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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Lang. Sci.
Sec. Language Processing
Volume 4 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/flang.2025.1480009
One move but two movements: An alternative account of the middle construction
Provisionally accepted
Hui DAI *
Heyu Wang *- Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
The A-movement analysis of the middle construction leaves the oblique middles untouched and fails to explain the unique syntactic and semantic properties of middle clauses. Under the assumption that the tense-defective Mod INFL heads the middle structure, we advocate a combination of Amovement and A'-movement analysis of the middle construction. Specifically, we propose that the seemingly patient/adjunct subject of a middle clause is the external argument of cause licensed by the causative verb. And the relevant NP-movement from spec-vP to spec-ModP is one move but two movements in that C might DONATE both [TOP] feature and phi-features to the tense-defective Mod. This analysis provides a package account for the syntax and semantics of middle clauses and theoretically proves the existence of a universal syntactic entity of the middle construction. Our study incorporates various Chinese middle sentences into the framework of Universal Grammar and verifies that the middle construction is a cross-language universal syntactic entity, adding evidence to its psychological reality. (2) a. The knife cuts well. b. The music dances well. b. This key opens metal doors easily. Middle clauses are documented to exhibit unique characteristics. Syntactically, middles have non-agent subjects (
Keywords: movement1, the middle construction2, Mod INFL3, feature DONATE4, universal syntactic entity5
Received: 17 Aug 2024; Accepted: 27 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 DAI and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hui DAI, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
Heyu Wang, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
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