A Study On The Recursive Possessive Constructions Of Modern Chinese

The research object of this thesis is the recursive possessive structure of modern Chinese.This structure refers to the structure in which two adjacent nominal components have a possessive relationship in the multi-layer attributive phrase of modern Chinese.The structure can be recorded as“NP₁+（de）+NP₂+（de）+NP₃”,such as“the key of your house”.This thesis takes the recursive possessive structure in Lao She’s novel“Four Generations in One Hall”and Wang Shuo’s novel“I Am Your Dad”“Half Flame,Half Brine”as an example.Firstly,according to the typicality of possessive relationship,it is divided into typical recursive possessive structure and atypical recursive possessive structure.On this basis,the Chinese recursive possessive structure is described,and the law of Chinese recursive possessive structure and the law of“de”in it are discussed from multiple angles.The thesis is divided into six parts.The first chapter is“Introduction”.It mainly summarizes the research status of the definition of possession category,the research status of the semantic relationship of possession and the research status of Chinese nominal possession structure.In addition,it introduces the research object,research purpose,research method,corpus source and research idea of this thesis.The second chapter is the description of five typical recursive possessive structures.The typical recursive possession structure includes possession possession,organ possession,interpersonal possession,whole-part possession and attribute characteristic possession.The research shows that the frequency of these five types of recursive possessive structures is different.The attribute feature possessive structure has the highest frequency,and the interpersonal relationship possessive structure has the lowest frequency.It is found that there are great differences in the semantic composition of NP₁and NP₂in the recursive possessive structure of different semantic types,which is closely related to the categories of possessors of each possessive semantic type.The richer the categories of possessors,the richer the semantic relationship between NP₁and NP₂.The third chapter describes the recursive possession structure of five atypical semantic relations:scope possession,location possession,member possession,state-result possession and idea possession.The research shows that scope possession is a special kind of recursive possession structure,which intersects with attribute feature,state-result possession,member possession and idea possession.Its NP₂feature is mainly composed of“noun/noun phrase+localizer”.The frequency of atypical possessive recursive possessive structure is higher than that of typical possessive recursive possessive structure,but they are consistent in the use of grammatical format,that is,the structure of“NP₁+NP₂+de+NP₃”is more used,and the structure of“NP₁+de+NP₂+NP₃”is less used.The fourth chapter discusses the characteristics of Chinese recursive possessive structure.Based on the comparison with the general possessive structure,this thesis argues that the Chinese recursive possessive structure has the following three characteristics:First,the control ability between the items is different,which is mainly manifested in the difference between the possessive control ability between“NP₁and NP₂”,“NP₂and NP₃”and the possessive control ability between“NP₁and NP₃”.Second,there are six kinds of ellipsis in the recursive possession structure.Except for“omitting only NP₂”and“omitting NP₁and NP₃”,the omitted components can refer to the same topic.The reference point of the three-recursive possessive structure is based on the possessive subject composed of NP₁and NP₂,and has its unique positioning component“localizer”.The fifth chapter discusses the hidden rules and reasons of the word“de”.The conclusion is that the semantic relationship between NP₁and NP₂is mostly a possessive relationship with low transferability,which is easy to omit“de”;the“de”between NP₂and NP₃is mostly a possessive relationship with a higher transferable level,and the“de”is often not easy to omit;the looming of the word“de”will also be influenced by the principles of language economy,pragmatics,prosody and personal habits.The sixth chapter is the conclusion.This thesis mainly expounds the main conclusions from two aspects:the classification and statistical results of recursive possessive structure in modern Chinese and the comparison results between recursive possessive structure and general nominal possessive structure,and points out the shortcomings of this thesis.