A Study On Grammatical Features Related To Predication And Reference In Modern Chinese

The title of this thesis is "A Study on Grammatical Features Related to Predication and Reference in Modern Chinese". This thesis elaborates on the concepts of predication and reference, and gives a summary of related studies. The body of the text focuses on some of the unique grammatical features related to predication and reference. The author intends to demonstrate the relation between predicative components, substantive components and predication, and reference.In light of basic semantic theory, this paper contains an opening study on some of the unique grammatical features that are related to predication and reference. This theis explores linguistic description and all of the following conclusions are based on language phenomena from texts. Below are the main conclusions that have been made in this thesis:1. Predication and reference are two different ways of connecting linguistic signs and the outer world. Reference is the way that linguistic signs connect outer material directly. Predication is the way that linguistic signs connect action in relation to the outer world. The concepts of predication and reference are based on the concepts of sense and reference in philosophy and intension and extension in logic.2. The "N de V" is a very unique structure in modern Chinese. It's a predicative structure by nature, it's a special reference form transferred from predication form of the subject-predicate structure "NV" and the predicate-object structure "VN". "V" is still a predicative component in the "N de V" structure, in general the "V" in this structure is always low in transitivity scale.3. Predication, reference of predicative subject and object in modern Chinese are closely connected to the factuality of the predicate. A predicative subject in conditional factive container sentences and nonfactive container sentences is always referential, while a predicative subject in pure factive container sentences is predicative. A predicative object connected with a conditional factive predicate and a nonfactive predicate is referential, and a predicative object such as bare-verb or verbal structure connected with a pure factive predicate is referential. A clausal object with a pure factive predicate is predicative.4. Under some circumstances, substantive components can point to intension as predication. Substantive components in substantive predicated sentences always point to conceptual meaning as predication. Substantive components in "adverb + noun" structures point to associative meaning as predication. In "noun + noun" and "noun + verb" structures the first noun sometimes points to conceptual meaning, other times it points to associative meaning. All of these nouns fall under predication.5. Reference can be divided into different groups according to different standards: Reference can be divided into referential and non-referential; referential can be divided into generic and non-generic; non-generic can be divided into specific and non-specific; specific can be divided.into definite non-definite. The referential features are decided by glossarial and syntactic features.6. Predication and reference can convert to each other. Predication can be converted to reference when followed with "zi", "er", "tou", or can just convert in glossarial ways with no marks. In syntactic ways predication can be converted to reference when followed with "yi ge", "de", with an attributive, to be subject or object of a sentences etc. Reference can be converted to predication when followed with "hua" in glossarial ways. In syntactic ways reference can be converted to predication when followed with "le", "ne", to be the object of "shi", "dang cheng " ,"kan zuo " ,"dan ren ", or to serve as an attributive, predicate etc.