Maonan Verb Study

This dissertation aims to investigate the grammatical meanings and grammatical features of Maonan verbs. 644 commonly-used verbs are addressed in terms of their syntactic structures and semantic features. The theory about the three planes of linguistic analysis, the theory of valence grammar and the theory of construction grammar in the field of cognitive linguistics are altogether applied to achieve the purpose of the study. The major innovations of the dissertation lie in three points: (i) a relatively comprehensive analysis of the syntactic features and semantic structural patterns of Maonan verbs; (ii) the uncovering of the strongly productive 'verb-object' construction in terms of allowing various kinds of objects; (iii) the recognition of focus status for the verbal complement in 'predicate-complement' constructions and an explanation of the linguistic mechanisms in producing verbal resultant complements.Maonan is one of the insufficiently-studied languages in the Sino-Tibetan family. In particular, the study of its grammatical system has never been approached with due attention, not to mention the study of its verbs. This dissertation attempts tentatively to fill the gap with regard to the study of Maonan verbs by offering a relatively comprehensive analysis with the help of modern linguistic theories and methodologies. Hopefully, the present study will be of some value in promoting our...