Emotional verbs in the Chinese bèi passive construction: A corpus-assisted reassessment of verb compatibility constraints

Traditional accounts of the Chinese bèi passive construction (BPC) have long asserted its incompatibility with stative verbs such as ài ‘love’, due to their lack of disposal, telicity, or due to their connotation. This study challenges this view by re-evaluating the verb constraints of the BPC through a corpus-assisted investigation, with a focus on the underexplored category of Experiencer-as-Subject emotional verbs (EVs). Drawing on both synchronic and diachronic data, and employing a mixed-methods approach, the study analyzes the frequency, semantic prosody, and syntactic-aspectual patterns of EVs within this construction. Findings show that, although less frequent than prototypical predicates, all EVs occur in the BPC, with attestations dating back to the early 20th century. Crucially, non-adversative EVs do not consistently appear in adversative contexts, often preserving their original lexical semantics and thus undermining previous claims of inherent semantic incompatibility. Moreover, syntactic and aspectual analyses reveal that these BPCs extend beyond canonical predicate roles and overwhelmingly maintain a stative reading, countering the assumed requirement for telicity. We argue that these patterns can plausibly be attributed to a set of interacting factors—including grammaticalization processes, contact-induced change, and sociolinguistic variables—thereby calling for a re-evaluation of traditional accounts of the verb constraints of the BPC.