A Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Double Object Constructions From The Perspective Of Event Structure

Double object construction(DOC)is a kind of special sentence pattern that is composed of two objects,the direct object usually acts as the bearing verb,and the indirect object indicates the action direction or the action target of the verb.According to the internal time structure of verbs,verbs can be divided into four types of event structure(ES): state,activity,achievement and accomplishment.These event types reveal different characteristics respectively when they are used in DOC.Based on ES theory and Goldberg and Shi Yuzhi’s classification of DOC,this thesis intends to make a comparative study of English and Chinese ESs of DOC,aiming to reveal the semantics and syntax characteristics of English and Chinese ESs of DOC,event schemas,force dynamic schemas of ES,and similarities and differences between them.The data used in this thesis are collected from English Corpus of Contemporary American and Modern Corpus of Chinese Natural Language.Based on the analysis of the event features of English and Chinese classical DOCs,this thesis classifies the event types of English and Chinese DOC,and on this basis,it respectively studies the semantic and syntactic features of ESs of DOC in both languages,event schemas and force dynamic schemas.Finally,the similarities and differences of ESs of DOC between English and Chinese are summarized.Through detailed comparative analysis,it is found that the major event types of English DOCs are achievement,accomplishment and activity,while Chinese are of achievement and accomplishment,and both English and Chinese DOCs have the event types of achievement and accomplishment,but not state.Additionally,the constant of an event schema is the main verb.And the role of agent which subject plays,the role of patient which indirect object plays,and the role of theme that direct object plays are the variables of event.The constant and variables can show the direction of transfer and the focal point in each event type of DOCs in English and Chinese.What is more,in a force dynamic schema,force entity,that is,Oi as main agonist,Od as subordinate agonist and Sub as antagonist,force tendency,result of force interaction and balance of strength,work together to reveal the ESs of DOC in each event type.English DOCs and right-directed DOCs in Chinese share common ES meaning,both can mean that subject makes indirect object consciously accept direct object.English and Chinese DOC event schema have the same constant and variables,and the state initiator in the same event type in English and Chinese DOCs is the same.Besides,in force dynamic schema,the direct objects in English and Chinese DOCs tend to move,and the main agonists of all right-directed type of DOC tend to rest.The most striking difference in ES of the English and Chinese DOC lies in the direction of the transfer.ESs of all English DOCs are right-directed,while Chinese DOCs have three cases: left-directed,right-directed and two-way.Besides,the direction of the transfer,the focal point and the form of “State” in event schema are different.Additionally,in the level of force dynamic schemas,force dynamic result of English and Chinese DOC in event type of accomplishment is different with both Od having more force.The study may improve our understanding of syntactic characteristic of English and Chinese and can also provide guidance for language teaching and learning especially in DOC.