Arguments of the disposal construction in hainan min

Abstract

This paper studies the disposal construction in Hainan Min, especially focusing on its argument structure. The ɓue construction in Hainan Min corresponds to the ba construction in Mandarin. Unlike the multiple arguments of ba in Mandarin, the object and subject of ɓue have some semantic restrictions. After examining different thematic roles on the arguments of ɓue, the result shows that the animacy feature of ɓue object affects the grammaticality of ɓue sentences. Furthermore, the thematic role of object of ɓue is mostly Patient, and the subject of ɓue is Agent. Following Dowty’s (1991) proto-roles of Patient and Agent, this paper shows that the object of ɓue tends to match the properties for proto-role of Patient and the subject of ɓue tends to match the properties for proto-role of Agent. The arguments of the disposal construction in Hainan Min are strongly associated with the s-selection of the word ɓue.