The Generalized Case Theory And Its Relevant Study On Chinese Syntactic Phenomena

As one of the module theories in the system of the generative grammar, Case Theory has received the most generalization and research. Especially, when it has been introduced to the research on the syntax of modern Chinese, a fruitful achievement has been completed by researchers and scholars. But the Case Filter has not been widely and fully adopted in the research on modern Chinese, one possible reason is that those researchers and scholars are only familiar with the classic Case Theory (Chomsky1981), and they do not pay much attention to the development of this theory, that is, the Generalized Case Filter (Xu1993). It is the Generalized Case Filter that supplies a better rational and explanation for some special construction in modem Chinese."Case", Irom the morphologiFal Fase in the traGtion grammar, the semantiF Fase in the Fase grammar, to the syntactic Case in the Case theory, is recalled and summarized in details at the beginning of this dissertation. Based on this, the author studies some special constructions in modern Chinese. The conclusions of this dissertation are:the so-called special constructions, such as the retained object construction, the substantive predicate construction, the serial verb construction and the bi-constituent construction, are generated by the combination of the Generalized Case theories and other relevant theories. The detailed statements are as follow:1. Chinese retained object construction and its synonymous construction are derived from two different a-structures respectively:"si/Eeisha le:ang Mian IXTin" anG"si/Eeisha le:ang Mian Ce IXTin". The latter is generateGthroXgh the movement oI the entire noXn phrase ":ang Mian Ge IXTin"(: ang Mian’s lather) Given Ey the Case to the initial position oI the sentenFe, while the Iormer’s derivation undergoes two steps, firstly, its constitXent, the noXn phrase ": ang Mian IXTin"(:ang Mian’s lather) moves to the initial position oI the sentenFe Given Ey the Case anGgenerates ":ang Mian IXTin si/Eeisha le"(: ang Mian’s lather GeG/was killeG), anGthen the FonstitXent "IXTin"(lather) scrambles to the end of the sentence driven by pragmatical factors. In this way, we can provide a better explanation of the unsolved problems before, sXFh as the GsappearanFe oI "Ge", the Case assignment of the obtained object, the differences between English and Chinese, the Case assignment of the kmin the front position of the sentence, the testification of the possessive relationship and so on.2. The AGj-1oXn FanstrXFtion XseGas the preGFation (lor example,"zhe ke shX Ga ye zi") is not a real substantive predicate construction, but an adjective-central construction. This conclusion can not only explain the correlation of the construction and other construction, but also defuse the paradox of the former explanation. 3. The substantive predicate construction ("zhe ke shu da ye zi") and the obtained object construction ("Wang Mian si le fu qin") share a series of characteristics. Based on "the unaccusative hypothesis" of Pulmutter (1978) and the syntactical features, the author re-describes the unaccusative syntactic phenomena in modern Chinese, and widened the category of "unaccusative" to the external of the verb, that is, the "unaccusative predicate", which is used to explain these two constructions. By doing this, he tries to help us achieve a fully understanding of the unaccustive syntactic phenomena in Chinese.4. qhis paper reclassifies the Perial s erb Construction (PS C) from the perspectives of meaning, form and function. Based on the d eneralized Case c ilter and the linguistic facts, the author puts forward "Case Release Sequence Principle (Co Pm), which can be used as the motivation of the existence of Ps C in modern Chinese and some other languages as well. All the ps C in Chinese are analyzed in great detail, which shows that all the Ps C in modern Chinese can be explained in the same way in the dissertation, fts conclusion is that Ps C is just a superficial phenomenon which is caused by mo1before the second s m,the facts from cross-language illustrate that Ps C is not a special construction in modem Chinese.R ft proves that there exists mo1in the bi-constituent construction in modern Chinese. An unified analysis mode is proposed in the dissertation, that is, the so-called "bi-constituent" is the outcome of semantic explanation instead of syntactic explanation. The "bi-constituent" is the illusion of co-reference between mo l with k m2. t hat is more, we advocate that the bi-constituent construction is not the special construction in modern Chinese, it should be grouped into Ps C. t e hold that such a treatment has many theoretical advantages.S. ft analyses the characteristics and the individuality of Ps C in the different languages, and the similarities and differences have been interpreted in the dissertation. qhey are the result of the combination of the d eneralized Case c ilter (d Cm) and the Case o elease Pequence mrinciple (Co Pm). therefore, the dispute of the finite verb and the non-finite verb in modern Chinese is re-analyzed in the dissertation. t e believe that there exists finite verb and non-finite verb in Chinese.