Rint Sybesma (Leiden University)

VO-OV in Chinese languages and Voice and little v

In Chinese languages, both SVO and SOV surface orders are very common. We see variation both within and between languages. Some languages, like Cantonese opt almost exclusively for SVO, while languages from the Wu and Min families tend to have SOV as soon as either the V or the O is more than just a bare V or a bare O. Mandarin, finally, shows both orders in several contexts. In this talk I try to find out whether we can understand what is going on if our analysis of these patterns involves Voice and little v, which may or may not be split or bundled all the time.