Waltraud Paul, Shanshan Yan

ABSTRACT: Taking into account data hitherto neglected, this article examines the progressive aspect zài 在in Mandarin Chinese and related issues. We argue in favour of the constituency [AspP zài在 [V-zhe着]] and demonstrate important syntactic and semantic differences between the progressive aspect zài 在and the durative aspect -zhe着. Importantly, unlike

‘zài在 V’, ‘V-zhe着’ is only acceptable as the sole predicate in a root sentence when interpretable as a (derived) state. Otherwise, the presence of the progressive aspect zài在 is required: ‘zài在 V-zhe着’. This crucial role of zài在 is often obscured by its phonological fusion (haplology) with the preposition zài在 ‘at’ heading an immediately following prepositional phrase: NP  [AspP  zài在 [VP [PP zài 在 NP] [V-zhe着  NP]]] =>

NP ZÀI在 NP V-zhe着 NP. The presence/absence of an underlying progressive aspect zài在 (having fused with the preposition zài在) is reflected in the choice of negation. Since the progressive aspect zài 在must be negated by méi没, not bù不, it follows that no underlying aspectual

zài 在is present when it is bù不 that negates a VP with a zài 在PP adjunct: NP bù不 [VP [PP zài 在NP] VP]. By contrast, when there is an underlying aspectual zài在, the negation méi 没is required, resulting in the surface sequence ‘NP méi没 ZÀI 在NP VP’. Finally, given that a subset of auxiliaries, some stative verbs as well as state-denoting ‘V-zhe着’ are negated by méi没, negation of ‘zài 在VP’ by méi没 is compatible with the status of ‘zài在 VP’ as a state, hence able to be true at a moment.