Dramatized Discourse(12) Ta ba xiao mao ai. 3sg. ba small cat love /He loves the kitten.�(13) Ta ba ni xiang. 3sg. ba 2sg. miss /He misses you.�(14) Wo ba nei-jian shiqing liaojie. 1sg. ba that-cl matter understand understand that matter.�3 (15) Ta ba Zhangsan kan dao-le. 3sg. ba pn see arrive-pfv /He was able to see Zhangsan.�(16) Ta ba ge chang-le. 3sg. ba song sing-pfv /He sang the song.�(17) Tao shu ba hua kai-le. peach tree ba blossom open-pfv he peach trees are blooming.�(18) Ta ba xiao mao ai de yao si. 3sg. ba small cat love res want die /he loves the kitten so much that s/he wants to die.�(19) Ta ba ni xiang de fan dou bu ken chi. 3sg. ba 2sg. miss res food all not will eat /He misses you so much that s/he won even eat her/his meals.�Li and Thompson explain that the reason why sentences (12)�17) are ungrammatical lies in the semantics of the verbs. These verbs, they say, do not conceptually qualify as verbs of disposal, which is required by the ba-construction. Curiously, the verbs in sentences (18) and (19), though identical to those of the sentences (12) and (13), acquire a disposal quality through the addition of the complemental expressions. For example, the complement yao si, literally ant
