earticle

영어

The main concern of this paper is to investigate the Chinese middle forms to determine whether there is a true middle construction in Chinese. In other words, if there exists a middle construction in Chinese, what are its properties and constraints? In the first section of this paper, briefly sketches properties of the middle. based on Cheon, Ho-Jaee(1998a,b, 2004) criteria, which have been developed from the evidence of Japanese. In section 3, we will apply the semantic and syntactic properties of the potential middle construction to the Chinese. In this section, we will find, the Chinese potential middle forms shows sign of an implict agent argument(i.e. the paraphrase relationship, the all by itself test, or co-occurrence of by-phrase). Moreover, the Chinese potential middle forms exhibits stativity, which is a necessary condition for middles. The test for stativity that we have applied involve the verb happen, the progressive, agent oriented adverbs, pseudoclefts, purpose clauses, the iterative simple present, and genericity. We will find, the forms not occur with the verb happen, progressive, agent oriented adverbs, pseudoclefts, purpose clauses, the iterative simple present, imperatives, and vocatives. Furthermore, the forms permit a paraphrase containing the modal auxiliary. Finally, the forms are acceptable respective of existence of modifier adverbials. Based on the properties of the middle construction in Japanese and tests for each property, we can conclude that Chinese have a middle-passive construction.