Syntax And Semantics Of Bi Comparative Sentences In Mandarin Chinese

Studies on bi comparative sentences in Mandarin Chinese have always been the hot topic in the formal linguistics fields. With regard to the syntax and other issues about bi comparative sentences, a large number of researchers have proposed different opinions. However, there is no consensus among them. Meanwhile, there is inadequate semantic research on bi comparative sentences. Therefore, this thesis will reanalyze the syntactic and semantic issues of bi comparative sentences within the framework of formal linguistics theories, aiming to provide our own views on some basic problems. Specifically, we will focus on three main questions:(1) What is the syntactic status of bi(2) How to analyze the syntax of bi comparative sentences(3) Is Mandarin Chinese bi comparative explicit comparison or implicit comparison.Regarding the three questions above mentioned, we made a series of theoretical study and gave our correspondingly theoretical answers. First of all, we would argue that bi in bi comparative sentences is a verb, based on the evidence coming from the comparison of relationship between the standard reflexive ziji (self), A not A questions, distributive classifier ge and passive construction. Secondly we hold that the syntax of bi comparative sentences can be well accounted for by topic-comment structure, namely, the compared constituent is the topic while the constituent signifying the comparing degree is the comment. At last, in line with Kennedy (2005)'s three testing criteria for comparative sentences--crisp judgments, absolute gradable adjectives and differential measurements, we think that the bi comparative sentences in Mandarin Chinese is related to explicit comparison, even though it is widely recognized that Chinese lack morphological variation for comparatives.In this thesis we discussed the syntax and semantics of bi comparative sentences and tried to answer three theoretical questions. Among them, our syntactic analysis of bi comparative sentences provided a new solution to the long-existing controversy and presented a new perspective for further research on bi comparative sentences. At the same time, our semantic analysis of bi comparative sentences verified the necessity of Kennedy (2005)'s distinction between explicit comparison and implicit comparison.