The syntax and post-syntax of verb doubling in Mandarin Chinese
Tom Meadows, Qiuhao Charles Yan
August 2023 

In this paper we propose that long verb doubling constructions in Mandarin Chinese involve the interaction of (i) phrasal movement of VP to the clausal left periphery, (ii) different kinds of PF-processes underlying the distribution of post-verbal particles, and (iii) partial copy deletion (van Urk 2018, Scott 2021) constrained by Landau (2006)’s PF algorithm. We apply this analysis to long verb doubling cases with two different kinds of particles, manner de and duration le. The morphosyntactic hosting requirements of both particles, though differing from each other in certain respects, prevent full deletion of a lower VP-copy. The result of this partial deletion is doubling of the lexical verb. Our proposal provides novel support for the view that copy deletion is sensitive to post-syntactic processes.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008333 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	To appear in Proceedings of WCCFL41
keywords:	verb doubling, post-syntax, partial copy deletion, pf algorithm, mandarin chinese, syntax
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