fact that there are no intentional causatives formed by *shi* provides one major contrast with *rang* and *jiao* causatives:

In the intentional causatives formed by *rang* and *jiao*, the person denoted by the pivot nominal is 'caused' to carry out an action which the causer (denoted by the syntactic subject) wants the former to do. Thus, the intention to bring about the causative event is attributed to the causer, not the causee. Furthermore, in such intentional causatives, the causee is always agentive *ex definitione*. Compare the intentional *rang* causative in (11) to the

<footnote n="1">1. These constructions formed by *cause* are summarised in the Appendix of my Honours thesis, p.9.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2. A fluent English translation of (10) would be "He made me very happy (disappointed)". I use 'cause' however, in all the translations of SHI causatives to keep these distinct from the JIAO causatives, translated in all cases by 'make'.</footnote>
unacceptable *shi* causative in (12). Both have the same predicate, containing the verb *mai* 'buy': (c.f. Sections 1.2.1 and 2.2.1 below).

11.

Wo rang ta mai neiben shu.
I RANG he buy that:CL book.

I had him buy that book.

12.

*Wo* shi ta mai neiben shu.
I SHI he buy that:CL book.

In the *shi* causatives, the person denoted by the pivot nominal is never an agent but rather always the undergoer of the causative event, coming into a new state of affairs as the result of it. Thus, the *shi* causatives only co-occur with stative and experiential predicates, demonstrated by the unacceptability of (12) with an action predicate.<fnref n="3" />

Not all stative and experiential predicates are acceptable in unintentional causative constructions however. Teng Shou-hsin (1975: 139) claims that in the case of the *jiao* causative, what he terms "active States" - states of being which "specify voluntary involvement of the Patient" are excluded as opposed to "passive States" where "the emotions are formed within the Patient due to external causation". Hence, Teng classifies *xihuan* 'like' and *teng* 'be fond of' as active State verbs and *pa* 'be frightened' and *houhui* 'regret' as passive State verbs.

The sensitivity of the *jiao* causative to this semantic feature is shown by two examples from Teng's set of data (his numbering and translation):

<footnote n="3">3 Teng (1975: 62) also points out that the role "Agent" cannot occur with an Action verb in the main predicate (for which he uses the term "lower sentence").</footnote>
Jiao causative with an Active State verb:

(2) b. *Pao-che jiao ta hen xihuan.
sports car make he very like

Jiao causative with a Passive State verb:

(2) c. Mingtiande kaoshi jiao ta hen haipa.
tomorrow's exam make he very afraid
(Tomorrow's exam makes him very scared.)

This being the situation which holds for the unintentional
_jiao_ causative, what do we find in the case of _shi_ causatives? -
Due to the fact that Teng does not distinguish between the causative
uses of _jiao_, _rang_ or _shi_, he draws the one general conclusion
(1975: 140): "The Goal of 'active' States cannot function as Causer
..., while that of 'passive' States can." Here, he also explicitly
classifies _jiao_ and _shi_ as Causer verbs and "Goal" is defined as the
recipient of the feelings (1975: 130).

This rule does not apply, however, to the _shi_ causative
in which experiential predicates containing the verb _xihuan_ 'like'
may occur. Below two actual literary examples are given which use
this verb in the _shi_ causative:

14. Lang biancheng-le gou, yexing shi xiaoshi-le,
wolf change:COM dog, wild:nature be disappear:COM

dan zhi shi shi muren xihuan.
but only be SHI herdsmen like

When the dog evolved out of the wolf, its wild nature was
lost, but this only _caused the herdsmen to like it_.

(- from the writings of Lü Xun, quoted in Ding Shengshu 1970: 119).
15. Wo shenshang you yidian bianhua dou shi wo haipa,
my body:on have a:bit change all SHI I afraid,
shi wo xihuan, shi wo momingqimiao.
SHI I like, SHI I confused.

The changes which my body underwent made me afraid, made me pleased, made me confused.

(-from the writings of Lao She, quoted in Nikitina 1958: 213.)

Secondly, the verb xihuan 'like' may occur in both the
unintentional rang and jiao causatives, providing counter-evidence
to Teng's hypothesis:

16. Zheichang da yu zhen jiao ren xihuan.
this:CL big rain really JIAO one like
This heavy rain pleases one.

17. Zhei haizi zhen rang ren xihuan.
This child really RANG one like
This child really pleases one.

However, in the unintentional rang and jiao causatives,
xihuan 'like' is only found in the exclamation form of these
causatives with the intensifier zhen 'really' and the generic ren
'one' or 'you' [v. Section 2.2.2].

Despite this qualification, Teng's hypothesis needs to be
refined: The situation is rather that inanimate entities such as
the paoche 'sportscar' of Teng's example (2b) cannot act as the
cause of an event whereas events or "happenings" such as zheichang
da yu 'rainstorm' in (16) and persons or "animate entities" as in
(17) may.

Apart from this refinement, Teng's hypothesis holds,
since states of being which cannot be understood as externally
caused are patently unsuited to a <u>shi</u> causative construction, as
shown by Teng's example (8b); not to mention both the <u>rang</u> and <u>jiao</u>
experiencer causatives as will be seen in the later discussions.

8b.

*Li Xiaojie shi ta hen ke-lian.
Li Miss cause he very pity

(*Miss Li makes him pity.)

The _shi_ causatives contrast with the unintentional _rang_ and _jiao_ causatives in that the former are not restricted to experiential predicates denoting feelings [v. Section 1.2.3 and Section 2.2.2]. Sentence (18) illustrates this point:

18.

Zhang San shi (*rang) (*jiao) ta
(name) SHI (*RANG) (*JIAO) he
shu le shi kuai qian.
lose COM ten:CL money
Zhang San caused him to lose ten dollars.
(*Zhang San had (made) him lose ten dollars.)

The subject of the <u>shi</u> causative may also be
syntactically complex, for example, consisting of an S-V clause:<fnref n="4" />

13.

Ta yangzi hen qiguai shi wo xia-le yitiao.
his appearance very strange SHI I frighten:COM one:CL
His appearance was so strange that it gave me a start.

This syntactic variation of the basic <u>shi</u> causative is
highly suited to its semantic structure in that it makes possible
the unambiguous interpretation of unintentional causation on the
part of the subject.

<footnote n="4">4 Lü and Zhu (1952: 108) also recognize that a preceding clause may act as "the notional subject" of a <u>shi</u> sentence. Teng (1975: 62) states that "causer ... can be a whole sentence".</footnote>
Let us now turn to the proposed semantic representations
for three grammatical constructions formed by *shi*.

The first causative construction with *shi* grammaticalizes
the meaning explicated by the semantic formula presented below:

(i) Stative *Shi* Causative of Unintentional Causation

<table><tr><td>NP<sub>p</sub> (VP) SHI</td><td>NP<sub>p</sub></td><td>VP</td><td>STATIVE</td></tr><tr><td>Subject</td><td colspan="3">Pivot</td></tr><tr><td>Person A</td><td colspan="3">Person B</td></tr><tr><td>Cause</td><td colspan="3">Undergoer</td></tr></table>

(i) Ta de chengjiu shi wo hen shiwang.
he GEN results SHI I very disappointed
His results caused me to be very disappointed.

(ii) Ta shi Zhang San shu-le shikuai qian.
he cause (name) lose:COM ten:CL money
He caused Zhang San to lose ten dollars.

(iii) *Zhang San shi wo zuo zheijian shi. (*action predicate)
(name) SHI I do this:CL matter

(iv) Ta de jishu shi wo hen peifu.
she GEN skill SHI I very admire
Her expertise caused me to admire her very much.

Person B came to be in a certain state
because of something that can be said about person A
that B became aware of
not because anyone wanted this to happen.

The unintentional nature of the causation on the part of
the person denoted by the subject (person A) is formulated in terms
of a new state of affairs coming about for person B, *not because*
anyone wanted this to happen.
The second *shi* causative is also restricted to encoding
the arising of a new state of affairs for its undergoer - the person
denoted by the pivot nominal. In contrast to the preceding
construction however, an agentless event is viewed as the cause of
this new state of affairs rather than a prior event or state of
affairs involving another person as the unintentional cause. Thus,
this causative involves only one entity - the undergoer of the
causative event. The syntactic schema and semantic roles for this
construction take the following form:

<table><thead><tr><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>(VP)</th><th>SHI</th><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>VP</th><th>STATIVE</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Subject</td><td></td><td></td><td>Pivot</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>Person B</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Cause</td><td></td><td></td><td>Undergoer</td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

19. Zhei xiaoxi shi ta hen gaoxing
This news SHI she very happy
This news made her very happy.

With an agentless event as the cause, it is even less semantically
plausible that the person denoted by the pivot nominal be 'caused'
to be the agent of the subsequent event. This semantic property is
borne out by the data which shows conclusively that the 'causee' is
not an agent. Compare (20) with (21):

20. *Waitou you ren shuo hua, shi ta likai.
Outside there:be people talk, SHI he leave

21. Waitou you ren shuo hua, shi ta shui-bu-zhao.
outside there:be people talk, SHI he sleep not: fall
That there were people talking outside caused him to be
unable to fall asleep.⁵

5 This example is quoted from Teng (1975: 62) as well as (i) on
the next page, my translations.
Teng (1975: 62) concludes from the set of data he presents on the *shi* causative, that there are no constraints imposed on the case relations occurring in it, subsequently claiming that State, Process and Action verbs are all permitted, yet at the same time observing that neither the subject of the verb *shi* nor that of the verb in the 'lower sentence' are agentive. His claim that the verb in (4c) is an action verb must be disputed:

4c. Di-shang de xue shi ta pao-bu-kuai.

ground:top:REL snow cause he run:NEG₁:fast.

(Snow on the ground made him unable to run fast.)

The verb *pao* 'run' on its own is certainly an action verb, but in (4c) it forms part of a stative predicate *pao-bu-kuai* 'unable to run fast' after assuming its negative potential form, and thus it conforms to the semantic constraint of all *shi* causatives that a state of affairs is caused but never an action.

The semantic representation for the second *shi* causative we have examined is presented below:

(ii) Stative *Shi* Causative of Agentless Causation

NP (VP) SHI NPₚ VP<sub>STATIVE</sub>

Subject Pivot
(Person B)

Cause Undergoer

(i) Jiali mei ren shi ta bu fangxin (*zou) (*action pre-
home:in no people SHI he not at:ease (*go) dicate)

That nobody was at home caused him (to feel uneasy.)
(*to go. )
Person B came to be in a certain state
because of something that can be said about place L
that B became aware of
not because anyone wanted this to happen.

There is also a third construction where the pivot
nominal designates an inanimate entity or abstract phenomenon and
not a person. This construction functions semantically to encode a
naturally occurring phenomenon as the cause of a new state of
affairs arising for the inanimate entity or the cause of a new state
of affairs to arise in a certain place. This usage of *shi* is
characteristic of the written language, there being no *rang* or *jiao*
causative counterparts.

(iii) **_Shi_** Causative of Natural Phenomena

NP (VP)      SHI      NP      VP
Causing Event  IN        Caused Event or State of
 Affairs

22. Heibanbing shi (*rang) meiguishu luo ye.
(*jiao)
black:spot:disease SHI (*RANG) rosebush drop:leaves
(*JIAO)

Black spot is causing the rosebushes to lose their leaves.

Typical examples of this causative construction are the
long and complex sentences of scientific works:

23. Dimianshang fugai-zhe de zhiwu, shi diqiushang
earth:surface:on cover:DUR REL plants, SHI world:on
lengnuan ganshi gengjia shihe renlei de xuyao.
changes:in:temperature moisture still:more suit mankind GEN needs.

The plants covering the surface of the earth cause the
world's temperature and moisture to be even more suited
to the needs of mankind.
The semantic structure of this *shi* causative is
explicated by the formula below:

> Something happened in a place
> because of something else that can be said about
> that place.

The semantics of *shi* causative constructions have been
shown to differ from that of *rang* and *jiao* causative constructions
in the following three ways:

First of all, the three *shi* constructions examined above
all proved to belong to the unintentional or agentless type of
causative. *Shi* causative constructions thus have no intentional or
agentive counterparts for those *rang* and *jiao* causatives which
display precisely these features - the speech act causatives (v.
Section 1.2.1 and Section 2.2.1).

Secondly, it was pointed out that *rang* and *jiao*
causatives of the unintentional or agentless type are subject to
different constraints than those affecting the *shi* causatives.
Unintentional *rang* and *jiao* causatives are restricted to
experiential predicates - those which denote emotions and perception
(v. Section 1.2.3 and Section 2.2.2) whereas *shi* causatives combine
with any stative predicate encoding a new state of affairs which has
arisen for the undergoer rather than the more specific one of new
emotional or mental state.

Thirdly, the *shi* causative involving natural phenomena
has no *rang* or *jiao* counterpart. Since these differing features of
usage may be traced back to distinct semantic structures, it may not
be inferred that *rang* and *jiao* are colloquial or informal variants
of the *shi* causative construction. The lack of mutual substitut-
ability between any of these three causative complexes means that
strictly speaking **jiao** and **rang** should not be subsumed under the
discussion of **shi** and warrants the detailed analysis of their syntax
and semantics to be presented in the next three sections.
1. <u>RANG</u> CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS

1.1 <u>RANG</u> AS AN INDEPENDENT VERB

That *rang* can be used as an independent verb is evident
from the fact that it may occur as the only verb in the sentence and
that it exhibits the verbal characteristics of aspectual marking,
reduplication and ability to take nominal objects [cf. Lü 1981: 404].

There are at least five different uses of the verb *rang*
which can be traced back to its central meaning of giving away one's
advantage willingly to someone else.

One of its main verbal uses is that of 'yield' or 'give
in' exemplified by (1) where it takes the experiential aspect marker
-*guo* in the first clause and the completive aspect marker *-le* in the
second clause as well as having both 'direct' and 'indirect' objects:

1.

> Shangci xia qi, wo rang-guo ni liangge ma,
> last:time play chess, I yield:EXP you two:CL horse,
> 
> zheici you rang-le ni yige ju.
> this:time again yield:COM you one:CL chariot

Last time we played chess, I yielded two horses to you;
this time I've yielded you a chariot.

In the next example, *rang* has the related use of 'give in
to somebody', and here it takes the durative aspect marker *-zhe*:

2.

> Meimei xiao, ni rang-zhe ta yidianr.
> younger sister small, you give:in:DUR her a:little.
> 
> Your sister is little, so just humour her a bit.
A third extension of the meaning of _rang_ is that of 'move out of the way', exemplified by (3) where the verb is reduplicated to give the meaning of tentative action:

3. Che lai le, dajia rang yi rang.
car come INC everybody move : away:TENT.

The car is about to arrive, everybody move out of the way for a while.

A fourth use of the verb _rang_ which is of relevance to its use as an intentional causative - the speech act causative of request - is that of ' invite':

4. Ta ba keren rang -le jinqu.
he BA guest invite:COM enter:go

He invited the guests to go in.

As I have observed above, these several uses of the verb _rang_ are all linked by the notion of willingly giving up or giving away one's advantage, rights or possessions to another. This central meaning of _rang_ is also to be found in fixed phrases such as _rang cha_ 'offer tea' and _rang zuo_ 'give up one's seat'. Even the translation of _rang_ in (4) as ' invite' glosses over the fact that it is derived from the specific meaning of the host standing to one side to make way for the guests to enter, apparent in (5):

5. Yibian wang wuli rang-zhe keren,
BOTH towards room:in invite:DUR guest,
yibian shuo "Qing jin".
AND say 'Please enter'.

Both standing to one side to make way for the guests to move in and saying 'Please go in'.
It will be seen that the verbal uses of _rang_ hold certain implications for the semantic structures of the causative constructions that _rang_ forms such as the speech act causative of request and the causatives of permission and non-interference which parallel the _let_ causatives in English. The function of _rang_ in forming these causative constructions then is not merely the syntactic one of serving as a causative verb but has the effect of creating causative constructions with semantic structures that are unique. Moreover the same situation applies for the use of _rang_ in passive constructions where the relationship to the _rang_ causatives of permission and non-interference and thus to the notion of 'let' is easily identified.

## 1.2 CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS FORMED BY _RANG_:

In Nikitina's article "Causative and Passive Constructions in Chinese" it is claimed that _jiao_ and _rang_ overlap in their causative functions, and moreover, that in some cases they are identical in meaning:

_Rang_ is rarely used to express a forced action. However, in the case of permitted, allowed action, either _jiao_ or _rang_ can be used. Their function in this case is identical. It is often difficult to explain why one auxiliary verb is used rather than the other. Two sentences, identical in meaning, can have _jiao_ used in one and _rang_ in the other (1958: 212).

Implicit in Nikitina's analysis is that there is only one _rang_ causative and one _jiao_ causative. Explicit is her belief that both constructions are in most cases interchangeable.

In the following analysis it is demonstrated that there is not just one _rang_ causative nor one _jiao_ causative but that each comprises a complex of semantically distinct constructions.
Furthermore, it is shown that none of the *rang* causatives may be substituted for any of the *jiao* causatives without violating the context or causing a change of meaning.

In this section, six *rang* causatives are distinguished and analysed with reference to the English *let* and *have* causatives. They are in order of presentation:

I Speech Act Causative of Request with RANG.

II Speech Act Causative of Permission with RANG.

III RANG Causative of Non-Interference in an Agentive Event.

IV RANG Causative of Non-Interference in an Agentless Event.

V Experiencer Causative of Unintentional Causation with RANG.

VI Experiencer Causative of Agentless Causation with RANG.

Each construction is now discussed in turn:

### 1.2.1 Rang Speech Act Causatives

#### (i) Speech Act Causative of Request with Rang

This *rang* causative bears similarities to the *have* causative in English by which it may be appropriately translated, the *have* causative being of the form: Person A had Person B do something. Both constructions, English and Chinese, express a non-coercive relationship which holds between the two persons filling the roles of 'causer' and 'causee' (denoted by the syntactic subject and the pivot nominal respectively). This feature furnishes one point of contrast with the corresponding *jiao* causative.

The *rang* speech act causative of request has the syntactic form given below. This is accompanied by the specification of the semantic roles of the two entities involved:
<table><thead><tr><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>RANG</th><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>VP<sub>ACTION</sub></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Subject</td><td></td><td>Pivot</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Causer</td><td></td><td>Causee</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

6. Shuji rang wo shang ta nar qu yitang
secretary RANG I up his place go one:CL

The party secretary had me go to his place for a visit.

Syntactically analysed, the main verb phrase may contain an intransitive verb such as *qu 'go' in (6) or a transitive verb *chuli 'deal with' in (7) producing two argument and three argument structures respectively:

7. Shuji rang Xiao Mei chuli - le zheijian shi.
secretary RANG (name) deal:with:COM this:CL matter

The party secretary had Xiao Mei deal with this matter.

This is the only *rang* causative which permits "transitive verbs" in its predicate, with the proviso that I am defining a "transitive verb" semantically: as one which denotes an action that affects another entity.

In order to justify the claim that both causer and causee specifically denote persons and not the broader category of animate beings, first of all consider (8) where the causee is animate:

8. ?? Zhang San rang ta de xiao gou guolai.
(name) RANG he GEN little dog come:over

?? Zhang San had his little dog come over to him.

On changing *rang* to *jiao* in order to form the speech act causative of command (discussed in Section 2.2.1 below), the completely acceptable sentence (9) is obtained:
9. Zhang San jiao ta de xiao gou guolai.
(name) JIAO he GEN little dog come:over

Zhang San made his little dog come over to him.

Acceptability hinges upon the distinction between a speech act of command encoded by the *jiao* causative in (9) and that of request encoded by the *rang* causative and exemplified by (8). The latter is patently unsuitable for depicting the relationship between master and dog since with the use of *rang* it may be inferred that there is consideration on the part of the causer for the causee's wishes. At least, this is how the speaker views the relationship in so encoding the sequence of events. (The speech act component is discussed next.)

Neither can the causer be defined as "animate" in the basic *rang* speech act causative. Animate entities are only acceptable when personification is involved. For non-human animate beings to occur as subject in this *rang* causative, a complex sentence is preferable with the NP denoting the animate entity forming part of a subject clause rather than standing on its own as the subject. Compare (10) with (11): Sentence (11) is only acceptable if it is a case of personification:

10. *Xiao gou rang ta de zhuren wei ta*
little dog RANG he GEN master feed him
(The little dog had his master feed him.)

11. Xiao gou wang-wang de jiao,
little dog 'bow-wow' ADV call,
yisi shi rang zhuren wei ta.
meaning be RANG master feed it

The little dog barked, which meant that it wanted to have its master feed it.
The exclusion of non-human animate NPs from the causer role as in (10) is again due to the speech act component. In (11), the feature of the speech act has to be extended metaphorically to include the case of a dog's barking, being understood as its way of "saying something" and this is made possible by the explanatory initial clause.

The intention to bring about a certain event or state of affairs is attributed to the person denoted by the syntactic subject (the causer) of this *rang* causative and not the causee. What is the exact relationship viewed by the speaker as holding between these two actants - causer and causee?

The use of this causative is based on the speaker's view of the event fulfilling the semantic requirement that the causee is in the position of *being unwilling not to do* whatever is asked by the causer, rather than being in the situation where *s/he has to do* whatever the causer wants, encoded by the *jiao* speech act causative. Thus, this causative is suitable for expressing requests as the causing event, a typical feature of the more polite social relations existing between host and guests for example.

This feature is apparent when we contrast the acceptable use of *rang* in (12) with its *jiao* causative counterpart in (13). The latter is semantically awkward, out of context, due to the expression of a command as part of its speech act structure:

12. Ta rang kerenmen duo chi dianr cai
he RANG guests more eat some dish

He had the guests eat some more of the dishes.
13. ?? Ta jiao kerenmen duo chi dianr cai
he JIAO guests more eat some dish

?? He made the guests eat some more of the dishes.

The use of sentence (13) implies a rude and unfriendly host who treats his guests in a peremptory manner.

That the causee is an agent in this *rang* construction is clear from the exemplification given. In some of the other *rang* causatives it will be shown that the person denoted by the pivot nominal is the experiencer of the causative event (q.v. Section 1.2.3). As a consequence of the agentive nature of the causee in this speech act causative, events and states of affairs are excluded from the predicate since non-control emotional states and spontaneous events preclude the causee from being interpreted as an agent. Consider (14) and (15) as opposed to (16).

14. * Daoyan rang wo gaoxing (nanguo)
director RANG I happy (sad)

15. * Daoyan rang wo kuqilai
director RANG I cry:start

16. Daoyan rang wo ku.
director RANG I cry.
The director had me cry.

The event of *kuqilai* 'bursting into tears' in (15) and the emotional states of *gaoxing* 'happiness' and *nanguo* 'sadness' in (14) cannot be understood to be caused by someone asking another person to enact them, yet in (16) for events such as *ku* 'cry' which also have the second interpretation of willed action, the *rang*
causative may be used. In the latter case, it is possible to
interpret that an actor can cry 'on demand'.

Similarly, spontaneous mental events such as <u>xiangqi</u>
'call to mind' are proscribed from the speech act causative, whereas
those viewed as agentive, such as <u>xiang</u> 'think', may occur in it.
Compare (17) with (18):

17. * Shuji ________ rang wo xiang-qilai.
party secretary RANG I call to mind

18. Shuji ______ rang wo zixi xiang-xiang.
party secretary RANG I carefully think:TENT

The party secretary had me give it a careful think.

An additional property of the speech act in this <u>rang</u>
causative is that it is not necessarily a direct one, that is, one
which takes place face-to-face between causer and causee, unlike the
<u>jiao</u> speech act causative:

19. Tamen xie xin rang (*jiao) wo huiqu
they write letter RANG (*JIAO) I return
They wrote a letter to have (*make) me come back.

Five semantic features of the <u>rang</u> speech act causative
of request have been informally described and supported by evidence.
To summarize, these constitute the requirements of

(i) two personal or personified NPs (labelled 'causer' and 'causee' in the syntactic schema)

(ii) a direct or indirect speech act whereby the causer asks the causee to do something

(iii) an agentive causee as the consequence of requirement (ii)

(iv) intention to bring about the causative event being ascribed to the causer
and (v) the non-coercive nature of the relationship between the
causer and causee with the causee not being willing not
to do what the causer wants.

Informal description is no substitute however for a
precise semantic representation which is presented forthwith:

SPEECH ACT CAUSATIVE OF REQUEST WITH RANG

<table><thead><tr><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>RANG</th><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>VP<sub>ACTION</sub></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Subject</td><td></td><td>Pivot</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Causer</td><td></td><td>Causee</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Person A</td><td></td><td>Person B</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

(i) Haizimen rang (*jiao) mama chi tang.
children RANG (*JIAO) mother eat lollies
The children had their mother eat lollies.

(ii) Daoyan rang ta (*gaoxing) ku (*stative)
director RANG he (*happy) cry predicates)
The director had him cry (*be happy).

Assuming that person B doesn't want
not to do what person A says he wants him
to do

I say:

Person B did something that person A wanted him
to do
because A said he wanted B to do it.

Note that the first component of this semantic
representation is in the "assuming" frame, as the speaker would only
use this particular causative construction on the assumption that
the kind of relationship described for the causer and causee does in
fact hold.

(ii) Speech Act Causative of Permission with Rang:

The second causative construction with rang is an
intentional causative as was the case for the first one we
examined. Although it has the similar semantic requirements of two
persons in the roles of causer and causee, and moreover a causee who
is agentive and it involves a speech act, the causative situation
depicted is nevertheless quite different to the former. In this
construction, intention to bring about the event is attributed not
to the causer but to the causee. Due to the nature of the
relationship between causer and causee however, the latter requires
the former's permission before proceeding to carry out the desired
action

NP<sub>P</sub>      RANG      NP<sub>P</sub>      VP<sub>ACTION</sub>
Subject        Pivot
Causer         Causee

20. Bamende rang ta jinqu.
doorkeeper RANG she in:go

The doorkeeper let her go in.

The use of this causative implies an underlying
assumption about the nature of the relationship between causer and
causee, one of the causer having the ability to prevent the causee
from carrying out the action the latter wants to carry out. This
assumption is evident from the consideration of (21) and (22), (21)
being unacceptable due to the fact that, out of context, such an
assumption is not probable, unless "I" refers to the Governor
General or Queen, for example.

21. *Wo rang zongli zhizheng.
I RANG P.M. govern
*I let the Prime Minister govern.

22. Zongtong rang zongli zuge.
president RANG P.M. form:a:cabinet

The President let the Prime Minister form a cabinet.
Further evidence supporting the presence of this feature is that when the causee's action is understood to be already in progress, this causative construction may not be used, since the need for permission to start doing the action is thus pre-empted.

23. *Jiao lian rang ta pao-xiaqu.
coach RANG she run:continue
(The coach let her keep on running.)

In this causative then, the person denoted by the syntactic agent is to be regarded as the causer in the sense of making it possible for an event to be brought about through allowing the causee to begin an action.

Furthermore, this semantic feature entails explicit permission in the form of a speech act: "The causer says that the causee can do this". Of significance for comparison with the third *rang* causative - a causative of non-interference - is the conception of the causee as being unable to commence the desired action until this permission is granted. In this way, the causer acts as a potential obstacle to the causee's planned course of action. Contrasting to this, in the *rang* causative of non-interference, the causee's action is already under way and the causer, although viewed as being able to put a halt to the action, refrains from doing so.

Given that a speech act of permission is required, non-human animate entities are not generally acceptable as the causer:

24. *Xiao gou rang ta de zhuren wei ta.
little dog RANG he GEN master feed him
(?? The little dog let his master feed him.)
However, (25) is acceptable in the case of a watchdog acting as a doorkeeper; as here the dog can be understood to substitute for a human and we have an instance of personification:

25. Ni keyi shi-shi, neizhi gou rang bu rang ni jinqu.
you may try:TENT, that:CL dog RANG not RANG you enter.
You could try and see whether or not that dog will let
you go in.

The restriction to a person filling the role of causee is much stronger for this causative, given the requirement of an agentive causee who wants to bring about a certain event in addition to the speech act of permission.

26. *?Xiao Mei rang ta de gou pao.
(name) RANG she GEN dog run

This requirement of an agentive causee, results in the exclusion of stative predicates and predicates denoting spontaneously arising events or processes:

27. *Xiao Mei rang muqin gaoxing.
(name) RANG mother happy

28. *Muqin rang xiaohair kuqilai
mother RANG child burst:into:tears

The features of this causative may be summarized as:

(i) two personal NPs

(ii) a speech act of permission

(iii) the intention to bring about the event attributed to the causee

(iv) an agentive causee due to requirement (iii)
(v) the causer is able to but does not want to prevent the causee from beginning to do what s/he wants

(vi) causee's action commences only after permission from the causer is granted.

Next the semantic representation for this causative is

given:

SPEECH ACT CAUSATIVE OF PERMISSION WITH RANG

NP<sub>P</sub> RANG NP<sub>P</sub> VP<sub>ACTION</sub>
Causer
Person A Causee
Person B

(i) Mama rang haizimen zai waibianr wanr.
mother RANG children at outside play.

Mother let the children play outside.

(ii) *Wo rang zongli zhizheng. (*unable to allow)
I RANG prime minister govern.

(iii) *Xiao Mei rang ta nanguo. (*stative predicate)
(name) RANG he sad

(iv) Ta yao shuo, ni jiu rang ta shuo!
she want speak, you just RANG she speak

If she wants to speak, you'd better let her!

Assuming that person B has to do
what person A says he wants him to do,
I say:

Person B started to do something that B said s/he wanted to do because person A said s/he could do it not because A wanted him to do it.

The next two rang causative constructions which we will
examine are both causatives of non-interference. The person denoted
by the syntactic subject is understood to be able to but does not put an end to an ongoing event of an adversative nature. In this feature, both resemble the *rang* causative of permission. In the first "non-interference" construction the pivot nominal denotes an agent involved in an ongoing action while in the second it denotes an inanimate entity undergoing a process event.

### 1.2.2 Rang Causatives of Non-Interference

The semantic structure of these two causatives contrasts greatly to those of the two preceding. First of all, even though the first construction requires two personal NPs, there is no speech act understood to take place between them. Rather, the meaning grammaticalized is that the 'causer' does not interfere in the "causee's" ongoing action. Similarly in the second construction, the causer does not interfere in the process event affecting an inanimate entity.

Sentences (29) and (30) exemplify the *rang* causative of non-interference in an agentive event and the *rang* causative of non-interference in an agentless event respectively:

<table><thead><tr><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>RANG</th><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>VP<sub>ACTION</sub></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Subject</td><td></td><td>Pivot</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Causer</td><td></td><td>Causee</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

29. <u>Muqin</u> rang xiao hair ku ge gou.
Mother RANG small child cry:CL:enough

The mother let the small child cry its heart out.

<table><thead><tr><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>RANG</th><th>NP<sub>IN</sub></th><th>VP<sub>PROCESS EVENT</sub></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

30. <u>Xiao Mei</u> yanzhengzheng rang wo de hua si-guang -le.
(name) wide-eyed RANG I GEN flower die-bare:COM.

Xiao Mei let my flowers die right before her very eyes.
A pertinent question at this point regards the causative nature of these two constructions: Are they appropriately classified as causative constructions given that the syntactic subject is not the causer of the event in the sense of the first speech act causative?

That intention to cause the event cannot be attributed to the causative subject is evident from the fact that where this interpretation is possible as in (31), we obtain not a causative of non-interference but instead a speech act causative of request: Imagining that the mother and child of (31) are beggars, an appropriate context can be created for its use:

31. Muqin rang xiao hair ku.

The mother had the small child cry (so that they would earn more money).

Sentence (31) is not however open to the interpretation: "The mother let the small child cry". Similarly, sentences (32) and (33) are unacceptable as they are interpreted to mean that the subject did something with the intention of causing the child to burst into tears in (32) or to cause the flowers to die in (33):

32. *Muqin rang xiao hair ku-qilai.

Mother RANG small child burst:into:tears.

33. *Xiao Mei rang wo de penhuar si-le.

(name) RANG I GEN potplant die:COM.

Sentence (33) looks very similar to sentence (30): "Xiao Mei let my flowers die right in front of her very own eyes", yet is unable to be given the "non interference" interpretation of sentence (30) but only the intentionally causative one. The use of a
resultative verb _si-guang_ in (30) which means 'die' in the sense
that nothing is left of the flowers after the process reaches its
completion, allows the correct interpretation to be made that Xiao
Mei could have somehow saved my flowers from such complete
'devastation' but failed to do so. In (33), however, with the bare
verb _si_ 'die', the interpretation is made of Xiao Mei setting off
the process of the potplants dying, that is, of being the cause of
the event in its entirety, and so is not acceptable.

Thus, the causal role of the syntactic subject takes on a
third subtle permutation of meaning in these two _rang_ causatives:
the subject plays a quasi-causal role in "facilitating" an ongoing
event to reach its completion, but is not understood as initially
causing the event to take place. Nor is there any element of
permission involved in this "facilitation". The terms 'causer' and
'causee' for the roles of the two entities involved in the kind of
causative event depicted by this construction prove to be misleading
rather than apt.

The causal role of the syntactic subject is thus
understood in an inverted sense in terms of the event being left to
follow its own course to completion by the subject, even though the
latter is understood to have the ability to cause its cessation.
Therefore, by not putting an end to the process, the subject
'causes' it to go on.

This semantic property provides a further explanation as
to why sentence (33) is unacceptable: Even if the process of the
flowers dying has already set in (and so Xiao Mei is not understood
as doing something to cause them to die), we are still equally
unable to interpret that she could somehow cause the flowers not to
die. The same situation holds for its semantically awkward English counterpart, the *let* causative in (34), when cited out of context. As in Chinese, the oddness of (34) is due to the tendency to interpret it as a *let* causative of permission:

34. ? She let the flowers die.

When (34) is compared to (35) however, the ability of the subject to save at least some of the flowers can be clearly interpreted:

35. She just let all the flowers die.

The following pair of examples of the *rang* causative is a further illustration of this distinction in Chinese, as (36) is in danger of being interpreted as a *rang* causative of permission, whereas (37) can be clearly interpreted as a *rang* causative of non-interference:

36. * Chuanzhang rang chuan chen-mo -le. captain RANG boat sink : COM.

(?? The captain let the boat sink.)

37. Ta jiu zheiyang rang chuan chen-diao-le. he then this:way RANG boat sink : COM

This was the way he just let the boat sink.

The event denoted by the predicate in these two causatives of non-interference is understood as being already under way at the time when the subject would have been able to intervene, which
accounts for the unacceptability of (36) where the event of sinking
is not interpreted as ongoing but as just starting, that is, enabled
by the captain. This semantic feature also explains why (38) is
acceptable but (39) is not.

38. Wo rang ta ku-xiaqu.
I RANG he cry:continue.
I let him keep on crying.

39. *Wo rang ta ku-qilai.*
I RANG he cry:begin
(*I let him burst into tears.*)

Therefore, the causatives of non-interference contrast
with the causative of permission in that the subject of the
causative construction does not pose an obstacle to another person's
starting to carry out an action, but rather in refraining to take
any action, allows the ongoing action or process to continue.

The claim that the nature of the event allowed to reach
its completion is adversative if justified by the following data:
Where the second entity involved is a person, the action this person
is not hindered from continuing to do, is understood to have
adversative implications for this person: This explains why (41) and
not (40) is acceptable.

40. *Xiao Mei rang ta gaoxing-xiaqu.*
(name) RANG he happy:continue.

41. Rang ta gaoxing qu ba, ta jin zao yao hou hui de.
RANG he happily go RP, he early will regret NOM

Let him happily go his own way so that he will regret it
as early as possible.
Sentence (40) containing the predicate "keep on being happy" is disqualified from being a causative of non-interference on the grounds that no adversative interpretation is available.

Identically for the second "non-interference" construction, where the pivot nominal denotes an inanimate entity, sentence (42) proves to be the unacceptable 'beneficial' counterpart of (30):

42. *Xiao Mei rang huayuan de huar kai-xiaqu.
(name) RANG garden GEN flower bloom:continue.

(*Xiao Mei let the flowers in the garden continue to bloom.)

The meaning of these two causatives can then be informally described as causation of an adversative state of affairs through negligence on the part of the subject in allowing an event to continue taking place or through indifference to its occurrence.

Up to this point, the common features of these two causative constructions of non-interference have been discussed. Due to the fact that in one construction only action and activity verbs occur in the predicate given that the adversative event involves an agent, as opposed to the other construction which encodes non-interference in the process of decay or decline of an inanimate entity, their semantic representations now need separate discussion:

(i) The Rang Causative of Non-Interference in an Agentive Event

This construction expresses non-interference in another person's ongoing action, consequently predicates denoting events or states of affairs do not occur in it:
43. *Xiao Mei rang ta muqin gaoxing.
(name) RANG her mother happy

This semantic feature also explains the unacceptability of (39) with
the predicate ku-qilai 'burst into tears'.

Secondly, this particular causative of non-interference
is restricted to semantically (and syntactically) intransitive verbs
in its predicate, where the ongoing action of the second person does
not extend beyond this agent to affect any other entity:

44. *Mama rang Lao Da da Lao Er, bu guan tamen.
Mother RANG eldest hit second:eldest, NEG control them.

Sentence (44) is unacceptable in that the event may not be
interpreted as one of ongoing action, but rather as the eldest child
hitting the second eldest once only. Here the verb is both
transitive and punctual.

The features of this rang causative of non-interference
we have discussed are first summarized, then explicated in the form
of the semantic representation.

THE RANG CAUSATIVE OF NON-INTERFERENCE IN AN AGENTIVE EVENT

This construction requires that

(i) two personal NPs be in subject and pivot positions

(ii) the pivot nominal denote an agent

(iii) this agent be already in the process of carrying out an
action or activity

(iv) the syntactic subject be understood as capable of putting
an end to the ongoing action but refraining from doing so

(v) the action be viewed as leading to adversative
consequences for its agent.
<table><thead><tr><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>RANG</th><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>VP<sub>ACTION</sub></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Subject</td><td></td><td>Pivot</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>"Non-interfering"</td><td></td><td>Agent</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>person</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Person A</td><td></td><td>Person B</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

(i) Bie guan ta, rang ta ku ge gou!
don't care: about him, RANG he cry CL enough
Don't take any notice of him, let him cry his heart out!

(ii) \*Rang ta gaoxing-xiaqu. (*stative predicate)
RANG he happy: continue.

(iii) Rang ta naoqu, kan ta neng naocheng shenmoyangr.
RANG he stir:go, see he can stir:become what:shape.
Let him go on causing trouble, and see how far he can go.

Person B was doing something (Z)
Person A could've done something
because of which person B couldn't have kept on
doing Z
A didn't do this
Person B kept on doing Z because of that
I'm thinking of it as bad for person B.

(ii) The Rang Causative of Non-Interference in an Agentless Event

This construction finds its counterpart in one of the English *let* causatives which also encodes non-interference by the subject in a process or event adversely affecting an inanimate entity.

45. Jo let the vegetables rot (*grow).

46. Jo let the milk go sour (*stay fresh).

47. Jo let the flowers wilt (*bloom).

48. Anne let the picture fall down again.
In a similar way to the *rang* causative of non-
interference, if the event is one which the subject does not have
the capability of stopping, it cannot be used to form an acceptable
*let* causative of this type. Compare (49) with (48):

49. *Anne let the rain fall.

Neither may natural phenomena act as the syntactic
subject.

50. *The sun let the flowers wilt (bloom).*

The semantic features of this *rang* causative may then be
summarized as the following requirements:

(i) the subject denotes a person and the pivot nominal an inanimate entity

(ii) the inanimate entity is the undergoer of a process event already under way

(iii) the subject is understood to have the ability to put an end to this process but refrains from doing so

(iv) the process being one of decay or decline leads to an adversative state of affairs for the person thought of as owning it, represented by person P in the formula.<fnref n="6" />

I propose the following semantic representation for this
causative:

<footnote n="6">6 The presence of this component in the semantic formula is not specifically justified in this discussion - The reader is however referred to Part I Section 2.2.2. (Adversative *Bei* Passive of Possessions) for a discussion and explanation of how it can only be the 'owner' or person related to an inanimate NP acting as the subject of a grammatical construction that can be understood to be adversely affected by some event. This remains true whether the construction be passive or causative and in order to avoid repetition, it will not be given a separate discussion here.</footnote>
<table><thead><tr><th>NP<sub>P</sub></th><th>RANG</th><th>NP<sub>IN</sub></th><th>VP<sub>PROCESS EVENT</sub></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Subject</td><td></td><td>Pivot</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>"Non-interfering"</td><td></td><td>Undergoer</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Person A</td><td></td><td>Thing X</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

(i) Xiao Mei yanzhengzheng rang wo de huar si-guang -le.
(name) wide-eyed RANG I GEN flower die:bare:COM.
Xiao Mei let my flowers die right in front of her very own eyes.

(ii) *Xiao Mei rang hua kai-xiaqu. (*non-adversative)
(name) RANG flower bloom:continue

(iii) *Taiyang rang hua kai-xiaqu. (*non-human NP as subject)
sun RANG flower bloom:continue.

(iv) Ta jiu zheiyang rang chuan chen-diao - le.
he then this:way RANG boat sink:away : COM
This was the way he just let the boat sink.

Something was happening to thing X
(Thing X can be thought of as belonging to person P)
Person A could've done something
because of which this wouldn't have kept on happening
A didn't do this
Thing X came to be in a certain state because of this
not because A wanted this to happen
I'm thinking of it as bad for person P.

The final pair of causative constructions are both
experiencer causatives. They grammaticalize the following meaning:
The person denoted by the pivot nominal comes to feel something new
either as the result of unintentional causation on the part of
another person (denoted by the subject) or else as the result of a
prior event in which no person was involved. These two constructions
are labelled experiencer causatives because the person denoted by
the pivot nominal in both cases is the experiencer of a new state of
feelings or emotions, a more specific case of the consequences of
causation than that of being the undergoer of a new state of
affairs. Recall that the latter type of causation is encoded by the
<u>shi</u> causatives, with which these <u>rang</u> causatives contrast.

1.2.3 The <u>Rang</u> Experiencer Causatives

(i) Experiencer Causative of Unintentional Causation with <u>Rang</u>
One of the main semantic features of this construction is
that of unintentional causation, a feature which distinguishes it
clearly from the three previous kinds of causation examined -
intentional, permissive and non-interference. Secondly, the new
state of affairs arising for the undergoer of the event is
specifically one which involves feelings or perception.

The syntactic subject is typically a complex NP
containing a noun or pronoun denoting a person (not necessarily the
head noun) rather than just a single noun. This syntactic feature
aids in the interpretation of unintentional causation. This is the
reason why (50) as compared with (51) is not semantically
well-formed.

NP<sub>P</sub>          RANG          NP<sub>P</sub>          VP<sub>EXPERIENTIAL EVENT</sub>
Subject            Pivot
Unintentional Causer | Experiencer

50. ?Ta rang dajia gandong de zhi liu lei.
she RANG everyone feel EXT just flow tears.