Categorial status of Mandarin gei and structures of gei constructions

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Role

Author

Published In

Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America

Publisher

Linguistic Society of America

Volume

11

Issue

1

Article Number

6122

Publication Date

7-3-2026

Abstract

This paper examines the categorial status of and syntactic structures involving the morpheme gei `to give' in Mandarin Chinese, which can be a standalone ditransitive verb but also appears in the preverbal, post-verbal, and post-object positions. I challenge existing multi-category analyses as well as the unified verbal analysis of gei, the former regarding their argument for the prepositional status of the preverbal gei, and the latter on oversight regarding structural ambiguity of various gei constructions, as well as on the grounds of theoretical parsimony. I show that the post-object gei is a preposition in the prepositional dative construction, or the second verb in a serial verb construction, the post-verbal gei is the spell-out of the low applicative head, and the preverbal gei is the head of a verbal adjunct, a causative verb, or the spell-out of the causative head. This approach accounts for previously unaddressed empirical patterns and introduces little complexity to the grammar by attributing gei to already-posited functional elements and constructions and thus maintaining theoretical parsimony. In addition to accounting for the gei constructions, I also propose that the polyfunctionality and ubiquity of gei are a result of syntactic properties of Mandarin, including analyticity, the Phrase Structural Condition, and the range of light verbs.

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