Abstract
Abstract This paper explores alternations of a range of one-place and two-place predicates in terms of their interaction with types of grammatical constructions and verbal meanings in Taiwanese Southern Min (henceforth TSM), Mandarin Chinese and English. Causative and inchoative alternation of verbs in Mandarin and English has been well studied for decades, but not for TSM. Therefore, contributions of previous studies on Mandarin and English will be noted and compared for the help of TSM study in this paper. Ergative verbs involve causative and inchoative alternations. For example, ‘open’, ‘打開’ ta3 khai1(Mandarin), and‘拍開’ pha3 khui1(TSM) are the verbs meaning “CAUSE something to open” and “something BECOME open”. They have alternative sentences as “I opened the door”, “我打開門” wo3 ta3 khai1 men2(Mandarin), “我拍開門”gua2 pha3 khui1 mng5(TSM), versus “The door opened”, “門開了”men2 khai1 le(Mandarin), “門開矣”mng5 khui1 a(TSM). Although the three languages share the same conceptual structures for causative and inchoative alternation, their ergative verbs show different correspondences to morpho-syntactic, phonemic, and semantic interfaces. In this thesis, a general introduction is given in chapter one. Some theoretic notions are provided in chapter two. Previous studies are reviewed in chapter three. Chapter four and five comprise the data analysis; I specify the phenomena of causative and inchoative alternation in TSM in chapter four, and then compare them with those of Mandarin and English by means of lexical semantics and language typology. Conclusion is given in the final chapter.