OV/VO alternations and the complexities of object-licensing in Wu Chinese

Abstract

While the basic/underlying word order in Chinese languages is SVO, SOV patterns are also attested, and in Mandarin frequently arise for reasons of focus or (inner) topicalization (Ernst and Wang 1995; Paul 2005). In contrast to such optional OV, in many varieties of Wu Chinese an obligatory OV sequencing often occurs, which cannot be attributed to information structure. Instead, the positioning of the object relative to the verb regularly varies according to the interaction of aspect, definiteness, and affectedness. In Jiaxing Wu Chinese, with predicates that are telic, objects that are both definite and affected must occur preverbally (OV), whereas indefinite objects and objects that are definite but unaffected naturally follow the verb (VO). We develop an analysis of the licensing of objects in OV/VO alternations, in which V-Asp and V-V resultative verb constructions are suggested to pattern like impersonal passives in French, with the elimination of structural Accusative case but retention of inherent Partitive case (Belletti 1988). The paper expands the typological description of the crosslinguistic phenomenon of object shift, provides support for the role of differentiated forms of abstract case in a morphologically caseless language, and highlights the role that affectedness may play in morphosyntactic phenomena.