When Simpson’s Law, themehood, and causation meet: The case of Mandarin resultatives

Xing, Yue and den Dikken,, Marcel (2025) When Simpson’s Law, themehood, and causation meet: The case of Mandarin resultatives. ACTA LINGUISTICA ACADEMICA, 72 (2). pp. 200-231. ISSN 2559-8201

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Abstract

Mandarin resultative constructions famously allow for as many as three different interpretations, including an Agent-oriented reading that appears to pose a challenge for Simpson's generalization that resultatives are universally predicated of the Theme, and a causative reading in which the surface object is the Agent. This paper addresses the interpretive flexibility of Mandarin resultatives, and presents a structural explanation for each of the accessible readings as well as for the unavailability of the interpretations that cannot be accessed, safeguarding Simpson's Law and providing an enhanced structural perspective on the ‘Theme of’ relation, the syntax of light-verb ba and verb reduplication, the workings of topicalization, the internal structure of result phrases, and the syntax of agentivity and causation.

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