Syntax Of Get-type Double Object Construction

The paper discusses the issues related to the syntax of the Get-type double object construction in the framework of the Minimalist Program, with the detailed illustration of the syntactic derivation of the Get-type double object construction, trying to argue that the syntactic mechanism working in the typical and the commonly acknowledged Give-type double object construction is the same as that in the Get-type double object construction.Section two and three are the reviews of the analysis of the double object construction in both English and Chinese literature. The definition of the light verb is crucial to the study of the derivation of both Get-type double object construction and Give-type double object construction. After a brief review of the history of the study of light verb, I arrive at a clear definition of the light verb in the Minimalist Program, that is, it is "an affixal verb (often with a causative sense like that of make) to which a noun, adjective or verb adjoins." (Radford 2000) Light verb is the element that makes the "transfer of ownership" possible in both Get-type double object construction and Give-type double object construction. The semantics of V+v in the Give-type double object construction is to "make the indirect object get" while the semantics of V+v in the Get-type double object construction is to "make the indirect object lose".In the Chinese literature, the claim that "de", which manifests the ownership, can be inserted in the Get-type double object construction between the direct object and the indirect object, while in the Give-type double object construction, "de" cannot be inserted without altering the original meaning. The present paper argues against this claim by stating that the light verb is changing the original ownership and that the operation of Hapology takes place, which is used to describe processes by which a...