A Comparative Study Of Verbs And Adjunctsin Englishand Chinese Middle Constructions

Since the first systematic study conducted by Samuel Jay Keyser and Thomas Roeper,the middle construction has aroused a wide discussion in linguistics.So far,numerous scholars have approached the comparison between English and Chinese middle constructions from different perspectives.However,most previous studies are qualitative studies instead of quantitative studies based on corpus.Oriented to the problems in the comparative studies of English and Chinese middle constructions,the present study attempts to make a comparison of verbs and adjuncts in English and Chinese middle constructions,employing the collected middle constructions from Corpus of Contemporary American English,British National Corpus,Corpus of Chinese Language and Chinese National Corpus as data,on the basis of theory of Construction Grammar,and by virtue of qualitative and quantitative analysis.Results of the comparison of verbs in English and Chinese middle constructions demonstrate:(1)English and Chinese middle constructions have both similarities and differences in the constraints they impose on verbs.Typical English and Chinese middle verbs generally share semantic features like [+transitive] and [+volitional].English middle verbs allow various tenses and aspects while Chinese middle verbs are not allowed to take any aspectual marker.(2)English and Chinese middle constructions are partly different in their types of verbs.In English middle constructions,the ratios of activity verb,accomplishment verb,achievement verb and state verb are 81.32%,6.71%,4.31% and 7.66% respectively whereas in Chinese ones,the ratios of the above types of verbs are 85.54%,10.16%,3.04% and 1.26% respectively.Results of the comparison of adjuncts in English and Chinese middle constructions reveal:(1)English and Chinese middle constructions are similar in the constraints they impose on adjuncts.The adjunct is demanded to provide pragmatic information.Syntactically,the adjuncts should occupy the final position.Semantically,the adjuncts should be non-volitional.(2)English and Chinese middle constructions are different intheir types of adjuncts.As for the syntactic types,English middle constructions frequently adopt prepositional phrases whereas Chinese ones frequently employ adjectives.As for the semantic types,English middle constructions prefer quality-oriented adjuncts while Chinese ones prefer facility-oriented adjuncts.Hopefully,this study may possess both practical and academical value.Practically,this study may help to deepen the understanding of English and Chinese middle constructions by more knowledge of the similarities and differences of verbs and adjuncts between English and Chinese middle constructions.Academically,this study may help to compensate for the inadequacy in the comparative studies of English and Chinese middle constructions by avoiding the problem of neglecting empirical research.