The Ancient Chinese Unaccusative Verb Study

Inspired by the research of Beth Levin and Malka Rappaport Hovav in 1995 which considers unaccusative verb is decided by verb's sense but represented by syntax and taking the related theories on unaccusative verbs for referrence,this dissertation deals with the syntactic function of unaccusative verbs in Pre-Qin Chinese,and illuminates that unaccusativity not only have its actual linguistic foundation,but also take on its own complexities.Based on verbs semantic,Pre-Qin Chinese unaccusative verbs are mainly classified as state verbs,directional verbs, verbs of existence and appearance,psych verbs and stage-level adjectives.This paper makes diagnostics for unaccusative verbs and tests their reliability.It discusses the typicality of various semamtic unaccusative verbs,the direction about the derivation of unacussative verbs and syntatic-morphology in point.Apart from exordium,this dissertation is composed of two parts:chapterⅡtoⅥconstitute the first part which reviews the detailed syntactic function of unacussative verbs.ChapterⅦtoⅩconstitute the second part and each chapter devoted to the interrelated theories study.Chapter 1 briefly reviews the current study on verbs of Pre-Qin Chinese and its shortcomings,and also introduces our research tropism,research ideas and methods as well as significance.Chapter 2 investigates syntactic function of state verbs,taking nineteen verbs in all as examples,such as 'bai'(败),'zhe'(折),'duan'(断),'jin'(尽),'huai'(坏) and so on.Owning to state verbs are the typical unaccusative verbs cross-linguisticly, this chapter sums up unaccusative verb diagnostics as following:the minimum clause is NP V,and this noun phrase,which is semantically self-sufficiency is the direct internal argument of this verb;The unaccusative verbs have causative alternation pairs that object of the latter and subject of the former bear the same semantic role. Unaccusative verbs can form possessive-genitive construction.They can occur as participle adjective conversion,corresponding to the past-participle in English which indicates "perfect" or "passive". Chapter 3 argues syntactic function of directinonal verbs,taking 'ru'(入), 'chu'(出),'qu'(去),'lai'(来),'chao'(朝)and 'qian'(迁)as examples.It advances directinonal verbs are not typical unaccusative ones,which probably are associated with the agentive feature of verbs of inherently directed motion.Chapter4 investigates syntactic function of verbs of existence and appearance like 'qi'(起),'zuo'(作),'xing'(兴) and 'li'(立).In Pre-Qin Chinese verbs of existence and appearance have causative alternation pairs what is particular cross-lingusticly.Their syntactic function is well parallel to state verbs,so verbs of existence and appearane must be typical unaccusative verbs.Chapter 5 investigates syntactic function of psych verbs like'nu'(怒),'ju'(惧), 'wei'(畏),'fu'(服),'yue'(悦) and 'xi'(喜).The function shows that psych verbs interior are inconsistent on unaccusativity.There propable is a continuum from causative psych-verbs to un-causative psych-verb.The causative psych-verbs has the property of unaccusativity,but can't always pass all the diagnostics,which proves complexities of unaccusativity.Chapter 6 investigates the syntactic function of adjectives like 'shun'(顺), 'luan'(乱),'shen'(深) and 'da/xiao'(大/小).The study shows that the causative capability of adjectives in Pre-Qin Chinese must be a continuum,and among which the most capable ones are stage-level adjectives.The stage-level adjectives,which are provided with the same phonetic phenomenon with the state verbs,have the property of unaccusativity.The causative capability of individual-level adjectives is weak and they are not suitable as unaccusative verbs cross-linguisticly.Adjectives have other syntactic functions different from verbs,so they belong to a single category in lexical system and stage-level adjectives are still not typical unaccusative verbs.Chapter 7 summarizes the syntactic realization of unaccusative verbs indeed have own properties and laws of by contrast with the syntax function of typical un-ergative verbs and transitive verbs.This chapter discusses if the diagnostics cross-linguisticly this article puts forward are reasonable from verbs' own semantic properties.It also proposes that verbs' causative level sequence is:unaccusative verbs＞unergative verbs＞transitive verbs and the typicality sequence of unaccusativity series is:state verbs,verbs of existence and appearance＞verbs of inherently directed motion＞psych verbs stage-level adjectives.Chapter 8 discusses derivative directions of unaccusative verbs.There are two derivative ways of unaccusative verbs in Pre-Qin Chinese:one direction is that the transitive verbs derive from unaccusative verbs which belong to the original form of unaccusative verbs;the other is that the unaccusative verb derive from the transitive verbs,the latter derivation is not simply detransitive,but comes from the perfect form of transitive verbs.On the base of this conclusion this dissertation considers that there are two kinds of voiceless-voiced alternative in Pre-Qin Chinese and expounds unaccusative verbs such as 'jian/xian'(见) type are the perfect forms of their voiceless alternative.Chapter 9 argued what the Pre-Qin Chinese type point to.The paper provides much more syntactic-morphology phenomena to exhibit the face of Pre-Qin Chinese. Such as transitivity expansion in Pre-Qin Chinese proves the verbs is not suitable to be classified into the category of transitivity;the presence of nominal constituents is non-obligatority in syntax,in particular,the emergence of the subject is most free. there doesn't exist the real passive and the real anti-passive but the causative;The objects' complexities in the semantics and the realization in syntax can be comparable to dative mark la in Tibetan.The primary word order in Pre-Qin Chinese is SVO,and the same time SOV type also exists.These phenomena prove Pre-Qin Chinese is a hybrid language that is closely related to Tibetan and what affect the essence of syntactic-morphology in Pre-Qin Chinese is the verbs' classification.The link between ergative mark and the causative prefix in Tibetan shows that the earlier type of the Pre-Qin Chinese must be a semantic ergative language.Chapter 10 is a conclusion of the whole thesis,summing up both the innovative opinions and the question still requiring further explantation.