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A usage-based study of the verb 看 ( see ) in the Chinese b ă-construction

The paper addresses the interface between lexical and constructional semantics in the Chinese băconstruction. Specifically, I focus on the distribution of the construction with the verb 看 (see) in its basic sense of physical vision. Under assumption of the affectedness constraint which is often stated for the bă-construction, the use of this verb would presumably lead to a semantic conflict between constructional semantics and lexical instantiation. However, corpus data demonstrate that the verb is commonly used in the construction. Its use appears to be tied to the requirement of an additional verbal dependent. Using a decompositional approach to event structure, I show how this dependent contributes an additional event structure component that makes the lexical semantics of the sentence parts compatible with that of the bă-construction.