A Study Of Potential De

Chinese de constructions have drawn successive researches by many linguists since the 1920s.From the initial stage of the researches surrounding Chinese de constructions,a most productive research topic relating to de constructions is traditional resultative de constructions,while potential de constructions of modal possibility or capability meaning is far less mentioned.As time goes on,it is undeniable that there are indeed meaningful and significant researches on potential de now,in which Wu Fuxiang undertakes the most prospective and meaningful studies.However,there are rare studies which essentially and comprehensively dissect the distinctions between de in traditional de constructions and that of potential de constructions,and which theoretically analyze why traditional de constructions and some of potential de constructions with similar structural constituents hold totally different semantic meanings.This thesis,therefore,derives from such a concern and mainly aims at solving the following three questions of Chinese potential de constructions:(1)What are the intrinsic relations between de in Chinese potential de constructions and Chinese modal verb neng?(2)What are the differences between traditional resultative de constructions and potential de constructions which share a similar "V+de+C" pattern with traditional resultative de constructions?(3)What is the syntactic derivation mechanism of potential de constructions and what is the nature or real identity of de in potential de constructions?Through analyzing Chinese natives' language intuition,carding and sorting document resources,comparing and contrasting linguistic data,making systematic data descriptions and revealing underlying rules,the major findings are obtained as follows:Firstly,this thesis discovers that potential de and modal verb neng appear in complementary distributions.Secondly,this thesis observes that though some potential de constructions share similar structural mode with traditional resultative de constructions,with a "V+de+C" pattern,there are differences between them in the dimension of negation and the dimension of stress.Thirdly,based on some viewpoints of Wu Fuxiang(2002a,2002b,2009)and Sze-WingTang(2010),the syntactic derivation mechanism of potential de constructions has been elementarily analyzed and the the deep syntactic structure of potential de constructions has been shown.This thesis concludes that the deep syntactic structure induction of Chinese potential de constructions develops from the deep syntactic structures of traditional resultativede constructions and de constructions in which de acts as phase complement.Because of a series of transformational movements,identity shifts and mergence in agreement with the Economy Principle and Affix-hopping Theory,the deep syntactic structure of potential de constructions unfolds a different scene from those of traditional resultative de constructions and de constructions in which de acts as phase complement.De in potential de constructions,accordingly,has a grammatical identity of tense clitic with the potential or possible meaning.Hopefully the study could be enlightening enough to enrich the research of potential de constructions and contribute to our overall comprehension of Chinese de constructions strategically.