The Study Of The Syntax Of V-gei Construction In Mandarin Chinese

In madarin Chinese, gei sentence is a common construction as well as a hottopic. According to Zhu’s arugument, V-gei construction, the first type of Gei sentence,can be divided into the simple and the complex V-gei construction, both of which areour research object. Reviewing the previous studies of the constructions, we find thatthe debates focus primarily on the category of gei and the derivation, so this thesisattempts to explore these issues.Applying light verb theory, we hold that treating gei as a light verb can explainits syntactic properties very well. The abstract grammatical function of gei enables thebivalent verb to take two objects. The semantic meaning of gei strengthens the givingmeaning of the sentence and makes clear the direction and terminal of the action.Meanwhile, the strong feature of gei drives the main verb to raise and then togetherwith gei, the main verb composes the predicate of the whole sentence. Besides, havingthe causative meaning, gei enables the simple construction to introduce V2P and forma complex V-gei construction. As for the derivation of V-gei construction, we adoptGrimshaw’s thematic hierarchy, Chomsky’s vP shell and Multi-Spec Construction todesign an underlying structure. Then, three arguments raise to three Spec positionsrespectively to check their cases. Meanwhile, the main verb merges with v to form acomplex verb which continues to raise and adjoins to T. After the series of operations,the derivation is over.