A Contrastive Study On The Serial Verb Constructions Between English And Chinese

The phenomenon that two notional verbs in a sequence simultaneously occur in a simple sentence exists in both English and Chinese. This kind of phenomenon is called Serial Verb Construction (SVC) in this thesis. In English SVC, the two notional verbs are in a combination of finite verb and non-finite verb. Through contrastive study on SVCs in English and Chinese, it is claimed that SVC in Chinese shares a common feature with that in English; the two notional verbs are also in a combination of finite verb and non-finite verb. According to this, it is proposed that finite verb and non-finite verb exist in both inflectional language and isolated language. Therefore, finite verb and non-finite verb are concrete exemplifications of language universal principles.On syntactic level, firstly, the typical serial verb constructions in English and Chinese in this thesis can be divided into four types. And then, through analyzing the valence of the two notional verbs in the construction, it is proposed that there exists empty category in the SVCs in both English and Chinese. According to this, this thesis focuses on analyzing the explanation and distribution of the empty category. At last, it is claimed that PRO exists in SVCs in both English and Chinese. For the reason that PRO can only undertake the subject of non-finite clause, one of the verbs in English and Chinese SVCs is non-finite. Therefore, it is claimed that inflectional marks on verb can only be regarded as the surface feature to distinguish the finite verb from the non-finite verb, but it's not the underlying feature. The underlying feature used to distinguish the finite verb from the non-finite verb lies in the semantic feature of the verb.On semantic level, through analyzing the semantic feature of the two notional verbs in SVC, it is claimed that the semantic feature of finite verb and non-finite verb shows a complementary combination; the finite verb has the semantic feature of [+ inner tense], [+statement], the finite-verb clause has the feature of [+independent]; while the non-finite verb has the semantic feature of [-inner tense], [-statement], the non-finite-verb clause has the feature of [-independent].This is because the limitation of "the only sentence core". When two contents verbs exist in a simple sentence at the same time, only one of them can be selected to function as the sentence core. The verb selected to function as the sentence core is the finite verb, while the other verb must be degraded to become the non-finite verb. Finite verb and non-finite verb can be combined into a minimal pair. Only in the combination of "finite+non-finite" will they show their value.