Double Object and Serial Verb Benefactive Constructions in Cantonese

This paper examines a specific kind of syntactic alternation in Cantonese, involving a single verb benefactive construction, and a serial verb benefactive construction. The former is a ditransitive construction with a single predicate and two contiguous objects (double object construction). The latter comprises a verbal complex of two transitive predicates with noncontiguous objects in a monoclausal construction. Despite these differences in syntactic form, some speakers acknowledge that the two types of sentences accomplish the same function of expressing the benefactive. However, a second level of intuition produces some nuances in meaning, such as the ability of the serial verb construction to express the notion of ultimate source and effort of action. This paper proposes that, in expressing the benefactive, the Cantonese speaker decides between double object constructions and serial verb constructions. For any communication situation, the choice of one over the other depends on what secondary lexical conceptual semantic nuances the speaker intends. An LFG analysis of these two types of constructions is presented, with a proposal for incorporating a conceptual semantic level following Jackendoff (1990b), Butt (1995, 1997), Hellan (1996) and Bodomo (1993, 1997a) in order to handle the conceptual semantic nuances described.