| This dissertation is concerned with the aspectual system in Chinese, especially that in Modern Standard Chinese and its basic dialect, Beijing Dialect. The aspectuality mentioned here consists of two groups: the situation types composed of the inner semantic features of predicates, the various grammatical meanings conveyed by the semi-particalized constituents such as 'qilai, xiaqu, wan, hao' (directive or resultative in verb compounds) and reduplication and the more particalized constituents 'zhe, liao, guo, laizhe'. Aspectuality is the representation of the inner temporal structure of events. The paper tries to establish a four-level Chinese aspectual system by the microcosmic study of specific problems. Methodologically, the paper will analyze the syntactic and semantic features of aspectuality in Chinese from the systematic perspective, investigate the function of the aspectual markers from the point of discourse and analyze the aspectual phenomenon based on the database. The paper presupposes the theories of Smith (1991), Olsen (1997), Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca (1994) and Dahl (2000b).It is argued in the paper that the aspectual system of Chinese is a four-level system composed of the situation aspect, the phasal aspect, the peripheral viewpoint aspect and the core viewpoint aspect. The fundamental situation aspects are normally divided into four groups: state, activity, accomplishment and achievement. The semantic distinctions among them are based on the privative opposition with the contrast features. The temporal structures of the clauses are composed of the verbs and the relevant constituents. The phasal aspects are the representation of specific phases of the situation, and the phasal aspects of Chinese include the ingressive aspect and the successive aspect represented by the particalized constituents 'qilai', and 'xialai, xiaqu' respectively, the completive aspect and the resultative aspect represented by the complement constituents 'wan, hao, guo' and 'dao, de, zhe' respectively, the delimitative aspect shown by the verb reduplication and the iterative aspect represented by the duplication structure such as 'shuo-lai-shuo-qu'. In chapter two and three, the paper studies the semantic features of the delimitative aspect and the iterative aspect, and the relations between them and the aspects of other levels. In chapter four, the paper studies the completive aspect and the resultative aspect, especially on their different paths in grammaticalization.The peripheral viewpoint aspect is one with less grammaticalization level, including the perfect aspect and the progressive aspect. The markers of the perfect aspect of Chinese include: 'guo', the sentence final 'le', 'laizhe, laile/qule' and the sentence final 'lai' in composite directional complements. Chapter five concentrates on the current relevance of sentence final 'lai' in composite directional complements. Chapter six is concerned with the development of 'laizhe', the problem of subjectivisation and the Manchu language's effect on 'laizhe'. In chapter seven, the paper discusses about thedevelopment of the future usage of sentence final 'le' and its typological significance. The core viewpoint aspect refers to those with higher grammaticalization level, including perfective and imperfective. The perfective marker in Chinese is the word final 'le' and the imperfective marker is the word final 'zhe', Chapter eight focuses on the synchronic and diachronic relations between the imperfective and progressive markers in Chinese. In chapter nine, the inner distinction among the imperfective or progressive markers such as 'zhe', 'zheng', 'zhengzai', 'zai' and 'ne' is discussed. The author shows that those markers reflect the differences of the focality and subjectivity.Chapter ten is a conclusion of the dissertation concerned the aspectual system and some theoretical points. The four levels of aspectual system in Chinese are closely related. From the synchronic perspective, they are connected by the final points and the non-final points.
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