Multi-oriental Research Of The Pro-verb "Lai"

The Chinese verb"Lai"is often used as a pro-verb which can syntactically replace other verbs or verbal phrases, and express a kind of unspecific and abstract meaning of action. This dissertation starts with a brief introduction to the current research results of the verb"Lai". A number of scholars have done research about this pro-verb to vary degrees, most of which is simply limited to a specific aspect, and holds that the pro-verb"Lai"should be followed by nothing but nominal object. Next, we expand the study scope of the verb"Lai"after a comparison of its several different usages, that is, this pro-verb can be followed by a verbal object as well as a nominal object, and thus is featured by co-identity to be explained in terms of form, semantics and function. The third chapter is a thorough and detailed study of the verb"Lai"in the aspects of its object and its co-existence with adverb or aspectual notation. Among them, the study of its object is the main focus of this paper. On the one hand, an object can best display the nature of a verb due to the cohesiveness between object and verb; on the other hand, the complexity and particularity of"Lai"'s object makes the outstanding feature that can distinguish itself from other verbs in form. The fifth chapter dwells upon the function of numeral classifier and thereby makes clear the nature and feature of pro-verb"Lai", owing to the fact that its object must be preceded by a numeral classifier. In the sixth chapter, we make a comparison between the pro-verb"Lai"and the formal verb"jinxing"in terms of both grammatical difference and semantic feature difference."Jinxing"means to do while the meaning of the unspecific verb"Lai"varies according to different linguistic contexts. And the verb"Lai"functions mainly as a substitutive. That is the main reason why we term it pro-verb. The seventh chapter makes an investigation into the diachronic aspect of the verb"Lai", such as its creation, development and variation. As for its generative motivation and mechanism, further research is needed. All in all, this paper attempts to explore the nature of the pro-verb"Lai", find out its creation and development, and probe into its unique pragmatic value from the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic angles. A case study of the pro-verb"Lai"mirrors a common rule that language comes into being out of necessity and evolves unceasingly.