The Possessor-subject-possessum-object Category And The Existential Category:The Mental Space And The Physical World

Both the possessor-subject-possessum-object(PSPO)sentence and the existential sentence belong to the marked clauses in modern Chinese.The association study of them has begun for a long time.At present,the related research makes further exploration about some questions,such as the sentence structure,the unaccusative verbs,and the indefiniteness effect of the object.It should be noted,however,whether the commonalities in the association study are enough to prove that the PSPO sentence is an generalized type of Chinese existential sentence? Whether the difference between the two subjects is really true? If the PSPO sentence can be categorized as a generalized type of Chinese existential sentence,questions regarding the syntax mechanism of the PSPO sentence are: How can the unaccusative verb take both a subject and an object? What Cases do the subject and the object receive? How the possessor-subject is involved in the derivation,shifted,the base generated or otherwise generated?A range of studies have been proposed in the association study between the PSPO sentence and the existential sentence in Chinese,but they fail to give a satisfactory explanation about the differences and commonalities between them,and also fail to properly explain the generative mechanism for the PSPO sentence.According to previous research results,we start from the comparison of the PSPO sentence and the existential sentence,then on the basis of Landau(2010)about the mental space and The Phase Theory,we give a new discussion about the differences and commonalities between the PSPO sentence and the existential sentence in Chinese,and a new explanation of the syntax mechanism for the PSPO sentence.In this paper,we point out that,the experience meaning of the PSPO sentence not only represent an existence of events,but also regard as “appearance or disappearance” in a broad sence,so we categorize the PSPO sentence as an generalized type of Chinese existential sentence.Then on the basis of Landau(2010),the subject of the PSPO sentence is an experiencer,hence we regard it as the mental space.And the mental space is realized by the preposition,so there is a null preposition P in front of the subject of the PSPO sentence.Therefore,the subject of the PSPO sentence is treated as a preposition phrase,and there is no essential difference about the subject between the PSPO sentence and the existential sentence,and the difference can be regarded as a reflection of the mental space and the physical world.In the derivational process of the PSPO sentence,the object is assigned the partitive case by the unaccusative verb,and obtained the theme theta-role in the inner domain.The subject is initially merged in the complement position of the prepositional phrase,and assigned the dative case by the null preposition.The dative case ferture is checked by the null preposition.The subject could have a covert movement.The trigger for the movement is that the null preposition have the [loc] feature.The spatio-temporal feature of the T in order to check the [loc] feature,the null preposition and the subject move to the specifier position of TP together.The EPP feature of T as a free rider is also checked.