Astudy Of Chinese Evaluative V-qilai Constructions:a Minimalist Approach

In recent decades, many scholars have conducted a series of syntactic researchon Chinese evaluative V-qilai (‘NP (Patient)+V-qilai+AP’) constructions under thetheoretical framework of middle construction, yet both their ‘middle status’ andsyntactic derivational process are still open to debate. This thesis takes theseconstructions as the study object, attempting to present a more comprehensivedescription of them and propose our analysis of their syntactic formation from theperspective of Minimalism.This thesis is mainly made up of the following parts.First, this thesis provides a detailed description of the components, syntactic andsemantic properties, constraints on the verb and adjective and classification ofChinese evaluative V-qilai constructions. Via the comparison between Englishmiddles and them, we have found their similarities (e.g. genericity, modality, etc) aswell as differences (e.g. verbal constraints and adjective constraints). Following Yin(2006) and other scholars, we have adopted the criterion of the semantic orientation ofAP to classify these constructions into three types.Second, based on Tao’s (2010) study, we hold that the main predicate ofevaluative V-qilai constructions is AP rather than V-qilai, and that qilai cannot serveas the middle marker. Thus, we maintain that evaluative V-qilai constructions are notChinese middles.Third, under the theoretical framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky1999) and Sideward Movement Theory (Nunes2001), this thesis presents thesyntactic derivational process of evaluative V-qilai constructions via tree diagrams.We argue that they are composed of two syntactic objects, namely, a TopicP and amatrix CP. The TopicP is derived from movement of the notional object toSpec-TopicP, which merges with the matrix CP into different positions. In Type-1evaluative V-qilai constructions, the subject is NP (Patient) with the TopicP thatcontains V-qilai as an adjunct; in Type-2, it is the TopicP consisting of NP (Patient) and V-qilai; and in Type-3, the subject is the implicit Agent pro, the TopicP containingV-qilai an adjunct.