A Syntactic Analysis Of The Chinese Cleft Construction

The Chinese cleft sentence is a more specific syntactic construction, which corresponds to the emphatic sentence containing shi…de. With respect to the genesis of the cleft constructions like Wo shi zuotian mai de piao'It is yesterday that I bought the ticket', two viewpoints are proposed: one is the syntactic movement approach (Chao 1968; Zhu Dexi 1978; Yuan Yulin 2003; Simpson & Wu 2002); the other is the analogical blending approach (Shen Jiaxuan 2007, 2008) or constructional analogy approach (Zhang Heyou 2004, 2008).Analyzed as shi...de clefts, the target construction is abstracted as NP₁+shi+XP+de+NP₂, two cases are involved: (i) NP₁+shi+TemP/LocP+V+de+NP₂; (ii) NP₁+shi+NP₃+VP+de+NP₂. The thesis probes in such shi...de clefts to explore its syntactic derivation in the framework of Generative Grammar, more specifically, under the Split CP Hypothesis (Rizzi 1997).As the inquiry on the role of shi is the key to the syntactic derivation of the shi...de clefts, three research questions are proposed: (a) What is the syntactic status and function of shi? (b) What kind of syntactic operation will the nominal element NP₁ undergo? (c) How do shi...de clefts derive syntactically? Two proposals are put forward to solve the research questions.First, shi is assumed as a focus marker with the feature [+FOCUS] (Teng 1979; Zhang Bojiang & Fang Mei 1996) in Chinese clefts. It holds the position of Foc0, direct-governing the embedded clause IP, and focuses the linearly following constituent. The focal element is assumed to bear base-generated feature [+FOCUS] and undergo the focalization, moved from [Spec, VP] or [Spec, IP] to [Spec, FocP] to be feature-checked by shi and it is a kind of covert movement.Second, the nominal element NP₁ is assumed to bear base-generated feature [+TOPIC] and undergo topicalization, which is an overt movement. There are two cases: (i) NP₁ is moved from the [Spec, IP] to [Spec, TopP] to realize its topicalization, which contributes to the realization of the focalizing function of shi; (ii) it is moved from the embedded position [Spec, VP] to [Spec, TopP] to realize its topicalization, being feature-checked by Top0.From the above assumptions, we can clarify syntactic derivation of Chinese cleft constructions, and conclude that the genesis of such shi...de clefts is due to the interaction between the focalizing function of shi and the topicalization of NP₁. Meanwhile, the research can provide enlightenments to other relevant studies to some degree, like the relation between focalization and topicalization, and the passive voice shi may exhibit in shi...de clefts.