A Systematic Study Of Modern Chinese Null Subjects-from The Perspective Of MTC

This thesis makes a systematic classification of modern Chinese null subjects from the perspective of Hornstein's movement theory of control.MTC is under the framework of Minimalist Program.Since Minimalist Program eliminates D-structure,lexical insertion and ?-assignment do not have to precede movement.It's possible that lexical insertion and ?-assignment,on one hand,and movement,on the other,are freely interspersed.Therefore,obligatorily controlled PRO is actually an A-trace whose antecedent is assigned another theta-role after moving to a new position.And non-obligatorily controlled PRO is a pronoun,which is resorted to only when movement cannot take place.As for modern Chinese null subjects,so many factors,such as pro-drop language,can lead to subjectless clause that modern Chinese null subjects look very complicated.In view of new theoretical development of control,this thesis reclassifies modern Chinese null subjects with the aim of dispelling the clouds and seeing the sky,i.e.the nature of modern Chinese null subjects.In this thesis,modern Chinese null subjects are classified into three kinds,i.e.null subject as trace,null subject as ellipsis and null subject as pro.And different structures can license trace,ellipsis and pro.Trace is common in de(?)structures,similar double object structures,object structures,etc.there are ellipses in imperative sentences,conversation structures,liushui(fused)structures and so on.And pro is mainly found in subject structures,de(?)structures and complement structures.Each kind of null subject has its own way to retrieve its co-reference.While trace uses theta-linking interpretation and various obligatory controls to derive its antecedent,ellipsis does it by recovering and pro by pronominalization.In turn,this thesis makes MTC more persuasive by pointing out typical backward control in modern Chinese.Special Replica Phrase in modern Chinese endows MTC with more explanation power.