A categorisation solution to the incompleteness puzzle in Mandarin

Abstract This paper means to re-examine the source of incompleteness for a clause with a bare verb as predicate and no other markings in Mandarin. I propose that the reason comes from the need for categorial labels at the syntax-semantic interface to produce a clear interpretation. Since there are no grammatical affixes marking category V available in Mandarin, it has to make use of functional morphemes which shape their complement space categorially. The result is that overt (or at least inferable) morphemes from the extended projections of VP must occur to assign category V for the predicate phrase, while a root needs merge with degree morphemes to be a predicate adjective. The analysis shows that some issues traditionally related to finiteness may have a pure syntactic account.