Edited by Wei Wang
[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse 13] 2020
► pp. 73–100
The combination of 把 ba and subject-oriented resultative constructions in Mandarin Chinese, which is not always well accepted by native speakers, has so far received little scholarly attention. To test the acceptability of 把 ba + subject-oriented resultatives in Chinese, based on examples in the corpora, a questionnaire survey among 71 Chinese college students was carried out with the technique of magnitude estimation, which could detect small but significant differences in acceptability. The results suggest that the acceptability of 把 ba + subject-oriented resultatives depends on the degree of transitivity of the sentence. In general, patterns with the interpretation of the subject making efforts to achieve something thoroughly are acceptable. The cognitive explanation I propose is that a high degree of transitivity expressed by the sentence is compatible with the function of 把 ba as a marker of high transitivity.