On the Meaning of the Novel Use of Bei-construction

1. On the Meaning of the Novel Use of Bei-construction Yan JIANG 蒋严 果因PPT工作室 weibo.com/guoyinppt

2. It does not have passive morphology for verbs It is lexically marked by a set of passive words such as bei被, gei给, rang让, jiao叫, with bei as the more standard use and the others as the more colloquial/regional uses. It is sometimes possible to have two passive markers co-occurring in one simplex sentence, i.e. 让他给骗了， 又被他给幽了一默， 叫他给拖累了 It typically has malficiary meaning 1. Chinese passives are non-canonical passives in typology of world lgs 2

3. Taken as a preposition, like the English “by”. More agreeable to intuition, as bei’s meaning in modern Chinese is rather empty, with no more than a weak suggestion of a patient thematic role of the subject, although it can actually head an optional NP with an agent role. But unlike the English “by”, bei can be dangling, without a following NP. Taken as a light verb: either as a raising verb or as a control verb. This partially reflects the historical development of bei, which was originally a verb [meaning ‘to cover’]. But the main motivations come from formal syntax Long and short passives as two distinct structures, not as complete or elliptical structures. The dual-bei analysis, with one bei taken as the light verb, and the other as the preposition. The two bei usually merge into one when realized as a sentence. 2. The Syntactic status of bei 3

4. Starting from 2008, the novel use of bei has emerged as a new grammatical construction. It only involves bei, but not the other passive markers It resembles the short passives in that bei does not head an agent NP. It differs from the short passives in that bei is followed by an intransitive verb, a predicate NP, or a predicate ADJP. Such predicates are normally used in active voice equivalents, with the subjects as agents/experiencers, but there are some such NPs or ADJPs whose usage as a predicate is novel in itself. That is, it is only accommodated by the novel bei construction. [the examples in red in the next page] 3. The novel use of bei sentences 4

5. 被自杀、被代表、被捐款、被失踪、被自愿、被失业、被就业、被开心、被小康、被寂寞、被增长、被全勤、被幸福、被剩男、被缓缴、被盖楼、被动车、被高铁、被房奴、被出线被自杀、被代表、被捐款、被失踪、被自愿、被失业、被就业、被开心、被小康、被寂寞、被增长、被全勤、被幸福、被剩男、被缓缴、被盖楼、被动车、被高铁、被房奴、被出线 Some examples 5

6. Obviously, it goes beyond passive meaning, but the malficiary meaning is retained, or even strengthened. Not just about the experience or the reception of an action on the part of the patient/experiencer, but also involves an action/event/ state “being forced on” , and the “involuntarity”, “unawareness” and “unwillingness” of the patient/experiencer, even though the verb only accepts as its theta role an agent NP that can initiate an action on its own. This is a conflict that can be perceived both semantically and syntactically. The subject, which should normally be the agent of the predicates, now enters into a passive frame, where the subject position markedly accommodates a non-agentive NP (as its grammatical subject), which is also the only prominent NP as an argument in the sentence. 4. The meaning of new bei sentences 6

7. 4. Since the predicate following bei cannot take on another NP as its logical subject, i.e., one that immediately follows bei, it acquires a non-agentive nature and can only describe a resulting state. 5. “bei xx” reports an event, but also partially negates the veracity of the event, conveying the negation of and suspicion on the event reported by xx, admitting only a resulting state that seems to have been caused by xx. 6. The real agent/causer is not given or cannot be given and can only be contextually accommodated. 7

8. How to resolve the conflict as stated in point 2 of page 4, thereby giving justification to the validity of the novel use of the “bei” construction? How to give a unified explanation to the relationship between the more normal use of bei constructions and the novel use? How to give an overall semantic representation of the bei construction? How to derive the pragmatic implicatures that can be perceived in the novel use of bei construction that reflect the intuition of the language users? 5. Issues to be addressed 8

9. Treating bei as a verb bei heads either a clause or a VP. bei heading a clause forms the long passive structure: bei + NP + V… bei heading a VP forms the short passive structure: bei + e + V, where the e is either an operator OP that relates itself to the raised subject or is a PRO whose reference is to be resolved by an overt or arbitrary NP that controls it. 6. Existing syntactic treatments 9

10. All formulae adapted from Kate Kearns (2011) Semantics I. Long passives DO (x, [...]) Jones walked. => DO(j,[walk(j)]) Jones pushed Bill. => DO(j, [push (b)(j)]) Bill was pushed by Jones. Same as above, but contains a derived formula: j CAUSE [BECOME [pushed (b)]] II. Short passives b.  x [DO (x, […])].   x [DO (x, [push (b)(x)])]. Bill was pushed. Derived formula: x [x CAUSE [BECOME[Pred (b)]]] 7. Possible semantic representations 10

11. The novel passive xV active. Example: x自杀：DO(x, V(x)) x 被V-intransitive. Example: x 被自杀： The light verb 被 initiates type coercing to produce the following formula: x [x CAUSE [BECOME[Pred (b)]]] Or y[x [x CAUSE [BECOME[Pred (y)]]] ] Its difference from the normal short passives is that the novel passive has the above formula directly projected as its argument structure. Its causative formula is not a derived one. Crucially, it does not have a non-causative equivalent, unlike a standard short passive: * x [DO (x, […])]. *y[ x [DO (x, [自杀（y）(x)])]]. (this formula contains a type conflict or type mismatch) 11

12. Pragmatic implicatures Deriving the pragmatic implicatures from the recoverability or non-recoverability of the missing x argument as well as the process of type coercing. Conclusion: Chinese passives are indeed chameleonic, both syntactically and semantically, but we should endeavour to provide a unified mechanism. 12