Some Theoretical Issues on Chinese Nouns and Verbs:A Critical Analysis of the Noun-Verb Inclusion Theory

This paper evaluates the Noun-Verb Inclusion theory advanced by Shen Jiaxuan (2009), seeking to elucidate its logical and empirical foundations, and assesses its theoretical significance and potential for pedagogical application. It analyzes the six distributional patterns for nouns and verbs proposed in Shen (2016) and their consistency with the theory. Further, it revisits the issue of begging the question raised in Shen (2023a) and evaluate the consistency between his citations and Larson’s (1992) analysis of super nominals. The discussion may shed new light on the theoretical framework of Chinese word classes.