了 ambiguity

Project on Linguistic Analysis
AMBIGUITY OF LE IN CHINESE: THE PERFECTIVE AS WELL AS IMPERFECTIVE / 汉语“了”

之双动貌性质：完成及分割貌
Author(s): Chien-Chou Chen and 陈建州
Source: Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Vol. 37, No. 1 (JANUARY 2009), pp. 108-129
Published by: Chinese University Press on behalf of Project on Linguistic Analysis
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23753616
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AMBIGUITY OF LE IN CHINESE: THE PERFECTIVE AS WELL AS
IMPERFECTIVE
Chien-Chou Chen
National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan
ABSTRACT
The most prominent meaning of le has been conventionally recognized as
the ‘perfective’ marker, although its non-perfective reading occasionally draws
researchers' attention. This paper starts with viewing the ambiguity of aspectual le in
Chinese from the perspective of syntax-semantics interplay, showing that the
structural ambiguity results in leys semantic ambiguity to be interpreted as perfective
or imperfective. I argue that the ambiguity of a sentence-final le is predetermined
by its syntactic scope over a predicate or a sentence. After the distinction is clear,
the special interest is particularly paid to examine the imperfective use of le. I list
many examples and grammatical constructions to show that le is able to express
imperfectivity, and such analysis can also be accounted for by various theories about
the nature of aspect.
SUBJECT KEYWORDS
Le, Perfective, Imperfective, Inchoative, Progressive, Telicity
1. INTRODUCTION
Morphologically speaking, Chinese is said to be tenseless, in the sense that
verbs in this language do not show tense inflection. Aspect, together with tense and
mood, are linguistic properties which make reference to one or more points on the
temporal dimension. In spite of lacking an overt tense-marking in the verbal
morphology, Chinese is considered to possess a rich aspectual system. Scholars
often refer to a class of morphemes such as le，guo, zai，zhe, etc. as Chinese aspectual
markers. Among them le is the most prominent but also notorious one. Its
aspectual meanings are complicated. The complication derives partially from its
varied syntactic positions, and partially from its ambiguous functions: Most
researchers investigate it as an aspectual marker and many others notice its ‘particle’
AMBIGUITY OF LE IN CHINESE 109
function (Chao 1968, Li & Thompson 1981, Li 1999, just to name a few), in which it
belongs more to the category of pragmatics than to that of aspectuality.
Aspect-wise, le is generally considered as a perfective/perfect marker. It
signifies that an eventuality is viewed as a closed, single whole, as in the contrast ta
yiuyong ‘He swims' vs. tayiu leyong ‘He swam，. Syntactically the perfective le in
the above example is VP-internal. Another position of le is when it occurs at the
sentence-final position. After a careful reading of the sentence ta yiu yong le, a few
aspectual studies (e.g., Chan (1980)，Li and Thompson (1981)，Teng (1986)，Smith

(1997)，Chang (2003), etc.) have pointed out that, besides the perfective reading ('He
swam’)，an alternative ‘inchoative or (inceptive)’ interpretation (‘He start swimming’）
arises. Inchoativity per se is a non-perfective meaning.
This paper firstly attempts to provide an investigation of the aspectual le by
distinguishing various /e's from an angle of syntactic-semantic interface. I
hypothesize that whether le carrying the perfective or several non-perfective
meanings (which I use the cover term imperfective to refer to) is subject to its
syntactic p ositions. Syntactically two adjacent positions for le easily cause the
misunderstanding as an overlapping one and thus lead to the ambiguity. After
different levels of le be distinguished一 perfective le (which has the scope over the
predicate) and imperfective le (which has the scope over the proposition), the focus
of this paper will highlight the less deplored issue in the literature that le functions as
an imperfective marker in Chinese, I observe many contexts in which le can only be
interpreted with the imperfective meaning.
2. THE TEMPORALITY OF PERFECTIVITY AND IMPERFECTIVITY

Before going into the main point of this paper, I should make clear the
aspectual opposition between perfectivity and imperfectivity. We may think of
different aspects as different perspectives towards the temporal status of a predicate.
One general aspectual distinction between the perfective and imperfective can be
established across languages, regardless of whether they are grammatically marked
or not (Bache 1994). For example, the progressive form ‘be+V-ing” is a
language-specific realization of imperfectivity in English.
The aspectual distinction between perfective and imperfective had been
illustrated by Comrie (1976) as in the following English construction:
(1) John was reading when I entered.
According to Comrie, the second verb presents ‘the totality of the situation referred
110 JOURNAL OF CHINESE LINGUISTICS Vol. 37, No. 1 (2009)
to (i.e my entry) without reference to its internal temporal constituency，： the whole of
the situation is presented as a single unanalyzable whole. Verb forms with this
meaning will be said to have perfective meaning. On the other hand, the first verb
referring to the situation of John's reading makes explicit reference to the internal
temporal constituency of the situation. In particular, in the situation of John's
reading there is no explicit reference to the beginning or the end of his reading.
Verb forms of this aspectual meaning is said to be imperfective. Smith (1997: 3)
distinguishes the two aspectual metacategories as two ‘viewpoint types’：
(2) Perfective viewpoints focus a situation in its entirety, including both initial and
final point endpoints.
Imperfective viewpoints focus part of a situation, including neither initial nor
final endpoints.
These views toward perfectivity and imperfectivity are determined by whether the
two boundaries (endpoints) of a situation are open. Perfectivity is compatible with
an occurrence of an eventuality where both the left and right boundaries are closed,
hence the situation is viewed from outside. By contrast, the imperfective looks at
the situation from inside. Comrie and Smith both advocate that in an imperfective
situation the boundaries at both ends are open. The following comparison captures
this contrast:
(3) Perfectivity [////////////////]

Imperfectivity ////////////////—
Perfectivity is characterized by a closed interval (bounded by the two brackets) on
the temporal axis. Imperfectivity is represented by an open interval (the shaded
domain).
The temporal boundary of an eventuality is closely related to its verbal type.
A well-known typology of natural languages' verbs is due to Vendler (1967). He
presents a fourfold typology of verb types: states (know, like, tall), activities (run,
walk, push), accomplishment (build a house, walk to school, run a mile), and
achievement (win the race, reach the top, die). The temporal property of
imperfectivity stated in (3) bears similarity to that of states一being continuous.
Comrie (1976: 50-1) observes that states and the imperfective are naturally combined
in language, and states in many languages do not have perfective meaning.
Defining the imperfective meaning as being open-ended at both boundaries
(i.e. the state) of a situation is nevertheless too strict, since imperfective covers also
verb forms other than states. A formal distinction of situations is often made
between dynamics and states. The former is subdivided into event and process.1
Event refers to a dynamic situation as a single whole. This nature makes it very
compatible with the perfective aspect. As Comrie defines, event is a dynamic
situation viewed perfectively (1976: 51). In contrast, process refers to the internal
structure of a dynamic situation. It involves a change against a static background
(Descles and Guentcheva 1990: 242). Each process is represented by an interval

where the boundary to the left is closed, while the boundary to the right is open.
Therefore, the temporal schema of a process is inherently imperfective.
Concluding the discussion so far, the three situational categories under the
dichotomy of two overall aspectual metacatgories are given in the following, which
counts as a revision of (3).
(4) Perfectivity: Event [////////////////]

Imperfectivity: Process [////////////////-•
State ////////////////"
In many aspectual theories, the progressive form (as in ‘John is running') is often
used as the best illustration for the imperfective aspect. Under the classification of
(4), a progressive form can be viewed as possessing both natures of process and state.
4
Firstly, a dynamic idea in the process of (e.g. John is running means John is in the
process of running) is common to the meaning of all progressives. Secondly, Vlach
(1981) argues that the progressive turns sentences of process into a stative meaning.
Such conversion is central to the meaning of progressive. Bearing in mind the
aspectual distinction between perfectivity and imperfectivity I sketched in this
section, I will proceed to apply these notions to examine the aspectual meanings of le
in Chinese.
3. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN TWO SYNTACTIC LEVELS OF LE

The aspectual marker le in Mandarin may vary its syntactic position within
a sentence. One occurrence of le immediately follows the verb (V) and precedes
the object (O). (5a) illustrates the use of /e as a verbal suffix.
le (V - le 一O)
(5) a. Zhangsan chang ge
Zhangsan sing LE song
‘Zhangsan sang.'
Many linguists have characterized this post-verbal /e as a marker of perfectivity
(Wang 1965, Chao 1968, Li and Thompson 1981, 1985, Smith 1997). The other
occurrence of le is following the object at the end of a clause, as (5b) shows.
b. Zhangsan le - O -
(5) chang ge (V le)
Zhangsan sing song LE
‘Zhangsan sang.，
'Zhangsan started singing, (and that's what I'm telling you now).，
‘Zhangsan is singing.’
The aspectuality encoded by the post-object (sentence-final) le in (5b), however, is
ambiguous between the perfective (the first translation, same as the post-verbal le),
and the imperfective (the inchoative reading in the second translation or the
progressive reading in the third translation).2 The latter meaning is the main focus
of this paper.3
In Chen 2001,1 attempted to relate the ambiguity of sentence-final le to its
varying syntactic status. The general idea of that research is restated below:
The ambiguity of the sentence-final le is derived from the fact that there indeed are
two distinct positions in which it may occur: VP-final or sentence-final. The
VP-final position of le is shown in (6a), and the sentence-final one in (6b).
(6) a. [s Zhangsan [Vp[v’ chang ge] le]]

(Zhangsan sang.，
b. [s Zhangsan [VP [v’ chang ge] ] le]
4Zhangsan started singing, (and that's what I'm telling you now).’
*
Zhangsan is singing.，
From (6)，we can see le in (a) is withinthe syntacticscope of VP, while the one in (b)
is outside the scope of VP. The former (which I'll call "perfective ！e” (perf)
henceforth for ease of illustration) is a co-variant of the verbal suffix le, since it
ranges within the scope of VP, and gives the perfective reading as the verbal suffix
does. The two perfective le's are juxtaposed in (7):
‘
(7) a. [sZhangsan [VP[v [v chang] le] ge)] (=5(a), V-suffix)
Zhangsan sing Perf song
‘Zhangsan sang.，
b. [s Zhangsan [Vp [v’ chang ge] JeJ] (=6(a), VP-suffix)

Zhangsan sing song Perf
'Zhangsan sang.，
Le in (6b) (which I'll call "imperfective/e"(impf)) outside the scope of VP is what I

consider the ‘genuine’ case of sentence-final le, which is the one that gives the
inchoative or progressive reading, repeated in (7c):
(7) c. [s Zhangsan [VP[v，changge] ] Je] (=6(b), S-suffix)

Zhangsan sing song Impf
‘Zhangsan started singing, (and that's what I'm telling you now).’
'Zhang is singing.’
Therefore, a total of three syntactic positions for le can be enumerated, as shown in
(7a), (7b), and (7c) respectively. To further contrast the syntactically hierarchical
positions allowed for le, it is helpful to show the three scopal distinctions as the
following:
(8) a. le [v chang ] -> (7a) perfective

b. le [Vp chang ge] (7b) perfective
c. le [s Zhangsan chang ge] (7c) imperfective
The three structures represent the verbal-suffix perfective le (8a), the VP-suffix
perfective le (8b), and the sentential-suffix imperfective le (8c). Consider le in (7b)
and (7c) again. It occurs at two syntactic positions indeed. No ambiguity arises
when le is syntactically recognized. Unfortunately, the syntactic boundaries are not
realized phonologically
making it unclear to judge whether a VP-final or a sentence-final le is intended by
the speaker. The main purpose of this paper is to present the environments where
the sentence-final le is intended, and confirm that this le should be accounted for as
imperfective, which will be laid out in the next section.
4. THE IMPERFECTIVE ASPECT OF LE

Aspectual theories tend to employ a match between Aktionsart (the inherent
semantic properties regarding action and non-action, or other related meanings) and
aspectuality. Below I will compare the notions of perfectivity and imperfectivity in
terms of the categories of kinesis, telicity, punctuality, and so forth. Perfectivity is
correlated with predicates that are kinetic, discrete, measured (quantified), telic，or
punctual. Predicates being stative, continuous, atelic，durative/iterative types have
a tendency to use imperfective aspect. I will discuss these eventual properties in
turn by examining the occurrences of le in them and the aspectuality it presents.
4.1 Kinesis: Dynamicity vs. Stativity
Previously I distinguished two basic kinds of eventualities: dynamic and
stative. In a very general sense, an eventuality exhibiting no change over the time
axis is stative, while one that does change can be termed a dynamic situation. For
example, know is a stative verb; sing is a dynamic verb. In a dynamic verb, she
started singing (imperfective) and she sang (perfective) encode different aspects.
The difference corresponds to the varying occurrences of le's in a Chinese dynamic
intransitive verb chang ge ‘sing’:4
(9) a. Ta chang le ge
she sing Perf song

‘She sang.，
b. Ta chang ge le
she sing song Perf/Impf
‘She sang.’
'She started singing.’
'She is singing.’
In Section 3 I have demonstrated that le in (9b) carries dubious readings of perfective
or imperfective, and will not reiterate the analysis here.
The aspectual duality of le in a dynamic transitive verb is analogous to the
intransitive one.
(10) a. Ta chi le dienxin

he eat Perf snack
‘He had snack.’
b. Ta chi dienxin le
he eat snack Perf/Impf
‘He had snack.’
'He started having snack.’
4He is having snack.’
In (10b), this dynamic situation can be coded as perfective or imperfective,
depending on how we view the situation. Both aspectual meanings can be
expressed by le.
Let's now turn to the application of le in the more complicated cases of
stative verbs. The typology of stative verbs has been brought up by many scholars,
the most famous one being Carlson's stage-level and individual-level distinction
(1977). Here I adopt another methodology raised by Descles and Guentcheva (1990:
241-2)一”contingent states and permanent states with a slight modification. The
distinction between contingent and permanent states is very similar to the distinction
between stage-level and individual-level predicates. Instances of contingent and
permanent states are illustrated by Descles and Guentcheva as in (11a) and (lib)
respectively:
(11) a. The weather that day was fine,
b. The road leads out of the village.
The state in (11a) is contingent which denotes an ‘open but bounded interval’. It is
open given the nature of ‘state’； it is bounded because this interval can be measured
by a finite length of duration (that day). (1 lb) denotes a permanent state, where the
distance between two boundaries is infinite. In the discussion below I choose to use
‘habitual state' to replace the term ‘permanent state’ for it better serves to include
predicates of individual properties such as like, be tall, which are not necessarily
permanent. Aspectually, a habitual state consists of an undifferentiated period
without internal structure. The initial and final endpoints are excluded from a
state.
As introduced in Section 2, the temporal constituency of states is
intrinsically associated with the imperfective aspect, making stative verbs inherently
not compatible with the perfective form. Two exceptions: 1) In the case of a
contingent state where the duration of state becomes measurable, hence the state can
be viewed as bounded, with both endpoints marked. 2) A state's left boundary is
identified while the right boundary is open. This is a case where a change of state,
inceptive reading is indicated. Below I'll give examples from Chinese to illustrate
the two exceptions
Firstly, the following sentence with a contingent state, when occurs with le，
is fine:
(12) Ta bing le hao ji tien

he sick Perf good several day
‘He was sick for several days.’
A contingent state, given its bounded nature, can present a perfective aspect with no
surprise. Its bounded nature is even more explicit when a quantifying measure
phrase (hao ji tien ‘several days’）shows up, since a measure phrase serves as a very
good indicator of boundedness of an eventuality. The function of the measure
phrase in (12) is very similar to the temporal subject that day (11a) in Descles and
Guentcheva's example.
The second situation when le co-occurs with a contingent state is to
indicate an inceptive point of a new situation and the state of affair still pertains, as
in (13) and (14).
(13) Ta bing le, xienzai hai mei hao
he illness Impf now still not good
‘He got sick, and has not recovered yet.’
(14) Zicong . ta bing le, jiu mei zai chuxien guo

since he illness Impf then not again appear EXP
‘Since he got sick, he has never appeared.，
The two examples entail a very strong reading that the state of sickness is
inchoative/inceptive; that is, the sickness occurred and has not recovered yet.
Previously mentioned, inception is categorized as an imperfective aspect, I argue that
le in (13) and (14) should be considered a markerforimperfectivity.
Chang (2003) also observes the behaviors of le when it occurs with states.
He proposes that the stage-level (analogous to the contingent states in this paper) can
occur with le, whereas the individual-level states (similarto the habitual states)
cannot. Two of Chang's examples are cited below (2003: 99):
(15) Ta lei le (Stage-level state)
he tired Perf
‘He got tired.’
* Ta she le
(16) pa (Individual-level state)
he afraid snake Perf
Comparing his example above, note that sentence (17) without le is completely
acceptable:
(17) Ta pa she
he afraid snake’
‘He is afraid of snakes.’
We can deduce from (16) and (17) that (16) is ruled-out because of the appearance of
le. However, it cannot be denied that (16) is acceptable under several
circumstances一for example, when a person was never afraid of snakes before, but
he IS now because recently he was attacked by a snake or experienced a nightmare
about snakes. In other words, such interpretation indicates a change-of-state. Le
in this scenario serves to mark the inceptive point of the new status. Although
Chang did note that (16) is acceptable only where there is an aspectual shift in
certain contexts (2003: 99 footnote 5), he fails to account for the fact that it is le that
causes the aspectual shift. And we should not overlook the fact: The sentential le
can be used with a habitual state to convey inception of a new state. Examples of
individual-level states co-occurring with le in the change-of-state denotation can
easily be found in other Chinese examples. Here are some of them:
(18) Ta xihuan dienying le
he like movie Impf
‘He likes movies now' (in contrast to ‘He did not like them before.’）
(19) Ta piaoliang le
she beautiful Impf
‘She is beautiful now.' (in contrast to ‘She was not beautiful before.’）
Individual-level states carry an undifferentiated period with open initial and final
endpoints and cannot have dynamic changing at every instant. However, they still
can change this property by marking an inception to show that a new status is formed.
Hence le in an individual state always marks inception, an imperfective subtype,
which is different from a VP-final le (which conveys perfectivity). To further
confirm that le in (18) or (19) is the imperfective le，notice that the perfective le
occurring in it results in a very odd，unacceptable sentence:
• Ta xihuan le
(20) dienying
he like Perf movie
The inceptive meaning can only be derived by the le marking imperfectivity, which
ought to be sentence-final as in (18). The assumption is well-motivated since state
is a quality intrinsically compatible with imperfectivity.
4.2 Telicity vs. Atelicity

In what follows, I will continue to show that there is logical correlation
between perfectivity and ‘+telicity’，whereas the imperfectivity lends itself to the
quality of ‘telicity (atelicity)’. Readers are invited to pay special attention to the
cases where le occurs in the latter verbal constellations.
An eventuality with boundaries/closures is called a telic one.5 The notion
of inherent boundaries in telicity corresponds to the notion of perfectivity. It
follows that an atelic predicate contains the aspectuality of imperfective. The
example below shows both telic and atelic interpretations expressed by le.
(21) Yifu zhou le

clothes wrinkle Perf/Impf
‘The clothes wrinkled./The clothes is (gradually) having wrinkles (e.g. after
several machine-washes).'
The predicate in (21) ambiguously means the perfective aspect，indicating the telicity
of the wrinkling, or the imperfective one as an atelic, on-going process. Le has its
dual dual functions here.
Telicity must be viewed at different syntactic levels. The semantic
content of a verb can be telic (‘die’）or atelic (‘walk’). At the predicate level, verbs
describing atelic situations can be turned into telic ones by their arguments or
quantifying adverbials, e.g., atelic ‘write’ vs. telic 4write a letter，，atelic ‘walk’ vs.
telic 'walk to school'. Furthermore, an eventuality can be telic at the predicate
level but atelic at the proposition level, so it is possible to say Max was building a
house but he never built it. The predicate (build a house) is intrinsically telic, but it
is shifted into an atelic proposition by making the predicate progressive (was
building a house) and adding a clause (but he never built it). The whole sentence
therefore turns into atelic since the right endpoint is ‘reopened’ by the two
mechanisms. Similar cases of turning a telic predicate into an atelic proposition
also exist in Chinese. Compare:
(22) a. Ta zou qu xuexiao le
he walk go school Perf/Impf
‘He walked to school./He started walking to school./He is walking to school.’
b. Ta zou qu xuexiao le, keshi hai mei dao
he walk to school Impf but still not arrive
4He was walking to school, but hasn't arrived yet.'
Readers should feel easy to account for le's occurrences in (22a) as either the
perfective le or the imperfective one now. In (22b), due to the presence of a
negation clause, the bounded event walking to school is forced to be interpreted only
as an unbounded one with the right endpoint open. In other words, the negation
clause causes the sentence-final le to be interpreted imperfectively. As for why a
negation clause has the effect of turning a telic into an atelic (hence imperfective)
eventuality, here is one possible explanation: Negation contains the feature ‘atelicity’
since a proposition being negated presents a new state (i.e. the incompletion of the
walking-to-school event), as opposed to the affirmative old state (the completion of
that event). The change-of-state effect, as previously shown, should be recognized
as being imperfective. The negation of verb in the following examples with the use
of le further justifies this prediction:
• ta
(23) a. Wo bu zai xie le xin gei
I not again write Perf letter for he
b. Wo bu zai xie xin gei ta le

I not again write letter for he Impf
‘I won't write him anymore.’
If negation forces a proposition to interpret as being imperfective, it would be the
case that only the sentence-finalle (possible of signifyingimperfectivity)in (23b)

can do the job, but not the verbal-suffix perfective le in (23a).
However, there are instances where the negation combining with the
reading of le is unattainable. In Chinese, a telic situation is frequently

imperfective
marked by a measure phrase of the special sequence ‘number-classifier’ (CL), e.g.,
yi-feng (xiri) 'one-CL (letter)', liang-dong (fangzi) 'two-CL (houses)’. It is
interesting to point out that a telic situation with the measure phrase has an exclusive
meaning of perfective when used with le, no matter which position it occurs in.
Note the following contrast:
(24) a. Ta gai le yi dong fangzi

he build Perf one CL house
‘He built a house.’
b. Ta gai yi dong fangzi le
he build one CL house Perf/*Impf
‘He built a house.’
With a measure phrase, an eventuality in Chinese is always restricted to be
interpreted as telic, single whole. This interpretation obtains not only at the
predicate level, but also at the proposition level. The alternative imperfective
reading will not appear. Consequently, it is difficult to have an imperfective
reading for le in (24b), even with the attachment of a negation clause to it:
(25) ？Ta gai yi dong fangzi le, keshi mei gai hao
he build one CL house Perf but not build good
Given the strong telic characteristic of the measure phrase, the aspectuality of
predicates containing a measure phrase is exclusively perfective.6 The attachment
of a negation clause (forcing a proposition to turn into an imperfective reading as
discussed above) would create a conflict with the perfective sense of le, yielding an
illogical result.
4.3 Punctuality vs. Iterativity
This subsection will manage to discuss another temporal concept,
punctuality, and its relation of the aspectual meaning of le. A punctual verb
exhibits an eventuality where the beginning point and the final point almost coincide.
In other words, it is hard to unfold an internal structure for a punctual verb. Based
on this characteristic of punctuality, it corresponds to the notion of perfectivny
(especially its totality characteristic). For example, zha yien ‘blink’ is a punctual
verb. So, it is quite natural to express the verb in the perfective form, as illustrated
by the use of perfective le in (26a):
(26) a. Ta zha le yien

he blink Perf eyes
‘He blinked his eyes.’
b. Ta zha yien le
he blink eye Perf/Impf
‘He blinked his eyes'
‘He started to blink his eyes.’
‘He is blinkinghis eyes.’
Nonetheless, a punctual verb can also be used to denote an imperfective aspect.

The le in (26b), for instance, can be ambiguously interpreted as either a perfective
one or an imperfective one, hence multiple readings are derived. If le is intended as
being imperfective, it either means an inception of a new state (as in “he wasn't
blinking, but he is now”), or an action in progress. Logically these imperfective
meanings are potentially iterative. Iterativity, given its on-going characteristic, is a
notion co-related to imperfectivity. Theoretically, we should be able to add
‘continuative’ manner adverbs such as 厶ゴゲcontinuously’ in front of the
imperfective le as in (27a). In (27a), the perfective reading is hard to get, as
confirmed by the unacceptable usage of the perfective le in (27b).
(27) a. Ta bu ting de zha yien le
he not stop DE blink eye Impf
‘He started to blink his eyes continuously.’
‘He is blinking his eyes continuously.’

* bu ting de zha le
b. Ta yien
he not stop DE blink Perf eyes
Another temporal notion as an opposition to punctuality is durativity. It is
well-known that in English, the progressive form of an achievement verb, e.g. (28a),
shifts the temporal schema of the achievement from the instant at which the situation
is true to a bunch of instants leading up to that instant.
(28) a. John is winning the race.
b. John won the race at the moment 2:50.
An achievement verb like win is inherently punctual, as seen in (28b). It refers to a
particular instant at which the winning situation comes true. Suppose John starts
the race at 2:45, John pulls ahead at an instant t and John finally wins the race at 2:50.
John is winning is true at every instant between t and 2:50. (See Vlach (1981: 279)
for a detailed explanation.) The important point to make here is that the shifting
of temporality by this progressive is from punctual to durative. Although Chinese
lacks a mechanism of such temporal shift, the meaning of John is winning the race
can be conveyed by the adverb kuaiyao'nearly' together with the imperfective le.
Compare the following two pairs of examples:
(29) a. Zhangsan ying le saipao
Zhangsan win Perf race
‘Zhangsan won the race.’
b. Zhangsan ying saipao le
Zhangsan win race Perf
‘Zhangsan won the race.’
(30) a. Zhangsan kuaiyao ying saipao le
Zhangsan nearly win race Impf
‘Zhangsan is (nearly) winning the race.’
b.* Zhangsan kuaiyao ying le saipao
Zhangsan nearly win Perf race
Since winning is an achievement-type verb, the perfective le adequately serves to
express this punctual nature of the event, as shown in (29). (Effected by the
temporal characteristic of an achievement verb, readers are invited to reason why
(29b) lacks an alternative imperfective reading.) With the addition of kuaiyao
‘nearly，which creates the similar temporal shift like the English examples from He
wins to He is winning, (30a) refers to a durative situation, representing an array of
instants leading to (but not yet reaching) the actual moment of winning: an
imperfective meaning. This construction selects only the imperfective le，whereas
the perfective le (meaning completion) in (30b) is ruled-out, due to its temporal
conflict with the kuaiyao ying ‘nearly winning’ expression.
4.4 Other Imperfective Cases of Le
Cases where le has an imperfective reading can be more presented by the
occurrence of it in non-past constructions such as simple futures or imperatives.
Consider the following contrast:
(31) a. Ta chu qu chi fan le

he out go eat rice Perf/Impf
'He went out to eat.，
‘He is going out to eat.’
b. Ta yiao qu chi fan le

he want go eat rice Impf
‘He is going to eat soon.’
Le in (31a) has ambiguous readings given its position. Note the substitution of yiao
qu 4be going out' (31b) for chu qu 4go out' brings a future denotation, and the
perfective reading disappears. Only the imperfective reading here is available.7
Another possible non-perfective interpretation of le is seen from Chinese
imperatives. It is usual to use le in imperative constructions such as (32b)
(32) a. Xiuxi ba!

rest Part
‘Have a break!’
b. Xiuxi le!
rest Part/Impf
‘Have a break!’
One might as well treat le in (32b) merely a variant of the particle ba in (32a) which
appears frequently in Chinese imperative constructions. However, when le is used
as a substitution of ba, it can hypothesized that le marks an imperfective aspect of an
imperative sentence, which I stipulate a common aspectuality residing in all
imperatives，since at the moment of utterance an imperative denotes a
not-yet-completed event (and the speaker requests the event to be completed).
The analysis that le used in an imperative sentence encodes the
imperfective aspect is further supported by the following two constructions. The
first one is an imperative with a V-0 compound containing le.
(33) a. Chi fan le!

eat rice Impf
‘（It's time to) have a meal!’
b. *Chi le fan!
eat Perf rice
Under the presumption in this paper, le in (33b) will be recognized as a perfective
one due to its position. Its appearance violates t he aspectual restriction on the
imperative (namely, being imperfective) as I explained above. The other
construction arguing for the imperfective aspect of le within an imperative is:
(34) a. Xi-zao le ba!

take-shower Impf Part
‘(It's time to) take a shower!’
b.*Xi le -zao ba!
take Perf -shower Part
The sentence in (34a) already contains a final particle ba. Avoiding the redundancy
of using two particles in a row, it is better to view the function of le here as an
aspectual one. Again, only the imperfective le is allowed, rather than the perfective
one a shown in (34b).
Besides the sentence with future tense and the imperative construction
discussed above, the yes-no pattern of interrogatives also shows the interpretation of
the imperfective le. Consider the following question:
(35) Ta chi fan le ma?
he eat rice Perf/Impf Q
‘Has he eaten?’
The aspectual sense of le here would be mostly identified as the perfective marker
for the completion of the event. My assumption, however, is that le in (35) denotes
both perfective and imperfective aspects. The reason why le is possible to function
as the imperfective marker here is similar to what I had argued for the imperfective
aspect in the imperative. From the speaker's perspective, a yes-no question
expresses an uncertainty about the completion of the event. Thus, to him the
overall aspectuality of the interrogative sentence should be imperfective. Note the
following contrast:
(36) a. ？Tachi le fan ma?

he eat Perf rice Q
b. Ta chi le fan le ma?
he eat Perf rice Impf Q
‘Has he eaten?’
The use of perfective le in (36a) is surprisingly odd, strongly rejecting the claim that
le in a typical yes-no question invariantly expresses perfectivity only. Rather, (36b)

sounds much better because both senses of aspectuality are present.
5. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER RESEARCH

In this paper, le has been proposed to display dual aspectual denotations
corresponding to three syntactic positions: (1) VP-internal (verbal suffix)the
perfective aspect (2) VP-final—the perfective aspect (3) Sentence-final—the
imperfective aspect (specifically inchoative or progressive). The dual aspectuality

is a reflection of two levels of syntactic scopes. The perfective meaning of le must
have its scope not beyond a VP, and the imperfective meaning of le has its scope
over a sentence. I also proposed that the ambiguity of le often arises due to the lack
of phonological gap between (2) and (3), shown again in the following:
(37) [sSubj[Vp [v y]leObi]le]le
Further researching direction following the thesis of this paper would be
finding phonological evidence for the distinction between the positions 2 and 3 of le.
For instance, an experiment can be conducted to justify the existence of phonological
effects differentiating the perfective VP-final le and the imperfective sentence-final
le. My presumption is that the two le9s can have perceivable phonological
features 一in terms of the tone (e.g., the perfective le with a pure neutral tone and the
imperfective le starting with a neural tone but followed by a noticeable falling
contour), pitch (e.g., the latter with a higher pitch), or length (e.g., the latter with a
longer duration). The presumption, however, is merely an intuition and remains to
be further experimentally explored by phonologists.
Finally, cases on the extra-sentential level may provide another good
resource to prove the aspectual multivalence of le. For example, in narratives,
Hopper (1979) states that foregrounded events succeed one another and each event is
viewed as discrete, complete whole, hence the perfective aspect is correlated to
foregrounding in discourse. Conversely, backgrounded clauses are concurrent with
the foregrounded events; they support, amplify, or comment on the narration. It
follows that there is a great likelihood between the properties of imperfectivity and
backgrounding. His assumption is exemplified as:
(38) Filling the gas at the village, the travelers had driven for two davs.
Backgrounding Foregrounding
Under Hopper's assumption, my theory on the aspectuality of le should predict the
perfective le to occur mostly in Chinese foregrounded clauses and the imperfective le
in background clauses. An examination of aspects and the use of le in Chinese
narratives is worth-investigating to see if this prediction can be confirmed.
NOTES
1. To avoid confusion, in this paper I use ‘eventuality’ to refer to all kinds of
situations, while 'event' a particular kind, a subtype of inherently dynamic situation.
2. As stated in the introduction, the post-object (i.e. sentence-final) le has also

been termed a ‘particle’. Particles express various semantic and pragmatic
functions involving the speaker's attitude or a discourse context. It is not the
scope of this paper to discuss the particle-usage of le, as it goes beyond the
function of aspectuality.
3. The imperfective meaning of ん’s has also been noticed by numerous linguists
without detailed explanation, such as Chao (1968), Li, Thompson, and Thompson
(1982), Chu and Chang (1987), Zhang (1995).

4. Chang ‘sing’ + ge ‘song’ in Chinese has a composite meaning of ‘sing,. Thus,
chang ge is analyzed as an intransitive V-0 compound, comprised by a verb and an
object parts.
5. Telicity, boundedness, closure are sometimes taken to be slightly different
concepts. For simplicity, I use ‘telicity’ as the neutral, cover term for these similar
concepts.
6. For more analyses of the properties of Chinese measure phrases, readers can refer
to Liu (1992, 1997).

7. This does not mean that the perfective le cannot be used in any future-tense
constellations. The following occurrences of le's are interpreted as the perfective one
(given the postverbal position), creating a "future perfective’’ structure.
(examples from Li & Thompson 1981: 213)
Mingtien wo jiu kaichu le ta
tomorrow I then expel Perf he
‘I will expel him tomorrow./I will have expelled him by tomorrow.'
Ta kai le men, ni jiu jin qu

he open Perf door you then enter go
4
When he opens the door, you go in.’
REFERENCES
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English Perfect. In Bache, C. et al. (eds) Tense, Aspect and Action, 43-66.
New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
CARLSON, Gregory N. 1977. Reference to Kinds in English. Doctoral
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Analytical Semantic Approach to the Study of Morphemes LE, ZAI, ZHE and
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Taiwan Journal of Linguistic Vol 1.1, 97-110.
CHAO, Yuen Ren. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
CHEN, Chien-Chou. 2001. Toward the Disambiguation of Le in Mandarin
Chinese and the Theory of Morphemic Atomism. MIT Working Papers in
Linguistics 38. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
CHU, Chauncey C., and W. Vincent Chang. 1987. The Discourse Function of the
Verbal Suffix-LE in Mandarin. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 15, 309-334.
COMRIE, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DESCLES J-P, and Z. Guentcheva. 1990. Discourse Analysis of Aorist and
Imperfect In Bulgarian and French. In Thelin, N. (ed.) Verbal Aspect in
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HOPPER, Paul. 1979. Aspect and Foregrounding in Discourse. In Givon, T.
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LI, Charles, and Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A Functional
Reference Grammar. Berkeley, L. A.: University of California Press.
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Bradley, D (eds.), Linguistics of the

Sino-Tibetan Area: The State of the Art: 310-323. Canberra: Dept.of Ling.,
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LI, Charles, Sandra A. Thompson, and R. M. Thompson. 1982. The Discourse
Motivation for the Perfect Aspect: the Mandarin Particle LE. In Hopper, P.
(ed.) Tense-Aspect: Between Semantics and Pragmatics. Amsterdam:
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[Categorial Grammar and the Extent of Its Uses for Chinese]. A project
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Shangjia Dong Mao Yu Yi [Grammatical System of Mood in Mandarin, Min,
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LYONS, John. 1977. Semantics: Volume I and 2. Cambridge: Cambridge
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REICHENBACH, Hans. 1947. Elements of Symbolic Logic. London:
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VLACH, Frank. 1982. The Semantics of the Progressive. In Tedeschi &
Zaenen (Qds.)Syniax and Semantics vol. 14: Tense and Aspect, 271-292.
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ZHANG, Lihua. 1995. A Contrastive Study of Aspectuality in German, English,
and Chinese. New Youk: Peter Lang.
汉语“了”之双动貌性质：完成及分割貌
陈建州
台湾国立东华大学
题要
传统上多认为汉语”了”最显著的语意是表示完成貌，虽然它所具有的分割貌意涵
亦时而引起学者讨论。本文以句法及语意之互动关系为出发点，来探讨”了”字的
动貌性质。文中主张位于句末的”了”之所以具有双重语意，乃归因于它有着双重
的句法范畴)--动词词组或句子。在解释”了”的两种动貌性质后，本文尤其着重
在对其分割貌性质的探讨。文中试着举出各种例子及文法结构来验证”了”所帯出
的分割貌语意。此项分析亦获得数种动貌理论支持。
关键词
了，完成貌，分割貌，起使，进行，密闭

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Project on Linguistic Analysis

AMBIGUITY OF LE IN CHINESE: THE PERFECTIVE AS WELL AS IMPERFECTIVE / 汉语“了”

National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan

the ‘perfective’ marker, although its non-perfective reading occasionally draws

Chinese from the perspective of syntax-semantics interplay, showing that the

structural ambiguity results in leys semantic ambiguity to be interpreted as perfective

or imperfective. I argue that the ambiguity of a sentence-final le is predetermined

many examples and grammatical constructions to show that le is able to express

the nature of aspect.

temporal dimension. In spite of lacking an overt tense-marking in the verbal

morphology, Chinese is considered to possess a rich aspectual system. Scholars

belongs more to the category of pragmatics than to that of aspectuality.

Aspect-wise, le is generally considered as a perfective/perfect marker. It

signifies that an eventuality is viewed as a closed, single whole, as in the contrast ta

the above example is VP-internal. Another position of le is when it occurs at the

aspectual studies (e.g., Chan (1980)，Li and Thompson (1981)，Teng (1986)，Smith

swam’)，an alternative ‘inchoative or (inceptive)’ interpretation (‘He start swimming’）

arises. Inchoativity per se is a non-perfective meaning.

This paper firstly attempts to provide an investigation of the aspectual le by

distinguishing various /e's from an angle of syntactic-semantic interface. I

hypothesize that whether le carrying the perfective or several non-perfective

misunderstanding as an overlapping one and thus lead to the ambiguity. After

an imperfective marker in Chinese, I observe many contexts in which le can only be

interpreted with the imperfective meaning.

2. THE TEMPORALITY OF PERFECTIVITY AND IMPERFECTIVITY

aspectual opposition between perfectivity and imperfectivity. We may think of

different aspects as different perspectives towards the temporal status of a predicate.

established across languages, regardless of whether they are grammatically marked

or not (Bache 1994). For example, the progressive form ‘be+V-ing” is a

language-specific realization of imperfectivity in English.

The aspectual distinction between perfective and imperfective had been

illustrated by Comrie (1976) as in the following English construction:

(1) John was reading when I entered.

temporal constituency of the situation. In particular, in the situation of John's

distinguishes the two aspectual metacategories as two ‘viewpoint types’：

final point endpoints.

Imperfective viewpoints focus part of a situation, including neither initial nor

two boundaries (endpoints) of a situation are open. Perfectivity is compatible with

(3) Perfectivity [////////////////]

Perfectivity is characterized by a closed interval (bounded by the two brackets) on

the temporal axis. Imperfectivity is represented by an open interval (the shaded

A well-known typology of natural languages' verbs is due to Vendler (1967). He

imperfectivity stated in (3) bears similarity to that of states一being continuous.

in language, and states in many languages do not have perfective meaning.

Defining the imperfective meaning as being open-ended at both boundaries

compatible with the perfective aspect. As Comrie defines, event is a dynamic

structure of a dynamic situation. It involves a change against a static background

(Descles and Guentcheva 1990: 242). Each process is represented by an interval

Therefore, the temporal schema of a process is inherently imperfective.

counts as a revision of (3).

(4) Perfectivity: Event [////////////////]

process of running) is common to the meaning of all progressives. Secondly, Vlach

Such conversion is central to the meaning of progressive. Bearing in mind the

aspectual distinction between perfectivity and imperfectivity I sketched in this

3. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN TWO SYNTACTIC LEVELS OF LE

the object (O). (5a) illustrates the use of /e as a verbal suffix.

Many linguists have characterized this post-verbal /e as a marker of perfectivity

occurrence of le is following the object at the end of a clause, as (5b) shows.