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Besides P. Ramlee, Yasmin Ahmad’s name is synonymous with Malaysian cinema. The award-winning Malaysian filmmaker’s death impacted not only the Malaysian film industry but also those who admired her work. The late legendary filmmaker was a liberal Islamic Malaysian who explored Islam and humanity through interracial love stories. These filmic stories resonated with the ordinary Malaysians as they were compelling and courageous, often challenging the norms and conventions of other Malaysian films by daringly dramatizing and visualizing societal taboos and hypocrisies on the cinematic screen. The employment and integration of cosmopolitan themes of love, humanism, and humor in her films sets her apart from other local filmmakers. Yasmin’s films had attracted international attention and garnered awards at film festivals in Europe, North America, and Asia. This paper attempts to analyze her cinematic approaches of the construction of Malay subjectivity in all of her six films. For example, interracial relationships in Muallaf and Talentime is the dominant leitmotif of each, which connects the films with parallel events occurring in real-life Malaysia. The author interviewed production crew members who worked closely with Yasmin for her six films and tried to have a better understanding of the narrative motifs and themes in her films. These interviewees provided a comprehensive picture which drives her films, even now, to move beyond being focused on multiculturalism and to more socially, culturally and politically issues related to Malaysians.

The exact nature and derivation of patient-subject constructions (PSC) in Chinese are still at dispute in literature. Based on the restriction of manner adverbial modification and the nonexistence of the manner reading of zenme ‘how’ observed in Chinese PSC, a morphosyntactic analysis has been provided. We argue that the seeming action verb V in PSC is not a real main verb, but a verbal root to be introduced into the derivation after syntax via external morphological merger. The real main verb of PSC in syntax is a covert light verb ∅BEC, which selects a nominal phrase (NP) as its specifier (Spec) and a resultative phrase (RP) as its complement. BECP is further selected by an aspect (Asp) head le. To satisfy the extended projection principle (EPP), the NP at [Spec, BECP] moves to the [Spec, TP] in syntax. After syntax, the resultative (R) head-moves to ∅BEC at the phonological form (PF) to satisfy the phonological requirement of ∅BEC, forming R-∅BEC; then, a bare verbal root merges with R-∅BEC at PF to denote the manner of the change of state. Due to the phonological requirement of le, V-R-∅BEC head-moves to le, producing the right order of PSC. The two elided forms of PSC can be derived similarly. This research suggests that covert light verbs and morphology may play an interactive role in the derivation of some “typical” constructions in Chinese.

The Yangtze River is one of the most important rivers in China, and its basin is the most populous urban area in China. The relationship between cities and floods in the Yangtze River Basin is of significance. In our analysis of 4,511 historical county‐level cities and 37,512 historical flood disasters, we used ARCGIS to conduct spatial analyses, including kernel density analysis, coldspot and hotspot analysis, and center of gravity analysis, to reveal the relationship between cities, population, and floods in the Yangtze River Basin in the past 2000 years. The results indicate that three relatively stable, dense urban areas are the Chengdu Plain; the border of the Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu Provinces and surrounding areas; and the central Guizhou Province and southwestern part of Hubei Province. The hotspot areas of floods were the main tributaries and lakes of the Yangtze River, whereas the coldspot areas were the Chengdu Plain and the surrounding areas. More importantly, cities are not far from flood regions, and this will cause serious flooding. Due to location advantages, cities tend to be close to rivers, lakes, and other water systems. This research provides historical details of urban development and ecological environment protection in the Yangtze River Basin in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]