"Be Suicided": A Construction Grammar Analysis of the Innovative bèi Construction in Chinese.

This paper is a construction grammar analysis of the innovative bèi construction in Chinese. The bèi construction departs from the canonical passive construction in that, instead of a transitive verb, it has a lexeme that is not a transitive verb to go with the passive marker bèi. We propose that the non-transitive verb denotes an event (as opposed to a state or action) in which the referent of the subject participates involuntarily. The passive semantics of the construction then coerces the non-transitive lexeme into behaving like one. We will, in addition, demonstrate a case of what may be called a "reverse constructional coercion" whereby the innovative construction imposes its semantics onto canonical passive sentences. Lastly, we argue that the structure and semantics of the construction create a parody of the social reality the construction seems to reflect. This parody, which is based on the similarities between the bèi construction and the canonical passive construction, in turn, produces the rhetorical effects of satire/sarcasm, expressing a sense of absurdity about the event in question and a sense of indignation and helplessness on the part of the speaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]