Potential Complement “perception verbs -bu de (不得)” Expressing Psychological Unacceptability

Abstract

This paper insists that “perception verbs -不得” indicates the reception and expresses the meaning of psychological unacceptability. It describes an agent that cannot hear or see an object because of a psychological cause. “Perception verbs -不得” has the following features: it cannot be topicalized, it takes a subject-predicate phrase as an object, and it can be used with ‘最’ while it cannot be used with ‘-了’. These features are obtained through comparison with “perception verbs - 不了” and “perception verbs -不下去”.