On The Study Of The Construction "Bu V Bai Bu V"

There is a special construction “Bu V Bai Bu V（不V白不V）” inmodern Chinese. This paper discusses the creation mechanism andmotivation of the construction on the basis of an investigation into somefeatures of the construction. What’ s more, it also discusses theexistential justification of the construction as a special construction.Firstly, this makes a comparatively detailed investigation into thisconstruction in order to reveal the syntactic and semanticcharacteristics of all the components of this construction and theconstruction itself as a whole, using descriptive methods of theStructuralism Theory. There are two seemingly identical “Bu V”’s, but innature, they are different from each other. This paper thinks theconstruction has something to do with the Ordinary Subject-predictSentence: Syntactically, the former “bu V” acts as the subject while thelatter “bu V” with “bai” acts as the predict; the verbs appearing in theconstruction are comparatively controlled in the following respects:tense and aspect, reduplication, being modified, which are mostly usedto refer to humans and controllable.Besides, the construction has itsown construction meaning:“There is no point in not doing something”.Secondly, this paper discusses the creation mechanism andmotivation of the construction. It thinks that the construction results fromcompression and integration, topicalization and nominalization (thereference use of the verb). The creation motivation is the language’s pursuit of the demarking. There are two major processes for demarking:One is the structural simplification and the other is the natural matchbetween forms and meanings. The paper thinks that the structuralsimplification plays an important role in the evolution from theConcession Complex Sentence Pattern to the special construction “BuV Bai Bu V”.Thirdly, this paper compares the construction “Bu V Bai Bu V” withthe Concession Complex Sentence Pattern, the sentence pattern“Subject-Predicate” and “V (Le) Ye Bai V” and finds out the distinctionsand the relationships among them. The paper thinks that “Bu V Bai BuV” should be an independent construction because it has its ownspecific construction meaning and pragmatic function and cannot bereplaced by other constructions although it inherits forms and meaningsfrom the Concession Complex Sentence Pattern and the pattern“Subject-Predicate”.