A tale of BEI, JIAO, RANG, and GEI: a comparison and analysis of passive markers in Mandarin Chinese

A tale of BEI, JIAO, RANG, and GEI: a comparison and analysis of passive markers in Mandarin Chinese Wang, Huilei The canonical passive marker bei in Mandarin Chinese has drawn a great deal of interest and attention in the past decades, yet not so much attention has been paid onto three other alternatives to bei-gei, jiao, and rang. They are frequently used in colloquial northern dialects of Mandarin Chinese. The three words are interchangeable with bei in certain circumstances, yet are not allowed to replace bei in others. This paper focuses on comparing the properties and distributions of the three colloquial markers with the canonical bei. By presenting and analysing natural language data, this paper argues for the they are true passive markers like bei, but are also different from bei in tenns of their distribution in Short Passives and preferences of verb types.