The Cartography of Suffering Construction in a Broad Sense

As a pending issue, the Suffering Constructions in a broad sense have challenged scholars to explore their nature and features. The author of the current paper, on the basis of the split-CP hypothesis, endeavors to put forward a unified account for the Suffering Constructions in a broad sense found in both Chinese and Japanese, i.e., the node which bears the feature [+Foc] is to be checked. This can be satisfied via two ways: a) verb-raising, or b) checking-marker(s) inserting. Language facts shows that Japanese has the feature checked only through the first way, while Chinese both: “Wangmian sile fuqin” constructions raising the verb-head, whereas passives inserting the suffering marker BEI.