A Study Of The Restrictions On Constructions Of Negative Forms

Affirmative and Negative are two semantically opposite categories. They will surely exert their influences on all kinds of sentence structures. Actually, many scholars have already noticed their influences on syntax; for example, affirmative and negative are distributed asymmetrically. Taking negative as the point of observation the paper folds in two directions. First, some special negative or negative-priority constructions are studied, through which the government on the constituents within the sentence by the meaning of the negative construction is explained. And second, the meaning of words (including the conceptual meaning and the grammatical meaning) is studied, which can anti-control the syntactic structure, and in Chinese some words demand negative constructions after them. The paper is divided into eight parts.Part one is an introduction, in which the relation between the category of negative and the notion of negative is explained, the scope of negative sentences is set, the difference and correlation between affirmative and negative are investigated, previous studies on the subject are introduced in detail, and finally the study direction and structure of the paper are made clear.From part two to part six, special negative or negation-priority constructions are discussed. In part two the priority and motivation of the construction "V bu (不) C" is investigated. First, both in Putonghua and Chinese dialects "V bu (不) C" is used much more frequently than "V de (得) C", which proves that "V bu (不) C" is a negative-priority construction. And then the asymmetry of the forms and meanings of these two constructions are introduced. There is an inner relation between this asymmetry and the negative priority of the construction "V bu (不) C". Finally, the motivation of the negative priority of the construction "V bu (不) C" is explained in iconicity, grammaticalization and economical principle.In part three the construction "bu (不) V le (了) " is studied. This construction is an ambiguous one that has three connotations, and each connotation demands its own syntactic features. Meanwhile "le (了) " and "bu le (了) " are analyzed. Finally, the pragmatic value and the motivation of the construction "bu (不) V le (了)" denoting "refusing" in politeness are discussed in detail.In part four the construction "yi (一) + classifier + a negative construction" is studied. In this part, the choice of and restriction on the classifier and word order imposed by the construction are discussed first. Then the synchronic features and diachronic development of the construction are explained. Meanwhile the grammaticalization process of the construction is explored.In part five the collocation of the negative construction and the mood auxiliary at the sentence final is studied. The study shows that the negative mood will surely exert its influence on the mood auxiliary at the sentence final.In part six and seven negative-oriented adverbs in Chinese are studied. In part six the negative-oriented adverbs are classified and their pragmatic values are discussed. In this part a cognitive explanation to the affinities between the negative-oriented adverbs and the negative forms is made. Meanwhile some examples in English, French and Russian are taken to demonstrate that negative-oriented adverbs are universal. Part seven is a case study, in which "genben (根本)" and "yagen (压根 )" are compared in syntax, usage and pragmatic value thoroughly and some inner features of the negative-oriented adverbs are described.Part eight is a conclusion, in which some semantic factors contradicted to negative are abstracted and the rightfulness of the theory of clausal government is proved.