Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

(singke) #1

214 MARK HANSELL


This single occurence of a shared subject is a characteristic of both SVCs
and CCs:
(31) Ta zuò jichéngchê huí jiä le.
he ride taxi return home ASP
"He took a taxi (and went) home."
(32) Wo hë zuì le.
I drink intoxicated ASP
"I got drunk."
In (31) tä is the subject of both Vj zuò ("ride") and V 2 huí ("return"), but
appears as zero before V 2. (32) is the same situation, with wo as the subject
of both Vj hë ("drink") and V 2 zui ("intoxicated"), but appears as non-zero
only before Wv
Another type of zero anaphora is evident in the Pivot Construction,
where the subject of V 2 appears as zero if it is coreferent with the object of
Vj. That is, given two independent clauses of the structure:
NPj Wx NP 2 and NP 2 V 2 NP 3
the SVC that results from the juncture of these two clauses will contain only
one surface appearance of NP 2 :
NPj Vj NP 2 V 2 NP 3
Exactly the same type of zero anaphora can also occur in CR constructions
where the object of a transitive Vx is coreferential with the subject of an
intransitive V 2. Note the similarities in these two sentences:
(33) Wo qïng ni chï wufàn.
I invite/treat you eat lunch
"ΓΊ1 treat you to lunch."
(34) Ylshëng bä bìngrén jiù huó le.
doctor PRETRANS patient save live ASP
"The doctor saved the patient's life."^3
In (33), m "you" plays the role of both object of Vx qïng "invite/treat" and
subject of V 2 chi "eat", yet despite the fact that it has these two roles, it
makes only one surface appearance. The same is true in (34), where bìng­
rén "patient" is both object of V 1 jiù "save" and subject of V 2 huó "live",
yet only makes one surface appearance.

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