The Exploration On Construction Of "NP+V-Qilai+AP (VP)"

"NP+V-Qilai+AP(VP)" is one of the most common sentence structures in Modern Chinese, but with specialties both in form and meaning. So far, scholars have done some researches on this sentence structure, but it deserves more attention because there are still some points unsettled. Therefore, we choose the sentence structure as the object of the current research. Based on previous research results, this study, guided by contemporary linguistic theory, describes the syntactic features and semantic features of this sentence structure. Its inner differences will be analyzed, and then the classification of the sentence structure will also be discussed. Later, this study will explain the issue from the perspective of cognition.This article comprises of three parts. In the first part, a detailed analysis will be conducted to acquire a description of the structural features and the constituents of the sentence structure. This analysis shows that classification criterion of the sentence structure depends on grammaticalization of Qilai's meaning. Since V-Qilai is unbounded, the sentence structure can not be related to concrete time. In the second part, we will analyze the sentence structure from the perspective of semantic orientation and thematic roles relationship. Classification will be done, according to AP's semantic orientation and the differences of thematic roles relationship between NP and V. Then ideographic features of each type will be discussed respectively. The third part will be focused on the classification of the sentence structure. This study will compare these five hypo-types with typical sentence with an adverbial modifier before predicate, sentence with a subject and predicate phrase and sentence with a complex predicate. It is found that it is difficult to attribute all tokens of Qilai sentence structure to these types. As an independent sentence structure, all Qilai sentences have their particular structural and semantic characteristics, although they have no identified syntactic structure. All tokens change gradually, which distribute in the continuum between sentence with a complex predicate and sentence with a subject and predicate phrase, as well as in the continuum between sentence with a complex predicate and sentence with an adverbial modifier before predicate. The most particular characteristic of Qilai sentence structure is that its gradually mobility depends on V-Qilai's gradually mobility. Based on iconicity theory, this study will also try to explain why the V-Qilai phrases can be transferred and omitted flexibly.