Double Object Constructions In Chinese And English

The study of the Double-object Construction has been one of the most heated topics in linguistics. This thesis is a typological study of various 'V+NP1+NP2' patterns in Mandarin Chinese and English in terms of syntactic properties and markedness. The thesis also analyzes different properties and discusses some universal principles underlying the different 'V+NP1+NP2' patterns, and finally proposes a hierarchy of these principles governing their interaction.This thesis investigates the case problem and the derivation process of double object constructions, and shows that, the interpretation on double object constructions in Chinese and English is basically constrained by the same set of constraints: V-P incorporation, 9-role preserving, Passivization shift and Possession relation shift. Specifically, the thesis shows the set of constraints are used to guarantee the priority of 'V+NP1+NP2' pattern so as to derive double object constructions.The first part of the thesis discusses how the 'V+NP1+NP2 pattern is formed and how these elements are interpreted in Chinese and English, and shows the formation and interpretation of double object constructions are constrained by some considerations. What I intend to do in this thesis is look at different accounts of dative shift first, one transformational and one lexical, and to provide an account of my own. My research proceeds with that some verbs may have a 'verb-preposition incorporation' process which determines the dative alternation based on the proposal concluded by Larson (1988/1990), Nina Zhang (1999/2000). Second, this thesis makes a general assumption of the regulations on passivization shift and possession relation shift. Finally, this thesis shows that the representational status and proper derivation process, both of which incorporate the above mentioned four factors: V-P incorporation, 0-role preserving, Passivization shift and Possession relation shift. This part also discusses the extensions of the double-object construction: the 'inanimate objects' category, the 'take' category, the 'called' category, the 'secondary predicate object category', and the so-called 'pseudo double object constructions'. Moreover, a specific description of the divergent sentences both in Chinese and English 'V+NP1+NP2' patterns is provided in this section according to their representational status and depth qualities.The second part of the thesis proposes a unified account for the 'V+NP1+NP2' patterns in Chinese and English, and shows that they are constrained by the same set of conditions proposed in this work, though they employ different rankings of these conditions to determine7their properties. This part investigates the derivation of the double-object construction within the framework of Optimality Theory proposed by Prince Alan & Paul Smolensky (1993), and attempts to solve the representational status problem that is to define a strict scope for double object constructions.Based on the analysis of various types of double object constructions in Chinese and English, this thesis proposes a set of universal constraints for double object constructions. This work shows that V-P incorporation, 9-role preserving, Passivization shift and Possession relation shift are the four important factors that can account for double object constructions in Chinese and English. Under this analysis, only the 'give' category and part of the 'called" category belong to the real double-object construction both in Chinese and English.