Chinese nationalism in comparative perspective

Deriving Various Affected Subjects in Bei-Passives

“…Mandarin bei-passives have been a topic with extensive discussion among linguists, involving both the surface realization of participants' roles in an event, and the categorial status of bei. Regarding the latter, four main proposals have been made, i.e., that bei -is a verb [1][2][3][4][8][9]; is a preposition [10][11]; occupies a dual-status category [12][13][14]; and is a semi-lexical verb [5,15]. Earlier studies have suggested that, much like the by-phrase in English passives, bei can be understood as a preposition introducing an Agent argument [10][11].…”

“…Second, one might wonder why bei and its following NP (e.g., bei Lisi in (7)) cannot occur at the beginning of a sentence, unlike typical PPs (e.g., dui Lisi 'to Lisi' in (7)). (7) Therefore, most of those who argue that bei is a verb [1][2][3] see it as the main verb which selects a clause (IP) as its complement to form the long bei passive (e.g., (8)). This involves an A'-movement of a null operator (NOP) that is later co-indexed with the subject through predication.…”

“…Typically, a Mandarin bei-passive allows the optional use of semantic Agent. Accordingly, researchers have often referred to those passive sentences with an overt Agent as the long bei-passive, as in (1), and those without an overt Agent as the short bei-passive, as in (2) [1][2][3].…”

“…This is one of the special subjects found in Mandarin bei-passives. Some scholars have therefore suggested that the subjects of bei-passives can be vaguely associated with the event described [2], and others suggested that they may or may not be overtly expressed [4]. For example, ( 5) is clearly about the event 'Wangwu hit a home run'.…”