Mandarin Resultative Compounds: a Family of Lexical Constructions

This paper presents a novel analysis of certain Mandarin resultative compounds whose interpretations have provided a challenge to traditional assumptions regarding argument-function mapping. We argue that the peculiarities associated with these compounds point to the need to recognise constructional effects in grammar. In contrast to previous analyses, which make essentially ad hoc modifications to mapping theories in order to accommodate the facts, we propose that the various interpretations associated with a given compound arise from differing event structure templates, each with its own distinct mapping alignments. Mandarin resultative compounds, on this account, constitute a family of lexical constructions. Our analysis permits us to retain conventional mapping assumptions, while at the same time accounting for the specific characteristics associated with the relevant interpretations.