More on the Nature and Features of So-called Chinese “Reversed VR Compounds”

Some studies on so-called Chinese "reversal VR compounds" from the perspective of construction grammar not only can not avoid the defects of formal linguistics as they claimed, but also have the shortcoming of overshadowing the problem with the concept of construction.They defined the typological characteristics of Chinese hastily before comparing Chinese with other languages carefully.This paper argues that the so-called "reversal VR compounds" is a kind of marked causative construction made by VR compounds.The most important features of the construction include:(1) the causer has no volition; (2) its animacy is lower than the causee, the sentence embodies strong subjectivity.This kind of construction can be divided into two subtypes:one deriving from the causativisation of intransitive VR Compounds, the other as a result of reassigning a new causer to transitive VR Compounds.They are all closely related to Verb Copying Constructions.Subjects of the majority of this kind of Verb Copying Constructions show affectedness, and typological studies reveal that this kind of verb is easier to causativize.This kind of causative constructions belongs to compound causative.The cognitive mechanism of its formation process is not reversal reasoning, but reconceptualization of the events expressed by its fundamental usage.