A study of Chinese serial verb constructions within the framework of the Cardiff Grammar
Wei He, Jingyuan Zhang · Linguistics and the Human Sciences · 2013
This paper explores the nature of Chinese serial verb constructions within the framework of the Cardiff Grammar. In a serial verb construction, a primary predication and an embedded secondary predication may be realized as a simple sentence with a ranking clause and an embedded clause, while multiple primary predications may be realized by more than one ranking clause. Our findings have been subsequently checked against attempts at natural language understanding and generation. Chinese serial verb constructions are different from typical Chinese simple or complex sentences, but can be grouped into either simple or complex types.