A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Ditransitive Constructions

As one of the most frequently used sentence patterns in various languages, ditransitive construction has claimed a special place in the linguistic studies at the syntactic-semantic interface and attracted much attention from scholars and linguists with different theoretical backgrounds. It is unfortunate that many previous studies made on it are imperfect. Structural linguists are devoted to the classification of the construction, but the standards adopted tend to be varied. Chomsky and his followers deny the differences between ditransitive construction and dative construction.Goldberg (1995) maintains that constructions, or pairings of form and meaning, are the basic elements in language. Clausal constructions result from our abstraction of daily events and they can not be strictly predictable from its components or other existing constructions. The integration of construction and verb results in actual sentences. Verb and construction interplay each other; on the one hand, construction can attach new meaning to verb, and on the other hand, verb can play a role in determining the meaning of the whole expression. Construction consists of a prototype member and several marginal members. Marginal members are metaphorical extensions from the prototype member; they are related with the prototype through inheritance links.Ditransitive construction, as a form-meaning correspondence, takes the syntactic form of VNN and conveys the meaning of agent's causing recipient to receive theme successfully. The thesis first sets out to compare the components of English and Chinese ditransitive constructions. It is found that English ditransitive construction determines the direction of the transfer whereas Chinese verb rather than construction determines the direction. The discrepancy clearly results from the fact that English ditransitive construction carries a rigid meaning and that its Chinese counterpart carries a weak meaning. Thus, the hypothesis of competition between construction and verb is proposed. The arguments of theme and recipient are influenced by such factors as animacy and weight.Ditransitive construction is established around the prototype member of instantaneous transfer. The English verb give and the Chinese verb gei (give) possess a meaning which overlaps with the semantics of ditransitive construction, and they are the prototype verbs. Different verbs lead to other kinds of transfer, including Reversed Transfer, DeniedTransfer, Future Transfer, Creation Transfer and Manners Transfer, which describe different stages of transfer. In the last pan, a comparison between ditrdnsitive construction and other structures of VNN is made.To sum up, the present research, conducted within the framework of the constructional and cognitive theories, reveals the differences and similarities between English and Chinese ditransitive constructions and is expected to help us get a better understanding of the two languages and,moreover, to shed light on contrastive studies of other constructions.