Getting aspectual-guo under control in Mandarin Chinese : An experimental investigation

Debate persists over the status of experiential aspect marker -guo in Mandarin control complements. One view holds that it instantiates non-local realization of matrix aspect, while another view holds that it instantiates local realization of embedded aspect. Proponents of the latter view base their argument in part on data suggesting that unlike what happens when -guo attaches to the matrix verb in a control sentence, -guo in a control complement triggers an actuality entailment (an entailment that the event described by the embedded clause in fact occurred). In this paper, we report on a sentence acceptability experiment that tests for actuality entailments in sentences with -guo embedded in complements to object-control verb quan '(try to) persuade'. The results show no statistically significant difference in the acceptability of such sentences as a function of whether the event described by the embedded clause occurred or not, thereby potentially supporting the view that -guo in control complements instantiates non-local realization of matrix aspect.