The Syntax Of The Jianyu Construction In Chinese

The jianyu construction is special sentence structure in Chinese, patterning NP₁+VP₁+NP₂+VP₂, in which NP₂ is considered as both the object of VP₁ and the subject of VP2, thus being termed jianyu (the double functional constituent). So far, traditional grammarians have not found a satisfied answer to the double functional NP₂ in this construction. Generative linguists attempt to solve the problem of the Case assignment of NP₂ as well as the thematic relation between VP₁, NP₂ and VP₂ in the exploration of the derivation of this construction. After Huang (1982/1998)'s PRO analysis of the null subject of Chinese non-finite clauses, Xing (1984) applies PRO to the analysis of the jianyu construction. Since then, PRO is favored by generative grammarians in the research on this construction. However, the PRO proposal itself is not without problems, and it is questionable whether it is cogent to be applied to the jianyu the construction analysis. As PRO loses its primacy in MP (Hornstein 1999), we need to explore an alternative analysis of the jianyu construction.Within the framework of MP, this thesis explores the derivation of the jianyu construction in the light of the phase theory and proposes to replace PRO with an NP-copy in the jianyu construction analysis in accordance with Hornstein's (1999) MTC and the copy theory of movement. In the sentence "Mama bi wo kan shu. (Mother forced me to read books.)", the double functional NP₂ merges at the subject position of V₂ and receives the Agent role after theta feature checking (Hornstein 1999) with V₂. Then it moves its copy to [Spec, T_defP] to satisfy the EPP. However, this copy of NP₂ cannot receive a Nominative Case by phi-feature checking with T_def. Instead, the active NP₂ copy (un-Cased) receives the Accusative Case and the Theme role after feature checking with the higher probe V₁ by penetrating the non-phase T_defP. The derivation converges after all the interpretable features are transferred to LF and simultaneously all the valued uninterpretable features are transferred to PF, at which the highest copy of NP₂ is spelt out.The virtue of our analysis lies in the modification of the Theta Criterion in the light of verbal theta features (Hornstein 1999) and the copy theory of movement. It reduces the theoretical redundancy by eliminating the theory-internal stipulations such as PRO, the control model and the null Case, etc., which offers a case of reductionism of the kind minimalism strives for. In addition, this thesis develops several methods of testing "phases" in Chinese. However, the cross-linguistic value of our analysis needs to be verified by more language data and more systematic testing methods are left for further research.