Benefactive&Malefactive:From Semantic Roles To Syntactic Realization

Based on Case Grammar and Construction Grammar in Functional Linguistics,this dissertation analyses the Benefactive&Malefactive syntactic-semantic categories of Modern Chinese in the view of Typology Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics.It mainly focuses on their semantic features and syntactic realization.Our main points are as follows:Benefactive&Malefactive are two independent category of semantic roles in grammar,and they have a prominent form of syntactic realization in modern Chinese.Specifically,Prepositional Structure “GEI/WEI /DAI/TI/BANG/NA/…+N'+V”,Double Object Construction “V+N'+N”,the Construction of Intransitive Verb with Object “N'+Vi+N”,and the Construction of Separable Words(Lihe Ci)with Pseudo-Attributive “Vm+N'+?+Nm” are syntactic realization about them.That is to say that Benefactive&Malefactive can serve as the prepositional object,the(indirect)object,the subject or the object of Pseudo-attributive.And Benefactive&Malefactive in modern Chinese show certain asymmetry in syntactic expression.This dissertation includes the following three main parts.Firstly,we synthetically discuss on the current situation of the study of the Benefactive&Malefactive syntactic-semantic roles in foreign linguistic circles and domestic linguistic circles,and point out the space for its development.Secondly,we investigate and analysis the two roles and constructions in Modern Chinese(also related to dialects).Finally,we summarize the full text and point out that there is still something worth improving.Specifically,the framework of this paper is as follows:Chapter One is Introduction,which content is to describe the research objects and study meaning,research status and related comments,theoretical background and research methods,as well as the structure arrangement and corpus sources.Chapter Two is the first part of the main elements.We think that semantic role and thematic relation are two concepts which are related and different.Semantic role is a kind of syntactic-semantic category,while thematic relation is a kind of meaning category.And semantic role is the grammaticalization of thematic relation in syntactic structure.So based on syntactic realization of benefactive&malefactive,we generalize Benefactive&Malefactive construction from benefactive&malefactive event scenes,and divide them into two different concepts: Benefactive&Malefactive and Benefaciary&Malefaciary.After that,we catch the syntactic-semantic features of Benefactive&Malefactive,and draw a comparison between Benefactive&Malefactive and similar semantic role,such as Recipient,Patient,Reason,Source and so on.The following is the second part of the main elements from Chapter Three to Chapter Six.Benefactive&Malefactive is an important semantic role in Chinese,and there are various ways and forms of expression in syntax.And we give explorations to four Benefactive&Malefactive structures/constructions which are different but closely related,that is,Prepositional Structure “GEI/WEI /DAI/TI/BANG/NA/…+N'+V”,Double Object Construction “V+N'+N”,the Construction of Intransitive Verb with Object “N'+Vi+N”,and the Construction of Separable Words(Lihe Ci)with Pseudo-Attributive “Vm+N'+?+Nm”.Chapter Seven is the end part of the main elements.We study asymmetric phenomena of Benefactive&Malefactive structures or constructions,and make a thorough inquiry on reasons and justifications for these asymmetries.Chapter Eight is the conclusion of this dissertation.We summarize the main conclusions,and point out the shortcomings and further aspects that need to be studied.