This is because with zaak ‘pick’ being the verb of do-faa ‘the flower’, the object NP tends to be
interpreted in its entirety, making the semantics of the predicate zaak-do-faa ‘pick the flower’
analogous to that of a “once-only” predicate. Hence, the only way to save the grammaticality of
(70) is to have the predicate interpreted collectively, which is not possible in the case of (70).
Therefore, the underlying reason leading to the ungrammaticality of (70) is not the failure of -saai
to interpret with the subject NP, but the clash between the plural subject and the “once-only”
interpretation of the predicate. (70) cannot be used as a piece of evidence supporting the subjectobject asymmetry in transitives, in the way it is put forth in Tang.