A Generative Study Of Chinese Comparative Constructions From The Typological Perspective

This thesis makes an attempt in classifying various types of Chinese comparative constructions in synchronic and diachronic varieties and provides a combined analysis of both typological and syntactic research in this area,aiming to offer a new perspective for the study of Chinese comparative constructions.The thesis first summarizes the nine types of Chinese comparative constructions in three varieties namely Mandarin Chinese,Chinese dialects and classical Chinese regarding type of word order:(i)SJ+A+ST;(ii)SJ+M+ST+A;(iii)SJ+A+M+ST;(iv)SJ+M+A+ST;(v)ST+M+SJ+A;(vi)SJ+A+ST+M;(vii)SJ+M1+ST+M2+A;(viii)SJ+M1+A+M2+ST;(ix)SJ+ST+M1+A+M2.Based on the classification,we divide them into three categories according to the quantity of comparative markers: CCC with no comparative marker(i),CCC with one comparative marker(ii-vi)and CCC with two comparative markers(vii-ix).As for the syntactic analysis,we take bi as a preposition in Chinese comparative constructions and regard parts of speech of comparative markers as the key to different types of word order.The comparative markers can be prepositions,adverbs or particles.With type(iii)SJ+A+M+ST as the original type,we find that the majority of these types of word order can be derived directly or indirectly from the original form despite few exceptions in virtue of X-bar theory under the generative framework.