Effects of Constituent Orders on Functional Extension Patterns of the Verbs for Give: A Contrastive Study of Thai and Mandarin Chinese

It is generally known that Thai and Mandarin Chinese are typologically different in that Thai has the head-modifier constituent order whereas Mandarin Chinese has the modifier-head one. This paper aims to investigate how different constituent orders of the head vis-a-vis the modifier and vis-a-vis the complement in Thai and Mandarin Chinese bear on patterns of functional extension of the verbs meaning give in the two languages, namely, hy in Thai and gi in Mandarin Chinese. Some observations can be made regarding the functional extension patterns of hy and gi as follows: (a) the clause connector use is possible for hy but lacking for gi; (b) the passive-marking use is possible for gi but lacking for hy; (c) the gi-marked dative PP can occur both preverbally and postverbally, whereas the hy-marked one can occur only postverbally; (d) only the preverbal gi-marked dative PPs are attested in a Beijing Mandarin speech corpus; (e) the gi- marked benefactive PP can occur only preverbally; (f) the structural schemas of the causative and the passive gi are identical; and (g) the causative use of hy is productive but that of gi is not. It is argued that the head-modifier order in Thai seems to correspond with postverbal functionally extended morphemes prevalent in the language. On the other hand, the modifier-head order in Mandarin Chinese seems to correspond with preverbal functionally extended ones prevalent in the language.