The Study On The Perfective Of Chinese

The expression of tense and aspect is the most basic side of language,it is also the most common and complicated phenomenon in verbal expressio n.The temporal category is a very important research subject in grammar.In Chinese,there are a number of morphological markers to express the aspectual meaning,Which not only have flexible usage,and some aspectual markers can also express the concept of time reference,tense and aspect are intertwined and indistinguishable.This paper focuses on the "perfective" of modern Chinese.Starting from the semantic level of the perfective category,we make a systematic study of the various specific grammatical phenomena related to the perfective meaning in modern Chinese.On the basis of clarifying the facts,we try to establish a hierarchical system for the expression of the perfective meaning in modern Chinese.On the basis of discussing the modern Chinese perfective expression system,we have studied some relevant and important specific grammar problems,some new explanations and conclusions are given for the temporal meaning of some structures and function words.This dissertation consists of six parts.The introduction part(the second chapter)makes a review of current researches of the perfective category of modern Chinese,points out the problems left in previous studies,and explains the significance and values of the research subject and the research methods applied in the study.The third chapter discusses that several structures such as “verb-resultative compounds” 、 “verb-directional compounds” 、 “verb reduplication” and “V+numeral phrase + N” are bounded,therefore,they have the perfective meaning.This dissertation demonstrates on this basis that the aspectual status of the resultative complements and the verb reduplication,and gives another explanation on the aspectual meaning of the "LVM " sentence in modern Chinese.The fourth chapter discusses that the perfective form of unbounded verb structure is“verb+a completive marker”.According to the specific grammatical behavior characteristics of the verb structure,we firstly redefined“boundedness”:“bounded”VP refers to verb structures which have"actual boundaries",that is verb structures which have a notional word that indicates the end point.Because there is no notional word that indicates the end point in the unbounded verb structure,the verb needs to be attached by a grammatical component to indicate the end of the event,that is to express perfective meaning.Section II of this chapter discusses that phase complement such as qilai(起来)、xiaqu(下去)、shang(上)、dao(到)etc.does not affect the situation aspect of the sentence,its function is to indicate the phase of the situation at a given moment,that is the situation is at its beginning、continuous or end phase.In other words,the meaning of the phase is the same as that of the viewpoint,phase complements are some grammatical components in the early stages of grammaticalization expressing the aspect meaning.Phase complement like shang、xia(下)、dao、hao(好)and diao(掉)etc.gives expression to perfective meaning,it’s very similar in nature and function to the completive marker in language typology.The number of completive markers in Chinese is limited,they constitute a grammatical category expressing the perfective meaning,that is,the completive category.Section III of this chapter makes a list of the members of the completive category and their combination with verbs.Guided by grammaticalization theories,this section investigates the source of"shang/xia",analyzes the mechanism that causes their generation and development,and try to reconstruct their path of analogy in the language system after being reanalyzed as the completive markers,explains on this basis the various combinations of"shang/xia"and verbs in the synchronic level of modern Chinese.The fifth chapter discusses the usage and functions of le1(了 1),that is the le(了)in "predicate + le + object/complement".This part mainly discusses that le1 is a multifunctional grammatical form,it spans three subclasses of the temporal category,le1 can be a completive marker,it can also be a perfect or a simple past marker.Three kinds of le1 has the same linguistic form,they differ merely in distribution: le1 in "Dynamic" 、 "continuous" 、 "unbounded" VP structure is a completive marker;le1 in narrative simple sentence(formed by bounded VP structure or by the "V+ completive marker + le1" construction which is formed by unbounded VP structure)is a simple past marker;le1 attached to instantaneous verbs can be a completive marker,it can also be a simple past marker: If the instantaneous verb forms a narrative simple sentence,then the le1 in it is a simple past marker;If the instantaneous verb forms a clause in narrative discourse,then the le1 in it is a completive marker;le1 in state has a complex grammatical meaning:le1 can be a completive marker,it can also be a perfec t marker,sometimes it’s a combination tone of completive marker and simple past marker;if the bounded VP structure or the "V+ completive marker + le1" construction formed by unbounded VP structure is on the sequential events,then the le1 in it provides a kind of redundant temporal meaning.On the basis of actual corpus statistics,this chapter also discusses that the use of le1 as a simple past marker is much higher than that as a completive marker or a perfect marker,which is the real reason why foreign students use le1 as a simple past marker indiscriminately.Because the simple past le1 marks only the perfective verb structures,Besides,le1 in some syntactic position is obligatory,somehow in some other syntactic position it’s optional,hence,the Degree of grammaticalization of le1 is lower than that of the past tense in English.The conclusion part summarizes the results of this study and lists the innovations of this dissertation.