On The Predicativeness Of English Syntactic Configuration

In an attempt to rebuild the English pedagogic grammar system and its corresponding simplified theoretical explanation system,this dissertation,from a typological perspective,with syntactic predicativeness being the key thread,some instrumental categories redefined,and theoretical linguistic theories applied,conducts a systematic description,analysis,and explanation of the English syntactic configuration,so as to construct a systematic and holistic English syntactic explanation system.The core function of a language is for people to predicate about the world,and a full predication consists of two parts: a referential part and a predicative part,namely,a subject-predicate construction.A complete sentence has to contain at least one set of such subject-predicate construction.How one or more than one set of subject-predicate construction gets accommodated within an individual English sentence is a syntactic issue.This dissertation puts the immediate constituents of English subject-predicate constructions,namely English phrases,into seven types,based on which,this dissertation finds out the syntactic marking pattern of a simple English sentence: syntactically,English marks only the primary predicate with a tensed verb,leaving the referential constituent and the secondary predicate unmarked(the way they originally are).This dissertation also finds that this syntactic marking pattern is the most economical for English.When analyzing the syntactic configuration of English primary predicate and secondary predicate,this dissertation makes the two findings below.1)As a head-initial(VO)language,the syntactic heads of English syntactic constructions are consistently marked initially.2)The number of syntactic positions for secondary predicates in an English sentence ranges from zero to nine(not counting coordinating ones).Meanwhile,structural predicativeness can well serve to explain English syntactic configuration,such as the following three findings:1)Cross-linguistically,predicative phrases tend to outnumber referential ones: there are four types of English phrases that are solely predicative,one type solely referential,and two types both predicative and referential.2)Cross-linguistically,the N-V structure is the most typical subject-predicate construction,and any construction that is put in the V slot tends to become predicative: even English referential constructions serve to predicate when put in the V slot.3)This dissertation proposes The Principle of Omitting Redundant Predicate: In constructions that function predicatively,if there exists some predicative constituent that can or tend to be omitted,this constituent must be a redundant predicate,and there must be some other constituent that marks the construction's predicativeness.This principle serves to explain the omission of prepositions and beings in English.As for instrumental terms,this dissertation redefines the following ones: phrase,clause,particle(redefined as adverb),complement,Double Object Construction(redefined as Object-Complement construction),Absolute Nominative Construction(redefined as Absolute Accusative Construction).Finally,this dissertation,from a typological perspective,generalizes that there exists certain syntactic configuration pattern that makes sense in almost every language so that languages can be learnt and used,and English is no exception.All in all,this dissertation aims to bridge theoretical grammar and English pedagogic grammar in order for theory to better play its role in explaining and guiding practice.Hopefully,this dissertation may serve as a reference for English grammarians,teachers,learners,and all grammarians who aim to study a single language from a cross-linguistic perspective.