A Study Of Verb Supplement In Modern Chinese:A Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach

The verb supplement of modern Chinese on academia has witnessed an increasing number of its research since a general debate about theories and concepts has taken place.Even though much achievement has followed,no basic agreement has been reached on the core issue with different researchers elaborating their own views from different perspective.Initially,the current concept of Chinese“complement”was influenced by western traditional grammar.Then it originated from extended classification of the relative phenomenon of verb supplement,giving rise to their close relationship.However,the lack of clear boundaries also brings much confusion.When the range of V-S(verb supplement)is extended,the corresponding“complement”also covers more content with the meaningless concept.Due to poor over-all investigations from functional semantic and syntactic perspective as well as different focusing point,previous studies are primarily centered around certain features,thus leave lots of scattered interpretation and conclusions of unconfirmed universality.To overcome the above shortcomings,this study explicates Chinese by the principle of Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL)with its basic functional viewand methodology.Firstly,drawing on a top-down perspective,related transitivity system,rank scale,stratification and grammatical metaphor are introduced in detail on the premise of indigenous research and Chinese characteristics.What follows is concept of modern Chinese“complement”from SFL.Based on it,the present thesis makes a detail study of resultative supplement,state supplement,directional supplement and degree supplement by three metafunctions and syntactic analysis.Aiming to find functional semantic and syntactic features in the way of Ranked Constituent Analysis(RCA),this study explores their interrelations of V-S to the greatest extent.And the major findings are embodied in the following:In the causative hierarchy,resultative supplement falls into three categories:non-causative,weakly-causative and strongly-causative,which differ from one another.Taking one-role non-causative supplement for example,influenced by time sequence,first verb is the realization of linguistic form of causal central predicate verbs,whose semantic core of V-S lies in latter supplemental verb.As the Predicator,it is filled by predicate group complex including composed functional element of dominator and dependent.Both them are realized by hypotactic relationship of verbal group and quality group/verbal group.In addition,the weakly-causative takes four forms with different functional semantic and syntax:natural-result self-changing agentive clause,evaluated agentive clause,the weaker causative self-changing resultative supplement and the typical weakly-causative resultative supplement.It is shown that semantic cores of the natural-result-self-changing move backward,which means its transitivity process is the same as that of the non-causative.And supplement of the evaluated agentive orientates predicate verbs,so that this kind clause formed by Subject-Predicate is'Carrier' with event property through embedding the action,which is simple processes without compounding.Its subject and supplement of both the weaker causative self-changing and the typical weakly-causative undergo their own state changes by means of external force of the predicate verb.They are[causative relational/action/mental process]and so on,in which the latter concrete process is dominated due to relatively weak cause and hypotactic relationship.Reflected in syntactic analysis,its particularity of the evaluated agentive clause in R-S(resultative supplement)is prominent,whose adjectives,as supplement constituent,aim for the event rather than the single subject.In fact,embedding clause,from the combination of predicate verbs and the starting content in subject position,is used to fill the subject of this entire clause.Ultimately,there are typical>relatively typical>atypical rank in positive-order double-participant clause of the strongly-causative.The typical clause of strongly-causative R-S,such as the class of "Dian-Liang",fuses the two verbs expressing cause and effect into a unified linguistic unit by the principle of linguistic economy.Their experiential metafunction is compound double-process.Furthermore,the middle relatively typical kind includes the clauses formed by the representative weak causative and near the strong causative end,both which plus“complement”.Similarly,the left atypical also can be divided into two categories.That is the clauses respectively derived from the natural-result-self-changing and the evaluated by adding“complement”.On the other hand,the unit of classic strongly-causative verb supplement is all the same predicate group complex.What is different from the former lies in that the logical relation of inner two events is paratactic.Directional supplement refers to the degree of grammaticalization.The non-grammaticalized can also be further divided into single-participant agentive prepositional/postpositional clause and single-participant non-agentive clause,double-participant agentive prepositional/postpositional clause and double-participant non-agentive clause.As predication extension,the directional verb of single/double-participant agentive prepositional clause,combines with the former functional predication to form a complete single process.From the point of view of linguistic unit,these two events,respectively from directional lexical verb and its preceding predicative lexical verb,are the verb group complex to fill Predicate of clause.Moreover,the ideational function of non-grammaticalizaed single/double-participants non-agentive clause is locational processes that are included in the relational processes.The transitivity of those clauses is different from the inanimate agentive that are mainly action process with directivity.Then,the left non-grammaticalized single-participant agentive postpositional clauses are Chinese fugitive clause,showing corresponding existential processes.For the grammaticalized directional supplement,there are two types in detail:one has been delexicalized,and the other is still in-process but its semantic of directional verb has been weak.In particular,the former directional verbs are prominent aspect-markers and play a structural and functional lexical role,while the latter has not yet reached the degree of functional marker.Its meaning of action for grammaticalized directional verbs has been weakened,so that directional supplement becomes the predicate-centered linguistic unit.And the transitivity processes are also decided by predicate verbs,which is Predicate in terms of syntax.Beyond these features,however,we can conclude that the directional verbs with high grammaticalization combine with verb before it to form verb group,functioning as auxiliary verbs.And the low grammaticalized directional verbs are only the extension of Predicate to help complete expression.The study finds that a few grammatical meaning of state supplement can selectively overlap each other,such as result,degree,state,evaluation,description and causation.Being similar to resultative supplement,it also has three subcategories:causative,interim causative and non-causative.Their transitivity process of former two is[causative(*process)].Since the non-causative state supplement refers to subject-directed and predicate-directed,its experiential metafunction should be on the basis of in-depth analysis.First of all,"V-de" of the subject-directed,as a marker,indicates time sequence and shows cause in the objective logical order,so that the main experiential process of clause is formed by the content of subject and supplement position.In contrast,the content before"de" is an event-centered embedded clause in the predicate-directed,in which the participant roles are also embedded.Most of them are relational processes.Due to a degree of functional indeterminacy between certain ranks,it is more applicable to analyze state supplement directly in clause level.In view of the above,the component after "de" is used to help "V-de" complete its causative experiential meaning expression,which play the role of extension of the causative Predicate."V-de" of the left non-causative not only functions as preposition extension of Predicate to finish meaning,but the realization of Predicate in the pre-embedded clause.Participants and process of degree supplements are single.Its semantic center is less affected by participants with barely second participants.Quality group,quantity group and verbal group are the main realization,which distinguish from predicate group complex of resultative supplement,verbal group complex of directional supplement that is non-grammaticalized as well as the simple word after the grammticalization,and state supplement in which there is indeterminacy among ranks.What they signified is different between "complement”in modern Chinese and Verb Supplement.Actually,the former refers to structural element,while the latter is the "V+X" system built by previous Chinese researchers with the supplemented meaning and distinguishing object after verb,in which“X”is replaceable.They fall into two categories of“structure”and“system”from the perspective of SFL.Furthermore,momentum supplement and durational complement can be summarized as the quantitative.There are own characteristics contrasted with prepositional phrases as supplement.The present study puts forward a new solution by discussing modern Chinese V-S phenomenon from SFL,which has both theoretical and practical significance.In general,it can strengthen the universal applicability of SFL with providing a theoretical reference for Chinese linguistic interpretation.And being helpful for researchers to re-examine many problems of modern Chinese V-S,it will also enrich the related research.Specifically,this study can improve the refinement of theory and be conducive to its internal self-improvement,such as confirming the compound/causative semantic relations with analyzing Chinese phenomenon in transitivity system,the determination of linguistic units(for example:Chinese verb group/predicate group complex),the expansion of logical-semantic relations within group complex,and the complementarities between Sydney grammar and Cardiff grammar.Moreover,it will provide an explanatory basis for some fields,including modern Chinese,modern Chinese teaching,translation between Chinese and muti-language,the study of Minority languages and dialects.And even this study is valuable for teaching and subsequent research.