Synchronic And Diachronic Investigations Of "(Shi) SVO De" Sentence Pattern

In this paper, we will study a special subclass of the “Shi……de” sentencepattem,that is,(Shi) SVO De.In our work,we will combination the synchronic methodand diachronic method on the basis of previous studies.In addition to the introduction, the first chapter of this dissertation focuses ondescribing the synchronic characteristics of "(Shi) SVO de”sentence pattem. Wediscussed the syntactic and semantic aspects of the sentence.In the syntacticaspects,we first give a summary of the characteristics of the sectence “Shi SVOde”,than discuss the syntactic characteristics of “Shi” and “De” Respectively,with therelationship of “Shi” and “De” also being discussed. Finally, we study the syntacticfeatures of the verb V and object O.In the semantic aspects, We mainly discussed theconfirming-responsible-person Function and the achieved meaning of the sentence“(Shi) SVO de”.Through our research, We found that the frequency of use of thesentence in modern Chinese is not high,and there is no typical "action-patient"relationship between the verb V and object O.In addition,the structure of “(Shi) SVOde” sentence pattern is not solid,as the modal particle “De” could be substituted byother modal particles. These characteristics seem to indicate that the sentence has notyet fully developed in modern Chinese.We will demonstrate this in Chapter III fromthe diachronic perspective.In chapter II,we compare “(Shi) SVO de” sentence pattern with “(Shi) SV de O”sentence pattern, which is similar with each other.There are some differences betweenthe two sentence patterns,such as the relationship between the verb V and object O,therelationship between “Shi” and “De”,the topic connection function,and so on.Thesedefferences make us tend to believe that “(Shi) SV de O” sentence pattern is muchmore developed than “(Shi) SVO de” sentence pattern,since the syntactic function ofthe former tends to be more solid.In Chapter III we discuss the grammaticalization of “(Shi) SVO de” sentencepattern.We believe that the sentence pattern first originates from some kind ofcopulative construction which is active in Tang and Song Dynasties,after thefocalization of “Shi”,the upgrading of the syntactic function of the Attributiveclause,the omission of the topic-subject and the detransitivization of verb V,finally shaping in Ming and Qing Dynasties,which is much later than other “(Shi)……de”sentence pattern. Even in the late Ming and Qing Dynasties, the frequency of use ofthe sentence pattern is not high, and the relationship between the verb V and theobject O has not developed into the typical "action-patient" relationship.Theseatypical characteristics indicate that “(Shi) SVO de” is not a fully developed sentencepattern.At this point,we explained the synchronic characteristics of “(Shi) SVO de”sentence pattern from the diachronic perspective.In the last chapter we do a summary of this dissertation,including theshortcomings and the innovation of our study.