A Dynamic Account Of Chinese Reflexive:At The Syntax-Pragmatics Interface

Chinese reflexive ziji is a hot issue in theoretical linguistics in recent three decades.Previously,it is mainly studied from the perspective of syntax,semantics and pragmatics.As the updating of studying instruments,ziji has also become an important topic to psychological experiments.However,neither the theoretical analysis nor the experimental analysis provides a satisfying answer to the long-distance binding ziji.Based on the corpus of naturalistic Chinese data,we employ Dynamic Syntax to parse the comprehending process of ziji.Through dynamic parsing,we argue that the nature of Chinese reflexive ziji is a pragmatic substitution process.In discourse context,communicators can only choose one perspective center for ziji following the relevance principle.This dissertation consists of six chapters:The first chapter introduces the studying background,the studying goals and contents,the studying theory and methodology and the structure of this dissertation.The second chapter first clarifies the evolutionary process of Chinese reflexive ziji.Then we mainly review the previous linguistic studying of ziji from the following perspectives:syntax,semantics,pragmatics and experimental analysis.We point out the advantages and the disadvantages of the previous studying,which will lay a foundation for the dynamic parsing in the following chapter.The third chapter introduces the theory we employ in this dissertation:Dynamic Syntax.We first present the basic linguistic ideas and several important concepts relating to Dynamic Syntax,such as the dependency principle in context,the structural relationship etc.Afterwards we introduce the major model and instruments in Dynamic Syntax.Dynamic Syntax uses tree diagram to represent the lexical concepts.And we apply modal logic,computational rules,lexical actions and pragmatic actions into constructing tree diagram.We further present the detailed constructing process of tree diagram via tree decoration,requirement,tree logic,computational rules,lexical actions,pragmatic actions,LINK rules.Based on this,this chapter also depicts the dynamic parsing process of quantifier phrase.The fourth chapter builds the parsing model suitable for modern Chinese,which will pave the road for parsing ziji.This chapter first discusses the similarity and the difference between Chinese and other languages in the initial step from the perspective of universality and individuality.Afterwards,we depict the parsing model of verbal underspecification and subcategorization in accordance with the specific behavior of verb in modern Chinese.Based on this model,we further explore verb’s restrictive feature.At last,the lexical action of ziji is defined.The fifth chapter applies the model established above to parsing Chinese reflexive ziji.We begin with the description of the single ziji appearing in different positions,such as object,subject and possessive construction.Then we discuss the comprehending process of ziji in bei construction and in ellipsis.Finally,we also discuss the understanding process of multiple zijis appearing in one sentence.The sixth chapter makes a conclusion.We also figure out the creativity and the shortcoming of this dissertation and the prospect to the future studying.