On The Applicative Analysis Of Double Object Constructions In Chinese

In the past few decades, double object construction (DOC) is one of the hottest topics in linguistics. There are three major approaches related to the analysis of DOC:the transformational approach, the semantic approach and the applicative approach. The applicative approach is the latest way to research DOC, which holds that applicative construction and DOC have the same underlying structure. The applicative construction was firstly found in the Bantu languages. It is considered as a construction in which a verb has a specific morpheme, which license an extra argument that would not otherwise be regarded as a part of the verb's argument structure. Generally speaking, the Mandarin DOC has two main types:standard double object constructions (SDOC) and quasi-double object constructions (QDOC). Furthermore, QDOC can be divided into two sub-types:malefactive QDOC and benefactive QDOC.This thesis follows the classification of applicative constructions proposed by Tsai (2009) and Paul & Whitman (2010), and bases its studies on DOCs in Chinese, taking the Mandarin Chinese and Taiwan Southern Min as examples. It focuses on the following questions:1) In Mandarin Chinese, which kind of applicative construction does SDOC belong to? 2) Which kind of applicative construction does malefactive QDOC belong to? 3) Which kind of applicative construction does benefactive QDOC belong to? 4) Whether SDOC, malefactive QDOC and benefactive QDOC in Mandarin Chinese share the same applicative analysis with their counterparts in the other dialects such as Taiwan Southern Min (TSM)?This thesis believes that the Mandarin SDOC should belong to the raising applicative construction proposed by Paul & Whitman (2010), and the malefactive QDOC in Mandarin Chinese should also belong to the raising applicative construction. According to Tsai's (2009) classification of high, middle and low applicative constructions, the thesis proposes a new applicative construction called middle-low applicative construction. The benefactive QDOC in Mandarin Chinese is classified to the middle-low applicative construction. By contrast, the SDOC, malefactive QDOC and benefactive QDOC in Mandarin Chinese share the same applicative analysis with their counterparts in other dialects such as TSM. The thesis holds that the principle of distributive adverbial quantifier scope is universal. Thus, the indirect objects in both SDOC and QDOC should undergo the syntactic movement. Both SDOC and malefactive QDOC belong to the raising applicative construction, but they are different in the passivization due to the free order of Agree and EPP-triggered movement.