Abstract
In this work, we adopt a light verb approach and provide a unified analysis for the verbal use of shang in Mandarin Chinese. Shang can serve as the main verb or combine with a verb yielding a verbal compound. In the shang NP construction, the meaning of shang can be different when shang takes different NP complements. Thus, in the previous studies, the polysemy of shang is considered an instance of sense extension. For example, in the shang NP construction, shang could denote spatial movement or a metaphorical beginning of an action. Likewise, in the V-shang construction, shang could denote directional movement, a result of the preceding V, or a sense of change of state (Liu 1998). In this work, we claim that through syntactic operation, shang can generate different senses. In addition, in the shang NP construction, shang invariably selects a locative complement. Movement of shang to different subject-selecting light verbs yields different uses of shang. As for the V-shang construction, based on the syntactic relation between V and shang, we propose two types of V-shang construction. In the first type of V-shang construction, namely modifier-head, shang serves as the main verb and takes an NP complement. And V functions as a modifier VP that adjoins to vP (Shen and Lin 2003). In the second type of V-shang construction, namely head-complement, shang serves as an aspectual light verb that takes a VP complement. And shang optionally introduces a quantity-denoting phrase (usually a temporal phrase) as its specifier, or forces a quantized NP to raise to the specifier of shang-vP as the quantity feature [+q] of shang needs to be checked. Our proposal shows that the multiple senses of shang are built in syntax and are sensitive to the underlying syntactic structure of sentences.