The light verb lai in the chinese comparative correlative

Abstract

The Chinese yue lai yue 'more come more' construction is a subtype of the Chinese comparative correlative rather than an analogue of the English more and more (or -er and -er) construction. The verb lai 'come' inside is the overt realization of the light verb BECOME, which selects as complement a state. Through an internet search of large Chinese corpora, we further argue that the yue lai yue 'more come more' sequence is on the way to being lexicalized as a degree adverb with some properties that provide indirect evidence for the light verb analysis made here.