A Study On The Syntactic And Semantic Status Of "Shi" And "Be" In Chinese And English Cleft Constructions

"Shi" in Chinese and "be" in English are high-frequency words in these two languages. Though Chinese and English are two different languages belonging to different language families, "shi" and "be" share some similarities in grammatical and semantic functions. However, more differences exist. The central question to be answered of this thesis is:are there any syntactic and semantic differences between "shi" in Chinese cleft structures and "be" in English cleft structures?From a diachronic perspective, this thesis makes a contrastive analysis of different origins and grammaticalization paths of "shi" and "be", with a purpose to prove that they are syntactically and semantically different in modern Chinese and English since they have different origins and evolution tracks. Besides, this thesis also summarizes similarities and differences of "shi" and "be" in modern languages and make a contrast of them in cleft structures, which gives an answer to the central question of this thesis: there are differences between "shi" in Chinese cleft structures and "be" in English cleft structures syntactically and semantically. It is highlighted that "Shi" is a pronominal focus marker, while "be" is a linking verb. The hypothesis that "shi" is a pronominal focus marker is derived from analogy to a previous research.Cleft structures in modern Chinese and English are both highlighted by linguists. As important items, "shi" and "be" bear important research value. A syntactic and semantic study of them in cleft structures is a deeper study. This thesis holds that "be" in English cleft structures is a linking verb while "shi" in Chinese cleft structures works as a focus marker, belonging to the category of pronoun.