A Contrastive Study Of Chinese Pivotal Sentences And English Complex Object Sentences

This thesis contrasts Chinese pivotal sentences with Englishcomplex object sentences from the cognitive aspect. The two structuresare identical not only in form, but also in the logical and semanticrelations. The previous studies mainly focus on the correspondentrelations of the sentence elements, and there are also studies ofsimilarities and differences between the two structures. However, thecommonalities are illustrated by applying the Generative Approach, andthe research on the differences is not deep enough. This paper makes acontrast by using not only the synchronic and diachronic methods, butalso the method of 'from the whole to the parts'.Firstly, the two structures are contrasted on the entire structure level,and then the components of the two structures are contrasted separatelyfrom the aspects of semantics, grammatical categories and functions. Andthe most important is the contrast of semantic types of matrix verbs, andwe've found that there are correspondent verbs and verbs that are notcorrespondent in the two structures. Most of the correspondent semanticverbs are causative verbs, which leads to the assumption that Chinesepivotal structure and English complex object structure are both causativeconstructions and have similar cognitive base. Thus the identicalcognitive base of the two structures is studied from two aspects, i.e.,experiential base and force schema.After the synthetic contrast of the two structures, the similarities anddifferences are very clear. Then in order to find out some more reasonsfor the similarities and differences, this paper does a contrast of thediachronic development of the two structures. Firstly, this papergeneralizes and concludes the diachronic development of the twostructures. English complex object sentences develop in the three periods from Old English to Middle English, and to Modern English. And themost important period for the development of this structure is the MiddleEnglish Period, in which this structure has undergone a reanalysis process,i.e. from the original SVO₁O₂ to SVOC. And this reanalysis process notonly influences further development of this structure, but also constrainsfeatures of the components. Chinese pivotal sentences appeared veryearly in the Chinese language history, and it has been one of the moststable grammatical forms till Modern Chinese. There was no reanalysisprocess in the diachronic development of Chinese pivotal structure, andthis major difference in the diachronic perspective result in somesynthetic differences between the two structures, such as the difference insubject-predicate relations, the difference between object predicate andcomplement in the two structures, and some different semantic types ofmatrix verbs. Moreover, there are also some similarities in the diachronicdevelopment of the two structures, which can be regarded as thecommonalities between Chinese and English. Firstly, causative verbswere matrix verbs when the two structures initially appeared, whichproves that causative event is the cognitive base of the two structures.Secondly, some typical verbs in both structures went through agrammaticalization process from a concrete lexical verb to a causativeauxiliary.By applying the cognitive theories, a contrastive study is done on thetwo structures, and the similarities and differences between the twostructures have been generalized. Furthermore, the reasons for thosesimilarities and differences are investigated from the cognitive,diachronic and synchronic aspects. In particular, this paper has outlinedand contrasted the diachronic development of the two structures, whichcan reasonably explain some synthetic similarities and differencesbetween the two structures. Thus the present paper can make up thedeficiencies of the previous studies. And this paper also testifies the universal and reasonable application of thegrammaticalization theory. On the one hand, this research is favorablefor an overall and deep comprehension of the two structures; and on theother hand, it is favorable for translation of Chinese pivotal sentences andEnglish complex object sentences. Therefore, it is of great guidingsignificance not only to foreign language teaching, but also to the Chineselanguage teaching to foreigners.