Contraction And The Syntactic And Semantic Consequences Of Contraction

Make a comprehensive view of the status in quo of the study in contraction, thefruit in the study of compound sentence contraction and word-formation contraction isvery prolific, in other words, this two field have been studied adequately. By contrast,phras-to- phras contraction has not draw adequate attention. It is the mostunsubstantial part in the study of contraction and it is the object of the study in thispaper.The dissertation comprises 8 chapters with about 100,000 words.The first chapter is an introduction.In this chapter, on the one hand, we did someconstructive works on contraction theory. These works comprise:(1) definingcontraction, primary form and contraction form;(2)sum up the character of contractionin three point;(3)discussing the underlying forces of contraction. On the other, wediscoursed upon the significance of the study on contraction and clarified the majorcontent and the theories employed in this paper.In the second chapter related to research results are reviewed. This dissertationonly studied phras-to-phras contraction, but took the integrality of learningbackground into account, we also reviewed related to research results in the other twofiled of contrction(compound sentence contraction and word-formation contraction).In this way, it is quite convenient for readers to contrast phras-to-phras contractionwith other types of contraction.Chapter Three discussed the contraction of serial verb construction and thesyntactic and semantic consequences of this contraction. The syntactic consequencesis that"verb 1 +(object 1)+ verb 2 + object 2"becoming a contracted form. Thesemantic consequences is the meaning of"verb 1"had increased. Increase of meaningof"verb 1"occurred in"verb 1+ object 2"construction. The motivation is that peoplepursue the whole meaning of a construction can be figured out from the meaning ofthe composition. The way is that people incline to decompose the whole meaning of a construction and redistribute the meaning in the remains. In this process, the meaningof"verb 1"had increased. And we approached the condition of serial verbconstruction turn into contracted form from decomposing form. The conditionscomprise: (a) the process of"verb1+object1"and"verb2+object2"is thesimultaneous;(b) object2 should be of high degree of concern;(c) the contraction formmust be checked by language systym;(d)the event which"verb 1 +(object 1)+ verb2 + object 2"construction represents should be known very well by the people.Finally, we explained some problems which were argued for mary years:how can"qu"(去)had the meaning"wang"(往), and how can"fei"(非)had positivemeaning,how can"cheng"(承)had the meaning"ting wen"(听闻). The conclusion isthat these are fruits of contraction.Chapter Four discussed the contraction which had brought about by deleting theform verb. In nature,there are mary"A ge(个) B"constructions in the using oflanguage, and a great many"AB"are words,for example,"hui bao"("汇报")"biaotai"("表态"), some of them are simple word,for instance,"lang man"("浪漫")"youmo"("幽默"), some of them are phrases, for example,"xi shou"("洗手"). The majorcontent of this chapter is that explore the way of generation of"A ge(个) B"constructions.Two rules had given in this part:(1) zuo (作)ge (个)AB→个AB→A ge (个)B(2) ge (个)AB→A ge (个)BWe splited"A ge(个) B"constructions into two types, one type have primaryforms in the using of language,the other have not primary forms. The former uses rule(1) and the latter uses rule (2). But rule (1) is a part of rule (2), in this way, two typesof"A ge(个) B"constructions have uniform explaination about the way of theirgeneration: fruits of contraction. We had proved the existence of light verb byexploring the source of the function of"lang"("浪")in"lang ge man"("浪个漫")construction. And we proposed to revise light verb theory based on the fact in Chinese.We argued that the component which should be moved may not core verb V0, in fact,the component which should be moved is A of AB,and A can be units of multifarious characters,but its form must be a whole syllable.Chapter Five discussed the contraction which had brought about by deleting thepreposition. In this chapter,we had discussed three constructions whoseSemantic-syntactic are not transparency: (1)intransitivity verbs have objectsconstructions;(2) false attributive constructions;(3)"xiang ji le"("像极了")haveobjects constructions. Their common ground is that they had all contracted,contraction processes all delete the prepositions and trigger predicates movementand merger. The contraction causes the constructions not transparency——fromdecomposing form to contracted form,and generate some new consturctions. Thecontraction also causes some changes of fuction of some categorys, for example,intransitivity verbs ture to be transitivity verbs. We had given a uniform explainationto the way of the generation of this three consturction.Chapter Six discussed that"VV"contract into"V一V". Reduplication is a veryuniversal grammatical means, especially in Sino-Tibetan. Reduplication Vv representreduced quantity, and it causes the atypism of reduplication means in Chinese. What ismore, reduplication Vv like to challenge iconicity. To explain the cause, we did someinvestigations between different languages from the perspective of typology. Theresult of our investigation is that in minority nationality languages which within theborders, the bulk use reduplication means, in these languages, except few languageshave verb reduplication representing reduced quantity, others all represent increasedquantity.To explain the cause of verb reduplication representing reduced quantity, wereviewed the development of verb reduplication, and we discovered and demonstratedthat Vv contracted from"V一v", and the former of"V一v"is"V一V"consturctionwhich has cognate object. Representing reduced quantity originated from"yi"("一")which is the minimum quantifier. Contraction principle is that not changethe meaning of primary form,in this way, Vv still representing reduced quantity. Vvconsturction is a result of contraction.Chapter Seven discussed that"da(打)/V一V"contract into"一V". In this chapter, we focus on the grammaticalize progress of"一V"consturction. Wediscovered this consturction has the same source with verb reduplication, for onething,"d(a打)/V一V"became"V一V", for another, contrcted into"一V", and some"V一V"consturctions contracted into"一V"simultaneously."一V"and verbreduplication generated almostly in the same age.Chapter Eight is the conclusion. Contractions are universal phenomenon inlanguages and it must abide by some principles. So we did some constructive workson contraction theory and explain some difficult traditional problems with principleswe had constructed.