1887
Volume 52, Issue 1
  • ISSN 1810-7478
  • E-ISSN: 2589-5230

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the auxiliary-like preverbal ‘come,’ which frequently appears before purposives in Mandarin Chinese, is actually a light verb located in the position. The current light analysis incorporates aspects of previous analyses of bare and purposives while providing a simpler explanation for relevant phenomena. Additionally, the proposal bolsters the argument that in the post-object phrase in various constructions is a verb (e.g., Lin & Huang 2015). The results of an empirical survey testing speaker judgments of sentences with and its antonym ‘go’ confirm the prediction that is a light verb that can appear in possible light positions across sentences. Some differences in acceptance rates and preferences for or may be due to the bleached semantic content of and , frequency of usage, and processing difficulties arising from reference ambiguity.

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2026-06-05
2026-07-17
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