PDF《A Constructional Approach**》

311 predicates.

1 Based on distributional properties, psych predicates can have either an experiencer-subject like the verb fear or a stimulus-subject like the verb frighten. The following Hakka psych predicates will be discussed in this paper: 惜xiag4 to like, 愁seu5 to worry, 恼nau1 to dislike, 惊giang1 to fear, 谴kien2 to get angry, and 吓hag4 to frighten.

2 The issue of causation also plays a role in the discussion of psych predicates. We distinguish between three types of causation: lexical, morphological, and analytic (or periphrastic, or syntactic). Besides lexical causatives like hag4 to frighten, the morphological causative [V-xi2] and the analytic causatives [bun1+NP+V] and [ded4+ngin5+V] will be discussed. They are superficially parallel, but they have different syntactic behaviors. This paper is organized as follows: Besides this introduction, Section

2 presents a literature review of psych predicates and causation;

Section

3 describes the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar;

Section

4 discusses psych

1 The term predicate used here covers what is traditionally called verbs and adjectives. Since the distinction between verbs and adjectives in Hakka as well as in other Sinitic languages cannot be made based on morphological (i.e. derivational and inflectional) properties alone, and relies also on syntactic distributions, it is controversial to claim a clear-cut distinction between a verb and an adjective. To avoid this uncertainty, the term predicate is used throughout this paper, though the formulaic symbol V is still used in expressing constructions such as [bun1+NP+V].

2 The romanization of Hakka here follows the Sixian ( 四县)dialect version of the Romanization Proposal for Taiwan Hakka (台湾客家语拼音方案) adopted by the Ministry of Education (MOE). To improve visual layout and avoid confusion with footnotes, subscripted numbers are used to mark tones (this applies to data from Mandarin Chinese and Taiwan Southern Min as well). The numbers represent the following tones in Sixian Hakka:

1 for rising;

2 for falling;

3 for high level;

4 for low entering;

5 for low level;

8 for high entering. The romanized spelling is preceded by the corresponding character based on Recommended Characters for Written Taiwan Hakka ( 台湾客家语书写推荐用字 ) announced by MOE. Note that the list of psych predicates here is not meant to be exhaustive. Psych predicates are part of the lexicon, and their open-class nature makes it difficult to enumerate all of them. Those listed here are chosen because of their high frequency of occurrence and monosyllabicity. Thus excluded are disyllabic psych predicates used nominally as well as predicatively like 欢喜 fon1hi2 delighted, 快乐 kuai3log8 happy, and 艰苦 gan1ku2 sad.

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1 期predicates of the experiencer-subject type;

Section

5 discusses issues of causation and psych predicates of the stimulus-subject type;

Section

6 concludes this paper. 2. Literature Review This section reviews some significant works related to our discussion of Hakka psych predicates here. The first part gives a review of psych predicates in some languages, and the second part presents formal and semantic properties of causation. 2.1. Works on Psych Predicates Psych predicates exhibit diverse mapping from lexical semantics to syntax. Belletti and Rizzi (1988) suggest that two θ-roles exist for psych verbs: Theme and Experiencer. The mapping from θ-grids to syntax is determined by case-grids. Grimshaw (1990) explains the syntactic realization of psych verbs by resorting to the interaction of Thematic Tier and Aspectual Tier. Based on the four event types: activity, accomplishment, achievement, and state, Van Voorst (1992) claims that all psych verbs belong to the event type of achievement, which cannot express measurable or delimitable events. Levin (1993) distinguishes between four groups of psych predicates, amuse/admire/marvel/appeal based on transitivity and argument positions. Most, if not all, psych predicates have two arguments. The first is less controversially called Experiencer, while the second is argued to be either Stimulus, or Cause, or Theme. Based on distributional properties, Jackendoff (2007: 217) distinguishes between two types of psych predicates: (1a) has an experiencer-subject and a stimulus-object, while (1b) has a stimulus-subject and an experiencer-object. (1) a. John fears sincerity. b. Sincerity frightens John. Jackendoff (2007: 218) lists the following basic sentence patterns of psych predicates. Since the subject is always present while the object is not, those in (2a)- (2c) are called Experiencer-Subject (henceforth ES) type, and those in (2d)-(2f) are Huang Han-chunMPsych Predicates and Causation in Hakka