Introduction:

Light verb syntax has become a prominent area in Chinese syntax which attracts a lot of attention in recent years. It involves not only the rather peculiar phenomena of non-canonical objects (formed by convention according to some functionalist analyses) in Mandarin and Chinese dialects, but also the so-called free light verb constructions in Archaic Chinese which was gradually lost during the first century AD. Arguments for and against this light verb approach have appeared in the recent literature in quantity. The goal of the workshop is to address the central issues in this particular area, while exploring their theoretical implications (especially from the typological point of view). Hopefully new insights will be produced through intensive investigation of important topics like the structure properties of the VP shell, lexical decomposition, seemingly flexible theta relations with certain verbs, and the shift from syntheticity to analyticity in relation to light verbs and applicatives, etc. We also plan to publish a selection of the Roundtable papers under the tentative title Current Issues in Light Verb syntax in Chinese.

Keynote Speakers:

Larson, Richard(Stony Brook University)

Huang, C.T. James(Harvard University)

Invited Speakers:

Feng,Shengli (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Li, Yafei (University of Wisconsin – Madison)

Shi, Dingxu (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

Si, Fuzhen (Beijing Language and Culture University)

Tang, Sze Wing (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Tsai, Dylan Wei-Tien (National Tsing Hua University)

Yang, Rongxiang (Peking University)

Time: 8:40 AM 28/05/2016

Place: Room 220, Fung King Hey Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong