Abstract
Empty categories are base-generated in the deep structure and do not have any overt expression in the surface structure. In this paper, we claim that Mandarin has verbal empty categories besides nominal empty categories, and further investigate their types. According to their semantic contributions, we argue that verbal empty categories in Mandarin mainly include two types: (a) the covert copular shi ‘be’ and other linking verbs such as chengwei ‘become’; and (b) notional verbs. In the case that the empty verb is a notional verb, what the covert notional verb is, highly depends on the context.
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Tu, A., Zhang, L. (2013). Verbal Empty Categories and Their Types in Mandarin. In: Ji, D., Xiao, G. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7717. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36337-5_60
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36337-5_60
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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