A Study On VRC Argument Selections & VRC Constructions

The Chinese Verb-Resultative Construction (VRC), as a special grammaticalphenomenon in Chinese language, is usually composed of two predicates, the first ofwhich states an action while the other indicates its result. VRC, with unique structuresand functions both semantic and grammatical, plays an important role in Chineselanguage studies. As a result, VRC has received enthusiastic attention from scholars.On the other hand, there has been a huge controversy over when it originated, how itis constructed and what functions it performs. Therefore, it is necessary to do asystematic study of VRC, specifically, its head element, valance principles, relevantsyntaxes and obligatory preposed objects in VRC.The present study falls into five chapters. The first chapter, after reviewing theliteratures exploring VRC's origin, valances and relevant sentences, points out thatVRC research should involve valances, VRC syntaxes and obligatory preposedobjects in VRCs in a procedure extending from underlying argument to VRCarguments. The second chapter explores the head element and valance principles ofVRCs by dropping VRCs into co-referential and disjoint referential. It is made clearthat the predicative is the syntax head and the complement the semantic head. On theother hand, the VRC valances are determined by semantic and structural relations.Under the co-referential and disjoint referential categories, the third chapter discussesthe constructions that accept VRCs, among which are the BA/Bei constructions,verb-copying constructions and topic constructions, etc. It is found that the BAconstructions most frequently accept VRCs, agent-subject sentences andpatient-subject sentences with VRCs usually cause ambiguity while VRC metonymyonly occurs in co-referentials. The fourth chapter analyses why and when obligatorypreposed objects happen in VRCs: the VRC is the contrastive focus in terms ofcontent while the natural focus in terms of form. When the supplement acts as thecontrastive focus in content, it is forced to move to the end of the sentence. The finalchapter draws a conclusion on the VRC research.