A Syntactic Study Of English And Chinese Tough Constructions Under The Minimalist Program

Tough constructions(TCs)refer to the syntactic structure whose predicates are mainly limited to evaluative adjectives such as difficult/easy to express the degree of ease and difficulty.The research on tough constructions has a long history and yields fruitful results,but it is still controversial on some issues.In the current literature,the contrastive study of English and Chinese tough constructions is very limited under the framework of the Minimalist Program,especially the labeling algorithm,and there is no more in-depth explanation of the underlying reasons behind some syntactic phenomena.Based on the previous research on tough constructions,this thesis focuses on the following three questions:(1)What is the syntactic status and properties of the main components of English and Chinese tough constructions?(2)How to derive English and Chinese tough constructions under the Minimalist Program and how to explain some puzzles in the derivation with the help of the labeling algorithm?(3)What are the similarities and differences in the syntactic mechanisms between English and Chinese tough constructions?Firstly,this thesis analyzes the syntactic structures of English and Chinese tough constructions.The initial DP of English and Chinese tough constructions are generated by movement rather than base generation.The difference is that it is raised to the subject position in English while the topic position in Chinese;both English and Chinese tough predicates are raising predicates;the external arguments in subordinate clauses usually are covert,or appear in the form of for-phrase in English tough constructions while in the form of NP or by preposition "duiyu…laishuo" in Chinese tough constructions.For in for-phrase is complementizer and DP is the embedded subject,but Chinese implicit argument or explicit NP is base-generated in embedded clause and then must be raised to the matrix subject;English infinitival clause is an argument and cannot be omitted,which is followed by a complex null operator(CNO)composed of an empty operator and the co-referential DP.Chinese tough complement is a VP not TP or CP.Secondly,this thesis expounds the derivation of English and Chinese tough constructions by adopting the Minimalist approach.The reason why CNO in English tough constructions crossing a finite clause is impossible is that null operator and CP bear the sharing Q feature,so the set is successfully labeled and resulting in CNO cannot continue to move forward.It also accounts for the contradiction between wh-movement and tough movement.If the wh-phrase is located at the left end of the CNO,it will form a barrier to restrict the CNO to move forward,but if located at the right end of the CNO,it will not block the wh-phrase for further movement since the null operator is invisible to the minimal search.In Chinese ditransitive tough constructions,only the direct object DP can be raised to the topic position of matrix clause.In addition,because of the subordinate clause lacking CP layer that bears φ feature,(p feature on the embedded subject NP cannot be checked,thus NP must be raised to the main clause.Thirdly,this thesis discusses the comparative analysis between English and Chinese tough constructions.They both display eventuality.The adjective predicates difficult or easy describe an event rather than a pure state.Besides,they show both A and A’-like properties and their argument structures are consistent.However,the parameter setting of CNO in English and Chinese tough constructions is different based on the same principle.English tough construction is(+CNO),whereas Chinese tough construction is(-CNO).Moreover,only the embedded object DP in English tough constructions can be raised,while more than one constituent including subject NP,object DP and PP in the embedded clause of Chinese tough constructions can be raised since English and Chinese tough predicates select different categories,meanwhile,object DP and PP carry topic features in Chinese tough constructions.Lastly,English tough constructions can alternate with non-TCs such as the expletive construction and the clausal subject construction,while Chinese tough constructions cannot be transformed in this way.This thesis explores English and Chinese tough constructions under the condition of the latest theories of the Minimalist Program,which cannot just make a unified explanation for them,deepen the understanding of this structure,but verify the accuracy of the theory and the simplification and efficiency of the syntactic computation as well.