A Reconsideration Of The Syntactic Structure Of English Small Clause

Many western linguists began to pay much attention to small clause since 1980s. There is little specialized research on the structure of small clause, and the related explanations in the grammar book are about its surface features instead of its internal syntactic structure. Syntax as an independent science has not finished explaining all the linguistic phenomena, for the structure of small clause is a disputable topic which needs explanation and research.This thesis redefines English small clause and researches on its derivational process, its classification and syntactic features under the framework of transformational-generative grammar. At the very beginning, based on the definitions given by Stowell, Chomsky and Rothstein, the thesis considers small clause as an independent constituent lacking Tense-feature and which has argument and predicate relationship and shares the logic structure [NP VP]. Next, the thesis summarizes the limitations of previous studies in order to find a new way to analyze the structure of small clause. To explain the derivation of small clause, the thesis uses the related theories such as the case theory, X-bar theory, the principle of economy in syntax and the nature of language and so on. Finally, this thesis analyzes the syntactic structure of small clause according to the basic logic frame of language and treats small clause as a NonIP which makes a distinction between small clause and sentence; and some syntactic features of it such as functions and distributions are also listed.This thesis follows the principle of economy and provides small clause a relative plausible solution which can explain English small clause unitedly and solve the problems of previous studies. Moreover, it clarifies the ECM (exceptional case marking) problem and the case problem in the independent structure. And some typical syntactic patterns in English small clause are also disscussed in a reasonable way.