Locative Inversion in Mandarin Chinese: An Empirical Study of Argument Alternations

This book explores locative inversion through the lens of argument alternations, highlighting the challenges these alternations pose for linguistic theory. It begins by questioning whether locative inversion and its uninverted counterpart differ in meaning or function as paraphrases. It then investigates what motivates locative inversion, with a focus on how semantic and pragmatic considerations influence the choice of syntactic structure in various contexts. Additionally, the study addresses the intricate task of describing the verbs involved in locative inversion, shedding light on related phenomena such as the definiteness effect, unaccusative diagnostics, and harmonic alignment.