Alternation Across Semantic Fields: A Study of Mandarin Verbs of Emotion

In this paper we will explore the consistent contrast between VV-compounds and non-Wcompounds across seven subgroups of verbs of emotion. The distinctive syntactic features for the contrast include the distribution of the grammatical functions, the cooccrrence restrictions with head nouns and head verbs, the compatibilities with the imperative and evaluative constructions, the aspect, and the transitivity. We conclude that the contrast is motivated by event structure properties. To describe a state-type event, the speaker could choose to focus on the inchoative stage or the homogeneous stage of the event. In addition, since VV compounding has the function of type-lifting an event to a referential term, or to refer to its generic properties, it is natural to predict that VV compounding is a predominant source for the verbs of indicating homogeneity.