Abstract
This thesis investigates constructions that contain two Mandarin verbal elements, bian ‘change’ and BECOME, and studies them in syntax and semantics. Based on observations on degree achievements and their complements with bian and BECOME, we find that BECOME and bian exhibit different syntactic properties - BECOME takes an XP complement, while bian and its complement form an X0-X0 compound. Moreover, they require different telicity properties for their complements. BECOME takes a telic predicate denoting a positive reading, while bian takes an atelic predicate denoting a comparative reading. Questions about cheng ‘become’ also lead to issues that are closely related to bian and BECOME. When bian and cheng form a compound, a head-final construction is formed, and an object argument is obligatory, which is licensed by cheng.