Syntactic And Semantic Analysis Of Can-wish Verbs In Chinese Unmarked Passive Construction

Through the study of Chinese passive constructions,it is observed that can-wish verbs(Vcw,for short)have a special performance in unmarked passive constructions.This study researches the semantic and syntactic requirements of unmarked passive construction for can-wish verbs.And the generation process of unmarked passive construction involving can-wish verbs(Vcw-involved unmarked passive construction,for short)is derived,to deeply reveal the part-of-speech and function of can-wish verbs.It is hoping to give some references for Chinese acquisition and teaching.With the aid of corpus,the formation of unmarked passive construction is firstly studied.It is found that NP patient is generally[+definite]and[-animate],VP structure is[+resultful]and NP agent is usually implied.This provides the theoretical foundation for the following research.Based on the corpus and the comparative analysis with bei-construction,this study analyzes the semantic requirements of unmarked passive construction for can-wish verbs,finding that the[-animate]NP patient and the implied NP agent limit the subjective can-wish verbs to enter.Only the objective can-wish verbs are allowed to enter into unmarked passive construction.Then,the syntactic requirements of unmarked passive construction for can-wish verbs are further studied.It is found that some unmarked passive constructions do not have compulsory syntactic requirements for can-wish verbs,but some require can-wish verbs to occur in the?construction to help complete the construction.So the former is not dependent on can-wish verbs to complete the construction,but the latter is dependent on can-wish verbs to complete itself.Theses two types of unmarked passive construction are classified as Vcw-independent and Vcw-dependent unmarked passive construction,respectively.In the context of transformational-generative grammar,this study applies the derivation method proposed by James Huang to generate Vcw-involved unmarked passive constructions,in order to reveal the part-of-speech and function of can-wish verbs.This study finds that in Vcw-independent unmarked passive construction,can-wish verbs belong to lexicalized verb,mainly performing the semantic function;while in Vcw-dependent unmarked passive construction,can-wish verbs belong to light verb,performing the syntactic function to help complete the construction.