A Treatment Of Chinese Discontinuous Constructions Within The Framework Of Categorial Grammar

Categorical grammar is based on lexicalist syntactic theories. Within the framework of categorical grammar, this thesis attempts to make a comprehensive and centralized description of Chinese discontinuous constructions, concerning: mandarin grammatical relations, topic sentences, "BA" construction, DE-complement clauses and compatible construction. Furthermore, several intensive compound sentences related to our discontinuous analysis. It is noted that all the different kinds of Chinese data mentioned above were combined based on their discontinuous property.A most prominent characteristic of lexicalist syntactic theories is that surface structure is projected by lexical rules and syntactical rules. This is primarily because syntactic information is abundant in the lexicon resorted, to lexical entry. Lexicalist syntax is skillful in the analysis of dynamic word meanings and semantics. However, this kind of syntactic theory obeys strict semantics compositionality and rule-to-rule hypothesis. Consequently, it can be deduced that the descriptive model of Categorial Grammar is both a syntactic model and a semantic model.Valence grammar is another kind of lexicalist approach. Chinese scholars have researched deeply the relationship between the semantic roles and syntactic arguments . For some reason, the research for Chinese data using the valence grammar approach does not strictly obey lexicalist principles and assumptions. This is a product of the ignorance of dynamic analysis for word meaning and many problems of grammatical relations. One example being ergativity. This can be illustrated in the following two ways.Point 1: Unlike valence grammar, another aspect to be pointed out, is that the syntactic function of dynamic word meaning analysis relies on sentence-sensitive valence of verbs.Point 2: Despite such concepts as "atomic sentence", "basic sentence" and "obligatory valence" being developed, these categories were not mapped with grammatical relations. Following these two points of views, construction grammar is developing in order to seek redress. Consequently, the goal of this thesis is to analyze some of the well-known problematic constructions in Chinese language. It is aimed to show that Chinese data can be most successfully analyzed by a monostratal syntactic theory, namely CaregoriaJ Grammars, which strictly obeys the fundamental principles of lexicalist theory.The materials in this dissertation are organized under the following chapters:Chapter one: Introduction and comments on the Categorial Grammar theory from seven points of view.Chapter two: Definition of target: Usage of tree diagram of context -free grammar in order to illustrate discontinuous constructions.Chapter three: Discussion of two different types of verbs-prototype verb and non-prototype verb.For example, using principles of Chinese locative-subject sentences, possessive-subject sentences and ditransitive sentences to support an idea related to dynamic word meaning to identify grammatical relations in mandarin Chinese.Chapter four: Topicalization: an unbounded dependency construction. The topic is differentiated from subject as a derivative grammatical relation in the language. Three principles for topicalization are established.Chapter five: Analysis of "BA" construction, DE-complement clause and compatible construction within the TVP (transitive verb phrase) framework oriented from Categorial approach.Chapter six to chapter eight: Syntactic-semantic features and causative(factitive)—event analysis to prove that "BA" constructions, DE-complement clause and compatible construction in Chinese are all TVP structures. The NP2 can be constructed as the direct object rather than under the following three manners:- the object of preposition in "BA" sentence.- compatible component in compatible construction- the object of VP1 in DE-complement clause.Chapter______nine: Discussion concerning a different discontinuousphenomena—NCC(non-constituent-conjunction). This is generated thru the combination of two coordinated and co-structure clauses. Thi...