Re: Antipassives

Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> What about sentences where both readings make sense? "He hit her and ran away"
> seems to be some kind of standard example.
In that case the wider context is invoked.  In short, understanding
Chinese is a matter of common sense, which is consistent with the
kind of grammatical rules it has.  In general, there is no sharp
acceptable/unacceptable distinction; different kinds of sentences are
more or less acceptable, that's all.  The notorious lack of "condition
contrary to fact" marking in Chinese makes one and the same sentence
translatable as "If you see my sister, you'll know she's pregnant"
or even "If you were to see my sister, you'd know she was pregnant" is
another case of the same situation.  Likewise the freedom in Chinese to
use the copula where no identity exists, so that a restaurant patron can
remind the waiter "I'm [the one who gets] the ice cream", or say to his
neighbor "She is also [a case of being married to] an American husband."
(Examples from Li & Thompson, _Mandarin: A Functional Reference Grammar_.)

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