Light verb syntax and the theory of phrase structure

This work aims to an explanatory theory on the construction of phrase structure and the licensing of arguments in natural language. The data that is focused on in this work is the array of phenomena in Mandarin Chinese called the unselectiveness of subject and object. It is shown that an action verb in Mandarin Chinese can freely take a agent, a locative or a causer as surface subject, and an instrument, a location, a time, or a reason as surface object. Scrutiny on the relevant facts reveal that the phrase structure in the Mandarin Chinese sentence is composed of eventuality predicates, syntactically as light verbs, which license arguments and introduce them in to the structure. In this sense, Mandarin Chinese can be said to be a "Davidsonian" language, since the composing elements in the syntactic structure correspond to eventuality predicates in the semantic representation. This work also discusses the Chinese dialects and the ancient Chinese. It is shown that the light verb syntax developed from Mandarin Chinese is highly explanatory for the linguistic facts in these different aspects of the Chinese languages. Two other languages, Japanese and English, are also included in the discussion. The relevant phenomena in these two languages indicate that parametrization on the lexicalization of a light verb structure in different languages is in order. This work argue that the construction of phrase structure and the licensing of arguments in a language is correlated with each other. In Mandarin Chinese, the whole light verb structure does not undergo lexicalization and is sent to syntax intact. Consequently, the phrase structure is strongly thematic and the arguments are re-licensed in syntax. In English, the whole light verb structure undergoes lexicalization and is sent to syntax as an individual lexical item. Thus the verb in English contains rich internal eventuality information and a full set of arguments, and the phrase structure is non-thematic. Japanese stand as a middle case between English and Mandarin Chinese. In Japanese, only part of the light verb structure is lexicalized, excluding the subject-selecting light verb. Hence the subject argument in Japanese is unselective, but the object argument is not.