Table of Contents Chinese Abstract i English Abstract iii Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vii Tables and Figures x List of Abbreviations xi Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: Literature Review 5 2.1 Typological perspective 5 2.1.1 Haspelmath (2004): Coordinating constructions 5 2.1.2 Stassen (2000): AND-languages and WITH-languages 8 2.2 Previous analyses on Chinese gen 9 2.2.1 Liu and Peyraube (1994): Grammaticalization of verbs into prepositions and prepositions into conjunctions 10 2.2.2 Tang (1979): Defining the parts of speech of gen 11 2.2.3 Teng (1970): Comitative construction versus phrasal coordinating construction 14 2.2.3.1 Gen as a conjunction 14 2.2.3.2 Gen as a phrasal conjunction 15 2.2.3.3 Gen as a preposition marking comitativity 16 2.2.3.4 Other interpretations of gen as a preposition 20 2.2.4 Gu (2000): A more fine-grained analysis of the interpretations of gen as a preposition 21 2.2.5 Paris (2005a): A comparison between French et/avec and Mandarin gen 22 2.2.5.1 The comitative and coordinative constructions in French 22 2.2.5.2 The case of Chinese gen 24 2.3 Summary and further issues 27 2.3.1 Summary 27 2.3.2 Issues to be further considered 28 Chapter Three: Syntactic Distribution and Semantic Interpretations of gen 29 3.1 Distribution of gen 29 3.1.1 Distribution of gen as a verb 29 3.1.2 Distribution of gen as a preposition 31 3.1.3 Distribution of gen as a conjunction 33 3.1.4 Summary 34 3.2 Types of NPs in the [N1 IE gen N2] and [N1 gen N2] structure 36 3.2.1 Types of NPs in the [N1 IE gen N2] structure 36 3.2.2 Types of NPs in the [N1 gen N2] structure 37 3.2.3 Summary 41 3.3 Semantic interpretations of gen 42 3.3.1 Semantic interpretations of gen as a verb 42 3.3.2 Semantic interpretations of gen as a preposition 43 3.3.3 Semantic interpretations of gen as a conjunction 44 3.3.4 Summary 47 3.4 Nature of referents adjacent to gen 47 3.4.1 Nature of referents co-occurring with gen as a verb 48 3.4.2 Nature of referents preceding and following gen as a preposition 49 3.4.2.1 Comitative relationship 49 3.4.2.2 Reciprocal relationship 50 3.4.2.3 Source orientation 51 3.4.2.4 Goal orientation 51 3.4.3 Nature of referents conjoined by gen 52 3.4.4 Summary 54 3.5 Ambiguous behaviors of gen 56 3.5.1 Gen between verb and preposition 56 3.5.2 Gen between preposition and phrasal conjunction 58 3.5.3 Gen between phrasal and sentential conjunction 59 3.5.4 Summary 59 Chapter Four: Verbal Semantic Framework Proposed in This Study 61 4.1 Previous studies on verb classification 61 4.1.1 English verb classification 61 4.1.1.1 Vendler’s (1967) classification of English verbs 61 4.1.1.2 Levin’s (1993) English verb classification 63 4.1.2 Chinese verb classification 64 4.1.2.1 Chao’s (1968) Chinese verb classification 64 4.1.2.2 Teng’s (1975) Chinese verb classification 66 4.1.2.3 Her’s (1990) Chinese verb classification 69 4.2 Inadequacies in the previous analyses 70 4.3 Our own verb classification framework 74 4.3.1 Verbal semantics 75 4.3.1.1 Stative/Non-stative verbs 75 4.3.1.2 Reciprocal/Non-reciprocal verbs 77 4.3.1.3 Motion/Non-motion verbs 78 4.3.1.4 Summary 80 4.3.2 Verb subcategorization 80 4.3.3 Aspectual variations 82 4.3.4 Elaboration on our verbal semantic framework 83 Chapter Five: Multifunctional Usages of gen: A Semantic and Syntactic Perspective 85 5.1 A first look 85 5.1.1 The factor of verbal semantics 85 5.1.2 The factor of syntactic position 86 5.1.3 Phrasal vs. sentential conjunction 87 5.2 The application of our own verbal semantic framework with respect to the behavior of gen 88 5.2.1 Gen co-occurring with stative verbs 88 5.2.1.1 Gen co-occurring with stative copula shi 89 5.2.1.2 Gen co-occurring with stative intransitive verbs 91 5.2.1.3 Gen co-occurring with stative transitive verbs 93 5.2.1.4 Gen co-occurring with stative reciprocal verbs 96 5.2.1.5 Summary 99 5.2.2 Gen co-occurring with non-stative verbs 100 5.2.2.1 Gen co-occurring with non-stative reciprocal verbs 101 5.2.2.2 Gen co-occurring with non-stative non-reciprocal verbs 105 5.2.2.2.1 Gen co-occurring with motion verbs 105 5.2.2.2.2 Gen co-occurring with non-motion verbs 108 5.2.2.2.3 Gen co-occurring with unidirectional verbs 109 5.2.2.3 Summary 111 5.3 A binary-distinction analysis at two levels 113 5.4 The continuum model 115 Chapter Six: Conclusion 121 6.1 A summary of previous chapters 121 6.2 Issues to be further considered 123 6.2.1 The phonetic issue 123 6.2.2 Comparison with other markers 124 References 128