A Contrastive Study On English And Chinese Tough Constructions

Within the framework of the Minimalist Program combined with the Small Clause Theory, this thesis has made a comparison between the English and Chinese Tough Constructions, aiming to discover the similarities and differences in the generations of the two structures. As a universal language phenomenon, tough constructions have shared two key properties: a) semantically they are involved with the adjectives expressing ease and comfort; b) syntactically the object of the posterior verb (to the tough adjective) is preposed to the major subject position. To be more specific, the English and Chinese tough constructions have shared the same set of principles and parameters which have been adjusted in line with their distinct language systems.This thesis has first studied the tough properties on the surface of the two structures, and then revealed the same derivation process in-between. The English and Chinese tough constructions are both base-generated with a tough adjective and an embedded small clause. They are thus derived through a series of merges, moves and other operations, during which they present us with distinguished properties under the influence of the different language systems.They are similar to each other in that both involve 1) adjectives expressing degree of ease and comfort; 2) Predicate-Complement structure; 3) attribution of the adjectives on the whole event, including the agent and the action, not just one separate argument or some other elements; 4) an unspecified subject/agent of the embedded clause; and 5) V-O relations between the subject and the verb.Once we go further, English tough constructions and Chinese tough constructions have presented more uniformity. For instance, the to-infinitive clause in English tough construction is assumed to be a dependent IP which has its own tense, though restricted to the matrix tense. Furthermore, Chinese tough constructions seem to show the same tense property as in English. Thus English and Chinese tough constructions should own the same tensed IP in nature, with the former having an overt one while the latter a covert one.Meanwhile, the thesis has made another assumption upon the specifier, taking it as a Sleepy Case Assignor. Once the head verb is able to assign case, it will be waken up to assign the case required by the head verb; if case is unavailable for the head verb, the specifier will push the assignee up to an adjacent position for case or introduce another case assignor. In line with this hypothesis, the traditional preposition for is redefined as a case assignor available for the sleepy specifier, which will be used once the agent of the event within the small clause is referential. But if the agent is arbitrarily referential, formulated as PRO, it will assign a null case to it, which has no overt expression but can be semantically perceived. In Chinese tough constructions, it has been proved through a great amount of data that the verbs posterior to the adjectives should have an unspecified agent, receiving a null case from the specifier.To summarize, English and Chinese tough constructions should share the same derivation process. They differentiate from each other due to the distinct parameters they choose.