Analysis Of NP-ellipsis Licensed By De In Mandarin Chinese

This thesis probes into the linguistic phenomenon of NP-ellipsis(NPE)licensed by DE in Mandarin Chinese under the framework of Generative Grammar.Having made a review of and reflection on the previous studies about ellipsis,NP-ellipsis and the nature of DE,the author points out that in the current research,we should(i)take a structural approach of movement and deletion,and(ii)due to the heterogeneity of DE,classify the linguistic materials first before exploring the syntactic status of DE in elliptical constructions as well as the conditions of NPE.On the basis of whether the retrieval of the semantic content of the elided NP is dependent on an antecedent in the context,this thesis proposes a classification of Chinese NPE licensed by DE: true NPE and pseudo-NPE.The occurrence of true NPE is related to both antecedent and contrastive focus(CF).DE serves as the CF marker in true NPE.Pseudo-NPE takes place in the construction [VP+DE].It is a special type of NPE licensed by DE,for the empty post-DE NP is actually not elided but represented by the elliptical DE-construction.By proving [VP+DE] as a nominal with the same referent as the “elided” NP,the author treats pseudo-NPE as nominalization,in which DE plays the role of a nominal marker.