A new approach to -zhe in Mandarin Chinese

Among the aspectual suffixes in Mandarin Chinese, the so-called durative/progressive aspect -zhe has proven especially elusive, notwithstanding the large amount of literature devoted to it. The present article adopts a new approach and claims that -zhe is not on a par with the aspect markers zai, -le and -guo. Unlike the latter, which realize a “high” aspect pertaining to the entire event, -zhe is shown to instantiate a “low” aspect (aktionsart) (cf. Travis 2010 for the dichotomy high vs low aspect). Importantly, -zhe also signals the dependent status of the verbal projection concerned. As a consequence, in contrast to the aspect suffixes zai, -le and -guo, for which we observe constraints when in non-matrix contexts, the opposite holds for -zhe: it is severely constrained in matrix contexts, but rather freely occurs in non-matrix contexts