The Reference Of Object Clause And Its Syntax In Mandarin Chinese

This dissertation is on the object clause of the complement in Mandarin Chinese,the object is mainly on the form[_SⅠ’[C_Ⅰ][_SⅠ……Y……V[_SⅡ’[C_Ⅱ][_SⅡ……X₁……X₂……]]]]（Y、X are the arbitrary parts of the matrix and object clause respectively）.The nuclear question is to probe what are the connections between the syntax of object clauses represented by the relations between Y and X（X₁ and X₂）and the referentiality charactered by object clauses and its constituents.There are three types of relationships between Y and X:license、identity、coreference.In chapter 2,we refine the object clause semantically on the base of its specificity.given the fact that Mandarin Chinese have no morphologic change,we change to refine the object clause on the logic characteristic of the main verb——the clauses having truth-value or the clauses that can be answered by clauses having truth-value are the object clause.It is known that the meanings of complements that deduced from the main verbs are different from the meanings of the complement constituents themselves.In syntactic forms,when complement sentences’final aspect marks“Le₂、Ne、Laizhe”are in the scope of matrix verbs,the complement sentences are object clauses.These sentence-final aspect marks are Fin P actually.According the main verbs’definitive property on the truth-value of object clauses,we can divide the main verbs into six types:factive verb、if-verb、implicative verb、only-if verb、counter-factive verb、not sufficient and not necessary verb.Their object clauses have different truth-value conditions.The object clauses can be declarative clause、interrogative clause、imperative clause、exclamatory clause.We place emphasis on the first two types.of embedded clause.Now our main questions turn to be under the five types of main verbs,whether all kinds of transformation between Y and X and between X₁and X₂ can be established and what is the reason behind the transformation.We differentiate the specificity and the definiteness of object clause.Specificity refers to the situation when the object clauses’truth-value can be fixed to be true or false,while definiteness refers to the situation when the object clauses can be referred by definite constituents,i.e.,the clauses are true either in reality or in common grounds in discourse.The specificity of clauses is one of the conditions by which the clauses can be determined to be definite,but they are different.In chapter 3,we discuss declarative object clauses.（1）when X₁=S_Ⅱ’,X₂ will be appositive of X₁.The relationship between X₁ and X₂ will be the transformation of referentiality and its condition is:the object clause decided by main verb is true and the main verb can take the NP expressions.So the head of S_Ⅱ’,C_Ⅱhas two characteristic——[+N]or[-N].It means that the relationship between X₁ and X₂ decides the syntactic position of the object clause S_Ⅱ’.On the base of this conclusion,we can discuss the transformation between the main clause part Y and the object clause part X.（2）Y license X:when X is non-interrogative use of WHs in Mandarin Chinese,it needs to be approved by the main verb Y,i.e.,when the main verb decides the object clause having no certain true value,the non-interrogative use of WHs can be approved in object clause.（3）The identity relation between Y and X,namely the raising relation between Y and X:（1）when X is the negative word“bu”,the referential C_Ⅱdoesn’t allow X to raise to position Y,while nonreferential C_Ⅱallows the raising;When X is the negative word“mei”,whether C_Ⅱis referential or not,X cannot be raised to the position Y.（2）When X is the indefinite subject of modal raising structure,X must be specific and it must be bound by existential quantification in sentence level.Because of the height of matrix verbs,it cannot be bound by existential closure to be non-specific and indefinite nouns.In chapter 4,we discuss interrogative object clauses.Here Y and X have two kinds of relations:（1）Y license X.X can be the expression of yes-no questions、WH-questions、A-not-A questions、disjunctive questions.When Y is the main verb,it has the effects of approving of the occurrence of X in object clause.The effects mainly show at the matching relation between the generative process of all kinds of questions and the truth-value of object clause decided by main verbs.For example,the existential meanings of some WHs conflicting with the false value of object clauses or A-not-A questions occupying the position of C conflicting with the C with characteristic[+N]and so on.The approving effects show different effects on referential questions and nonreferential questions.The causes lie on different checking characteristics in C_Ⅱof definite and indefinite object clauses.The interrogatives of object clauses must be limited by the C_Ⅱwhenever they stay or they raise to the matrix,but the referential interrogatives of Mandarin can be bound distantly given their indefinite variables essence,while nonreferential interrogatives must be moved through（Spec,C）in logic form.The characteristic that referential interrogatives cannot be limited by the checking requirement when they occur in definite object clauses makes them to be specific in explanation.（2）Y=X means that the question expressions X move to position Y covertly or X move to position Y overtly at PF level.This move makes the question expressions X has the wide scope.Whether this move can be approved not only has relation with the referential position of C_Ⅱbut also has relation with the referentiality of the X.For the former relation,because the nonreferential question expressions can only get its logic scope through moving,it must check the WH characteristic on C_Ⅱ.For the latter relation,because when X has referentiality（in semantic or in category）,it has no Government category or we can say that in order to get the quantifier force it can be unselectively bound by other quantified constituents in the sentence.If it has no referentiality,it needs to be bound locally or it cannot be unselectively bound by other quantifier constituents in the sentence.When the object clause contains multiple X,the disturbing between X₁ and X₂ makes us take into consideration the referentiality of X₂（or X₁）when we move X₁（or X₂）to the position Y.In chapter 5,when we put together all kinds of transformation in declarative clauses and interrogative clauses,we conclude that the six types matrix verbs and their sentences can be divided into three types of D-structure:The normal object clause、The modal raising structure、The event relativization structure.The（counter-）factive verb clause is the event relativization structure without quantification force.Its operator’s quantification origins from the discourse or background information decided by the logical semantics of matrix verbs.Namely there exists a noun which binds the operator of event relativization and the degree of its referentiality depends on the degree of presupposition of matrix verbs.So,we can see all kinds of transformations between X and Y must be influenced by the referentiality of the object clause decided by the logic characteristics of main verbs,because the relations between main clauses constituents and object clauses constituents are all on the level of object clause,therefore it must link to the true or false reference of the object clause.The island effects of factive clauses in literatures can be attributed to the Relativized Minimality accordingly.IT means that the definite object clauses contain quantization,therefore quantized interrogatives cannot cross them but no quantized indefinite interrogatives must be bound by them.We can say all these transformations are disturbing phenomena between operators which operate on object clauses.All in all,the study of the object clauses in complement position in Mandarin Chinese should start from the referentiality of the clause,because what it links are always the left periphery constituents which concern the truth-value of clauses.Only in this way can we get a unified explanation about object clauses.