A Typological Study Of Causatives In Chinese

In an approach combining linguistic typology and grammaticalization theory, this dissertation examines causative expressions in Chinese. Causatives are universal phenomenon in human languages. The dissertation makee use of study achievements of many linguists such as Shibatani(1976 , 2001), Comrie(1989) and Dixon(2000).Typologically causatives are generally held to consist of three major types: morphological (Kong jian fangzi gei wo), lexical(kill a man) and analytic(Rang wo hen gaoxing). Because of the syntactic similarities between lexical causatives and morphological causatives, in this dissertation, there are two major types: synthetic and analytic.There are two major types of causatives in mandarin: synthetic and analytic. There are three kinds of synthetic causatives: morphological (Kong jian fangzi gei wo) and zero-marked (Duanzheng taidu) and compound causatives (Lianggan yifu). In these three kinds of synthetic causatives, the use of of morphological and zero-marked causatives is relatively rare weak. And only compound causatives is more often used, but its composition is more similar to that of analytic causatives. So analytic causatives are major in Chinese. There are three kinds of analytic causatives: permissive (Pai ta qu kaihui) and periphrastic (Rang wo hen gaoxing) and isolating with "de" (Ma de ta ku le) ..This dissertation investigates semantics and syntax of analytic causatives and discovers that periphrastic and isolating have more common grounds in semantics than permissive and permissive is a special kind of causatives. There is a functional word of "de" in isolating. This dissertation probes its causative meaning in modern Chinese.There are four kinds of analytic causatives: permissive and periphrastic and particle-marked causative constructions and isolating in ancient Chinese. The dissertation discusses the origin of isolating causative with "de". The dissertation discovers that Mv, a new marker of causatives appeares before E V in ancient Chinese in the influence of Buddhist translation. Following the appearance of Mv, there emerge three new analytic causatives based on three kinds of old analytic causatives: permissive and periphrastic and particle-marked causative constructions. The action of Mv and the tendency of disyllablicalization result in the emergence of the isolating causatives with causative marker. "De" was one of causative markers in ancient Chinese. The isolating causatives with other causative marker except "de" disappeared. So in mandarin there is a "de"m the isolating causatives.