Formal Semantic Analysis Of Selected Constructions In Mandarin Chinese

This dissertation contributes to the formal semantic analysis of the selected constructions in Mandarin Chinese, which is based on theories in the field of formal linguistics. These theories, to put it more precisely, cover both classic ones, such as the model theory, the rule to rule hypothesis, logic translation and type theory, and the latest achievements including the Cooper Storage within the framework of HPSG, non-Compositional theories, and the formal studies of event semantics. Following the conventional approach adopted by the formal linguists, the analysis of semantics is by means of logic formula. An extended logic semantic analysis is proposed, aiming at the study of partial constructions in Mandarin Chinese. By "extended", it makes sense to propose two principles, one is the (semantic) type re-arrangement principle and the other is logic predicate principle. These two principles are supposed to maintain a complementary relation, and to the utmost extend, to guarantee the practicality and effectiveness in the process of semantic computation.The advantages of applying logic means to represent semantic information is not only due to its unambiguity and accuracy, but also the attempt of computational implementation of the relevant semantic analysis. In our practice, the SICStus version of Prolog is intentionally chosen for the purpose of implementing semantic generation of some typical cases among the constructions discussed. Furthermore, the semantic generation, in this dissertation, mainly follows the type-driven approach, which keeps with the extended logic analysis we have .Details are divided into the following eight chapters.Chapter one: "Introduction" makes a review of the related literature, elaborates the researching purpose, illustrates the researching basis and introduces the outline of the contents.Chapter two: "Fundamental notions in formal semantics and principles of Prolog parsing" starts with the fundamental ideas in the formal semantic study, including the model theory, rule to rule hypothesis, logic translation and type theory. It follows byindicating the fact that these ideas form the foundations of both the semantic analysis and the case parsing with Prolog implementation.Chapter three: "An extended logic semantic analysis" concentrates on the methodology applying for the semantic analysis in the following chapters. It mainly discusses the two principles of this methodology, namely the type re-arrangement principle and the logic predicate principle. In addition, it explores theoretical features and the practical value of these two principles.Chapter four: "Logic semantic analysis and computation of argument controlling predicates and non-argument controlling predicates" develops its discussion within Logic Language Lt and partial Chinese Grammar C_t. It subclassifies the verb-predicates into two kinds, argument controlling predicates and non-argument controlling predicates, while the former can be further divided into argument-as-subject controlling predicates and argument-as-object controlling predicates. These classifications are well defined from the view of formal analysis. Moreover, this chapter treats the argument-as-object controlling predicates with further detailed sub-classifications.Chapter five: "Logic semantic analysis and computation of quantifier-contained sentences" starts with a comparison of four logic semantic analyzing proposals of dealing with quantifier-contained sentences. It follows with a discussion of how to appropriately describe the semantic generation of quantifier-induced scope ambiguious sentences in Mandarin Chinese by means of the Cooper Storage theory in HPSG. The second half of this chapter emphasizes such issues as existential quantifiers in Mandarin Chinese, "you" construction - a typical kind of existential quantifier-contained sentences in Chinese, as well as the constraints on universal quantifier-contained sentences. This chapter is studied within Logic Language Lq and partial Chinese Grammar Cq, which are respectively incremented by Logic Language...