Chinese verb copying constructions: a labeling account
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Chen Zhao [1]
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[1] Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Huazhong University of Science and Technology
China
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- Localización: Lingua: International review of general linguistics, ISSN 0024-3841, Nº 269, 2022
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
In this article, I will show that Chinese verb copying constructions lend strong empirical support to Chomsky’s (2013) labeling theory. In particular, I will argue that the cooccurrence of the object and the postverbal complement in the vP domain gives rise to a symmetric structure of the type {XP, YP} that cannot be labeled by the labeling algorithm and that verb copying is derived from VP movement, a strategy which is applied to solve the labeling problem at the moment of Transfer. This new approach will provide a principled explanation for the core properties of verb copying constructions as well as some related phenomena. Finally, I will argue that despite the apparent similarity, verb copying constructions in Chinese should be treated separately from the so-called Predicate Cleft constructions, a well attested phenomenon in many languages, in that only the former involves a labeling failure inside the vP domain.
