A VP-Shell Approach To Middle Constructions In English And Chinese

The middle construction, as a cross-linguistic phenomenon in English and Chinese, has attracted much attention of scholars both at home and abroad. Scholars mainly focus on the property, the constraint, the derivational process of it or its contrast between different languages. Among these issues, the property of the middle construction is generally acknowledged in the linguistic field. Semantically, it bears such properties as agentivity, non-eventivity, genericity and modality. Syntactically, it needs adjunct requirements and subject raising.Nevertheless, the constraint on the middle construction and the nature of its derivation still remain as controversial issues, especially the latter one. In the previous studies, two approaches to this issue are reached, that is, the syntactic approach and the lexical approach. The former approach indicates that the derivation of the middle construction should occur in the syntax in that the NP behind the verb must move to the subject position to get case (NP-movement) while the latter holds the view that it occurs in the lexicon and is a pre-syntax process. Based on an investigation of previous studies, we figure out that both approaches have inadequacies. In this thesis, we will make relevant comments on each approach and point out the limitation. On the basis of a review of previous studies, our analysis attempts to explore an alternative account of middle constructions within the theory of VP-shell. Unlike approaches in previous studies, we set out to analyze this construction from semantics, but take a syntactic approach, which is not a traditional syntactic approach (NP-movement) but a brand-new one deviant from it. Therefore, our approach integrates the ideas of the lexical approach with that of the syntactic approach. With detailed analysis, we treat the responsibility condition as a core constraint on the derivation of middle constructions. Chung (1995a,1995b)’s formula can account for this analysis:(The properties of) X cause the V-ing (of X) to be Adj. Following responsibility condition and Chung’s formula, we propose that the middle subject is base-generated, and try to reveal that the inherent properties of the subject cause the event represented by the predicate, which is performed by the abstract causative light verb. Radford (2000) suggests that some light verb can be abstract causative verb. This abstract causative verb in VP-shells proves our prediction that VP-shell theory can explain the derivation of middle constructions.As a cross-linguistic phenomenon in English and Chinese, there is still no unified account of this construction. In this thesis, we define the empty argument in both English and Chinese as IMPs instead of PROs, which lays a foundation for a unified account of them. Within the framework of VP-shell theory, the same derivational process of English and Chinese middle constructions can be achieved, which serves as the cross-linguistic evidence to our study.