A Study On Syntactic And Semantic Features Of Declarative Clauses In Chinese

One of the unique grammatical features of modern Chinese is that objects can be predicative components or even clauses,which are characterized as declarativeness.This thesis focuses on declarative objects,analysing their syntactic-semantic construction,dominant verbs,sementically hierarchical relations,syntactic recursiveness and taggedness.Besides these,the thesis also elaborates on alignment laws between predicate verbs and declarative objects and their thle features.Previous studies,which are static description of declarative objects,lack dynamic systematic analysis.In this study,based on operational and grammaticalization theories,the writer,with quantitative and analytic methods,makes a detailed research on formation,foundation,condition,strategy and order of alignment of declarative objects.The first chapter of this dissertation is introduction.The article explains the particularity of the declarative objects in Chinese and the current research situation,pointing out the current research limitations in research ideas,methods and so on.In this part,declarative objects and some important terms are also defined,classified and analyzed.The second chapter of this dissertation describes syntactic structure and the basis of declarative object.A declarative object can be a verbal component,an adjective component,a predication or a modifier-head structure.At a syntactic level,an object may act as a complement of subject-prominent structure or subject-hidden structure.Statistics show that the largest number of declarative objects are subject-predicate structures,which are determined by whether the subjects of the predicates in main and subodinate clauses have the same reference and their semantic features.After redefining the verbs that govern the declarative objects,among 542 Predicate-verbs 113 verbs are only followed by the declarative objects,accounting for about 20.84%.A predicate is the core element of predicate-object structure,which not only determines the form and number of objects but also other constituents in a clause.Accordingly,verbs in predicate-object construction can be verbs followed by minimum structures as verbal objects(Predicate-verbs1),adjective objects(Predicate-verbs2),predicate objects(Predicate-verbs3),subject-predicate phrasal objects(Predicate-verbs4)and bare predicates(Predicate-verbs5).Statistics show that the dominant force of Predicate-verbs determines that verbs occur in the following sequence:Predicate-verbs1>Predicate-verbs3>Predicate-verbs2>Predicate-verbs5>Predicate-verbs4.And their grammatical function corresponds to their semantic features.Among predicate-object verbs,transitive verbs can be followed by declarative objects and declarative and referent objects while intransitive verbs can only be followed by subject-predicate phrasal objects.Still,other one-syllable verbs can only be followed by objects by way of adding adverbials,complements and repetition.Predicate-verbs vary in their ability to carry object.Most of them can be followed by declarative objects freely,defined as the primary configuration;some can not be followed by adverbials or complements,thus becoming set construction;some monosyllabic predicate-verbs can only be followed by declarative objects by way of adding adverbials,complements or overlapping.The third chapter of this dissertation analyzes semantic features and motivation of declarative object.Semantically,objects act as patient,content,target,cause,purpose,agent,reference,manner,consequence and time in clauses.The most common ones are content,target.Also,according to the ways of language reflecting the physical world,predicate verbs are categorized into reality verbs,mental verbs and verbal verbs.There are 3 categories and 16 groups.The distribution of objects are determined by semantic features of predicate verbs,and the priority oder of these verbs is reality verbs,mental verbs and verbal verbs in terms of their types of semantic roles.And the priority oder of these verbs is mental verbs,verbal verbs and reality verbs in terms of their number of semantic roles.Each predicate object is a statement or supposition and has at least one inner argument.Within the object construction,the priority order of verbs is realtiy verbs,adjectives,mental verbs and utterance verbs.Predicate verbs and within-object verbs choose different complements in almost opposite order,resulting in the order of reflecting verb and being-reflected verb when the two verbs occur simultaneously,and some of declarative objects are in time order.The fourth chapter of this dissertation is about recursiveness of predication.According to the syntactic structure characteristics,declarative clauses are classified into double subjects-double predicates-single object,double subjects-double predicates,single subject-double predicates-single object,single subject-double predicates,single subject-multiple predicates.As an argument,a declarative object together with other components becomes a part of non-linear structure.In such a clause,there are at least two predicates which refer to different events.As a result,a loose clausal structure is generated.The recursiveness of predicate-objects is closely related to the sequence of human cognition,cognitive modularity and language composition.Moreover,physical reality is the basis of language composition and the reflection of mental and lingual world.Thus,the interface between levels of lingual world act as the foundation of embedding and recursing.The fifth chapter of this dissertation focuses on the modal distribution of multi-level predicate components.Modal components in clauses with declarative objects differ from other sentence patterns.Statistic findings show that multi-level predicate components in declarative clause lack modal tags of tense-aspect,negative and mood.Otherwise,these tags,separating from predicates,are distributed in declarative objects.In the process of integration,different tags of tense-aspect follow mandatory and conditioned rules respectively and all tags of negative follow mandatory rules.And tags of mood cannot be independent clauses.The sixth chapter of this dissertation discusses how to tag the predicate-verbs.In terms of the relationship between predicate verbs and tags,predicate verbs are classified into the grammaticalized,the tagging-functioning and the tagged.During the evolution of tagging predicate verbs,they have experienced the stage of expressing modality,the key of which is to adding delarative objects.Tagged in form,predicate verbs bear the characteristics of semantic intentionality,information focus in declarative objects and looseness in syntactic structures.Also,this chapter analyzes some modal tags,case tags,pragmatic case synchronically,justifying the process of tagging of predicate verbs.The seventh chapter of this dissertation analyzes the genre features of declarative objects.From the perspective of genre grammar,statistics show that declarative objects are mainly used in written artistic speech.Predicate verbs are often relation and proecss-reality verbs in an event speech while predicate verbs are mental verbs in technological speech.In both speeches,predicate objects follow bare predicates or subject-predicate structures.Thus,predicate verbs and declarative objects are rich in artistic speech.On the contrast,in colloquial speech,predicate verbs are often tranferred into pragmatic tags,attached on event predicate verbs,and more often than not they are subject-predicate structures.The eighth chapter of this dissertation is concluding part.Based on systematic analyses in the thesis,declarative objects are in essence the complication of clauses.The main innovations and optimizing of the thesis are also presented in this chapter.The main conclusions and innovations of this dissertation are:1.Syntactic-semantic construction of declarative objects,their dominant verbs and relations between them are presented and systematically analyzed in the current thesis for the first time.2.The dissertation describes sementically hierarchical relations,syntactic recursiveness of declarative objects and their tags are discussed afterwards.3.Based on corpus data,the exhaustive statistics of the declarative objects in different genres are carried out.4.The findings in the present study lay a sound foundation for future operational research on declarative obj ects.Due to subjective and objective factors,the dissertation does not describe the interactive patterns of syntax and semantics of declarative objects.Further studies are expected in the future.