| As the typical types of clauses, English and Chinese relative clauses present respective grammaticalization process, during which similarities and differences are revealed. On the foundation of grammaticalization theory, supported by corpus of different periods, the thesis has made full descriptions on grammaticalization process of English and Chinese relative clauses so as to provide a detailed comparative study of them. The results are in the following:(1) According to different relativizers, English relative clauses are divided into that-relative clauses and wh-relative clauses, while Chinese relative clauses have three types:di (de)-relative clauses, zhi-relative clauses and zhe-relative clauses. Among them, that-relative clauses and di (de)-relative clauses are the respectively main types of English and Chinese relative clauses due to their highest frequency of use.(2) In the aspect of English relative clauses, relativizer that enjoys a cline of grammaticalization as’demonstrative pronoun﹥subordinator﹥relative pronoun> gapping’. Following three stages of grammaticalization, the accordingly relative clause constructions evolve themselves from parataxis to subordination. In OE period, the original parataxis structure is’NP+(Personal Pronoun)+[t?t/tesubordinator*(Personal Pronoun)]+Scorrelative]’. There is a personal pronoun coexisting with t?t/te (that) anaphoric to the NP they modify. Reanalysis happens when it comes to Middle English period. With the loss of personal pronoun, the form is reduced, and the structure evolves to be hypotaxis which is expressed as ’NP+[thatsub+S]’. This is the first stage of grammaticalization process. Then boundary changes and the structure tends to be subordination in Early Modern English period with the increasing dependency of that-structure embedding into matrix clause. And the structure is solidified as’NP+[thatrel*Srel]’, which marks the second stage. The third stage occurs in Modern English period. As the gapping of relative pronoun that, the relative clause is with or without relativizer. In addition, taking which for example, the thesis discusses wh-relative clauses. The cline of grammaticalization of which is ’interrogative> fuzzy conjunction> relativizer’in which there contains two stages of grammaticalization:’[wh-interrogative+S]>[S1/NP+[wh-fuzzy conjunction*S2]]﹥[S1/NP+[wh-relative pronoun*S2]]’.(3) In Chinese relative clauses, the cline of grammaticalization of di (de) is ’dicontent﹥didemonstrative pronoun﹥distructural particle﹥destructural particle containing three stages. With the extension of grammatical functions and increasing frequency of use, di (de)-relative clause structures are reanalyzed by transferring boundaries. In Early Middle Chinese period, the first stage of di-structure is’[NP+[didem*NP]]﹥[VP+[didem*NP]]’, with the extension of function from noun modifier to verb modifier. Things changes in the second stage since Late Middle Chinese period when di is grammaticalized as structural particle due to the change of grammatical environment. The structure evolves to be’[[VPmodifier*di structural particle]+NP head]’, Then under the influence of voice weakening in Early Modern Chinese period, di is completely replaced by de. Analogized by di-relative clause structure, de-relative clause structure comes out. The structure is solidified as’[[VPmodifier*de structural particle]+NPhead]’-Moreover, the thesis investigates two ancient Chinese relative clause type. The evolution of zhi-structure is following the process of boundary changes and reanalysis of structural particle. The grammaticalization path is’NP1+[zhipronoun*NP2]﹥[NP1*zhistructural particle]+NP2﹥[VP*zhistructural particle]+NP﹥[VP*gapping]+NP’. As for zhe-structure, it follows the expanding of function of’VP+zhe’ construction. Its grammaticalization path is’[VP+zhestructural particle]﹥[VP+zhestructural particle+VP]﹥[VP+zhestructural particle+NPhead]’(4) There are many similarities between English and Chinese main relative. In terms of grammaticalization characteristics, both ralativizers are emerged from pronouns; both have enhancements of syntactic constraints and both have phonetic weakening. As for the grammaticalization of relative clause structures, both of their combining strategies have changed along the pathway of parataxis> hypotaxis> subordination. In terms of grammaticalization mechanisms, both of them have reanalysis and analogy which can be clearly seen in their evolution. In terms of relativization strategies, both of them are basically in accordance with accessibility hierarchy, which are able to relativized of NP in any position of sentences. In addition, metaphor and metonymy are the cognitive motivations to explain grammaticalization similarities of them. In the grammaticalization process of English and Chinese relative clauses, they indicate the metaphorical mapping from physical domain to abstract domain. Moreover, both English and Chinese relative clauses whose subjects are relativized show EVENT FOR AGENT metonymy.(5) The differences of grammaticalization firstly come to the stage characteristics in grammaticalization process of English and Chinese main relative clauses, which are not corresponded in some certain periods. Secondly, they show different grammaticalization mechanisms. English wh-relative clauses have great relations with subjectification while Chinese relative clauses link to the analogy of quantifiers. What’s more, compared with Chinese relative clauses, English evolves with higher grammaticalized degree in the process due to frequency of corpus and the grammaticalized degree of relativizers. And English and Chinese also have different relativization strategies, among which English relative clauses is more active. Iconicity of order explains the differences of English and Chinese relative clauses, especially the restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses.All in all, the study of this thesis can enrich the application of grammaticalization in clause structures and deepen our understanding of relative clauses. |
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