pay_BILL · 付账 / 把账单付了

Hierarchy

Not a fourth argument of pay_GIVE · 付. Surface count can name Pat, the invoice, and twenty dollars — but the lexicon does not list bill and money as co-arguments of one DOC under two 把. Writing those as sisters predicts *把二十块把账单付了 and a silent-twenty Theme. Neither holds.

〚√PAY_BILL〛 = λB λe . DISCHARGE(e) ∧ Obligation(e)=B. MeasureP optional as INSTRUMENT(e, ⟨n,U⟩), not as ACC. Result e2: the obligation is discharged. Payment-true of a HAVE-Recipient Amount is e2 of pay_GIVE, not this root.

Working hierarchy: Payer > Obligation (> optional MeasureP-as-instrument, Platform, Source). Obligation outranks instrument MeasureP for Case and passives. There is no Appl_HAVE and no productive DOC of bill + money.

Mandarin frames · Case clothes

One object: the document / obligation — bare ACC or under 把. Money stays a 用-PP when expressed. There is no productive DOC of bill + money under two 把. The invoice is the cheap associate under Neg; a silent twenty does not promote as DOC Theme.

1. ✓ 帕特付了账单。 canonical · document ACC
2. ✓ 没付账吗 / 没把账单付了吗？ canonical NegQ · Group A (48)
3. ✓ 没付割草机的钱吗？ Group A (49) · obligation-kind / border
4. ✓ 没把账单用二十块付了吗？ Group A (53) · instrument 用
5. ✓ 帕特用二十块付了账单。 MeasureP as instrument
6. ✓ 账单没付 / 账单付了。 passive-like · document promotes
7. * 把二十块把账单付了。 no DOC of money + bill · Group A (50)
8. * 把账单把二十块付了。 money ≠ DOC Theme of bill
9. * 帕特付给克里斯账单二十块。 four-place accident

MeasureP / WH diagnostics

On pay_BILL, verbal WH’s cheap object is the document — bare or under 把. MeasureP is not ACC Theme; when present it is instrument 用. WH that treats money as the Case object of this root is a speaker swap into pay_GIVE.

1. ✓ 没付什么？ / 没把什么付了？ the bill / the invoice
2. ✓ 没付哪张账单？
3. ✓ 没付多少房租？ border · QP with sortal N
4. ✓ 用什么付了账单？ instrument
5. ✓ 用什么货币付了账单？ denomination wrapping
6. * 把二十块把账单付了什么？ no money+bill DOC
7. * 把账单把什么付了？ LBC-shaped / second 把 accident
8. ✓ 没把多少美元付给克里斯？ pay_GIVE contrast · money under 把

Superiority ranks Payer > Obligation > (optional Instrument MeasureP / Platform). Amount and Denomination never compete as two verbal WH-items of pay_BILL. 用 / 以什么货币 recode the unit or the whole QP as a PP, not as a second ACC / second 把.

Geometry · pay_BILL ≠ pay_GIVE ≠ 卖 ≠ 收/扣

In 帕特用二十块付了账单 / 没把账单用二十块付了吗, the invoice is discharged. Twenty dollars is how, not who HAS the money as Theme. That is obligation-clearance — not give-geometry pay.

• ≠ pay_GIVE / 付. Shared morphology. Split: GIVE writes MeasureP as Incremental Theme (often 把-fronted money) and Recipient as 给; BILL writes the document as ACC / 把-object and MeasureP as instrument (用). DOC: GIVE yes for money+Recipient cloth; BILL no for bill+money. e2: HAVE of Amount vs DISCHARGE of Obligation. Crossing the roots smuggles *把二十块把账单付了.
• ≠ 卖 / sell. Sell: Recipient HAS goods; Price stays inside 以/用/多少钱. BILL: document is ACC; money is instrument 用. Shared 用 is packaging — under sell it is Price INSTR; under BILL it is how one clears a document. No SWAP inversion. 把 tracks goods on 卖; 把 tracks the document on BILL (or money on GIVE).
• ≠ 收 / 扣 / charge_FEE. Shared commercial cloth. Split: 收/扣 write Pat as Source (money FROM); BILL promotes the invoice as ACC Obligation. No levy; no Domain of loss as object.
• ≠ deduct / credit_FIN. Deduct’s MeasureP is ACC decrement; Domain stays 从-PP. BILL’s MeasureP is instrument when present; the ACC is the obligation, not a ledger decrement.
• ≠ remit / wire as channel. Remit/wire sit on pay_GIVE’s cloth with Source/channel extra. Paying an invoice by wire still has the document as ACC of BILL when that is the selected object.
• Four fors / 为 stay off this ACC. GIVE’s 为 = Consideration. sell’s Price and deduct’s Reason stay apart. BILL’s object is not a Purpose PP; 为了结账 layers stay outer Type B.
• Invoice-clearance is e2. A follow-up that the twenty never left is compatible as an implicature about means; it denies e2 only of pay_GIVE. 账单还没付 denies e2 of BILL.

Shells, ApplP, and coverbs

VoiceP  [ 帕特
  (baP  [ 把  [ DP  账单 ] ]
    VP  [ √付 / √PAY_BILL   … ] )
  (PP_用  [ 用  [ MeasureP  [ Amount 二十 ] [ U 块 ] ] ]) ]

No Appl_HAVE. No Appl_SWAP. No Appl_TASK. Mandarin assigns the Bill / Obligation as the sole Case object — bare postverbal or under 把. MeasureP, when present, is a 用-PP. Platform and Source are Loc / FROM extras. Four surface participants never need two 把 of bill + money.

∃e [ DISCHARGE(e)
  ∧ PAYER(e, pat)
  ∧ Obligation(e)=账单
  ∧ INSTRUMENT(e, ⟨20, 块⟩) ]

LFG / HPSG / CCG: two PREDs for the two pay roots. On BILL, MeasureP is not OBJ; OBJ is the document. OBJ2 only on the DOC / 给 frame of GIVE.

Underivables (Mandarin)

1. * 把二十块把账单付了。 no DOC of money + bill
2. * 帕特付给克里斯账单二十块。 four-place accident
3. * 把账单把二十块付了。 money ≠ DOC Theme of BILL
4. * 二十块把账单付了。 Amount ≠ separate promote
5. * 把二十块把账单付了什么？ no money+bill WH sisters
6. * 天气付了账单吗？ Voice filter
7. * 院长没让帕特把二十块把账单付了。 two 把 under CAUSE

NegQ pointer · association sites

Negative questions on pay_BILL read the obligation geometry; they do not invent a fourth theta name of pay_GIVE. Neg sits high (没 … 吗) and associates downward. Cheap inner associate = the document. MeasureP stays instrument 用 when present. No forced collapse of payment-true onto invoice-true.

Group A packaging · this tick Mandarin BILL only

Group A (English, Japanese, Mandarin, Navajo) keeps the BILL vs GIVE Case split under Neg. This tick is Mandarin pay_BILL only — 没付账吗 / 没把账单付了吗 (document ACC / 把); *把二十块把账单付了 (no DOC); instrument 用二十块 under document-把 ((53)). English twin is live at pay-bill.html; Japanese twin at pay-bill-ja.html. Navajo: predicted obligation word plus money stem or a single discharge stem — not two Patients; remains open/scout. Label speculation; do not fake elicitation.

Open items

• Border nouns (房租 / 学费 / 罚款). One MeasureP with sortal N, or documented coercion to pay_BILL. Speculative packaging, not a fifth slot.
• Navajo obligation-word packaging. Predicted obligation word plus money stem or a single discharge stem — not two Patients. Deferred scout. spec
• Romance factura / facture / bolletta as ACC under pagar / payer / pagare, with MeasureP as con / avec / con. Companion of Group B packaging. spec
• Germanic betale regningen / die Rechnung bezahlen vs DOC-like GIVE frames. Same split under Neg. spec
• Outer CAUSE (让). Site on the making vs on DISCHARGE; instrument never becomes Causee Case under √PAY_BILL’s Mandarin cloth.
• Classifier-ride on document WH vs instrument 用, elicited against two-把. Scout beyond the attested Group A grid.

Corpus filenames

Primary extracts for this micro-entry; companions supply NegQ baselines and English / Japanese twin geometry. DOCX originals under the Tritransitive lit tree (lit/grok-tritransitive/files/). Text extracts used this tick under /tmp/pay-extracts/.