A Study On The Derivation Of English Exclamatory Sentences By Phase

English exclamatory sentences are one of the basic sentence types.By means of what and how,exclamatory constituents in the sentences are highlighted and the exclamatory function is achieved by the change of word order.Based on the observation of English exclamations,constituents related to what and how are precedent and independent.It is necessary for them to move to the initial position of sentences,while the other constituents are not involved in such movement,and the grammatical functions of each constituent are retained.Besides,the constituents combined with what and how form a relatively independent syntactic object whose internal constituents are not permitted to involve in the syntactic operations such as movement,replacement,and ellipsis.Meanwhile,the thesis also finds out that the descriptive constituents are the syntactic and semantic condition for the generative process of exclamations.Under the framework of Phase Theory,the thesis applies qualitative analyses,induction and deduction,and formal analyses to explore the generative rule about the sentence structure of exclamations.Different from interrogative and relative words,what and how do not possess the[+Q]feature and the referential function,but the sentence initial feature[+WH].Based on this fact,the thesis proposes the assumption that what and how are regarded as exclamatory operators to explain the generative process of exclamations.By means of the combination between the two operators,what and how,and their adjacent constituents,the[+WH]feature influences the whole exclamatory constituents.The derivation of exclamations corresponds to the general one for the sentences are derived phase by phase.The exclamatory operators are attached to their adjacent constituents so that the whole structure possesses the[+WH]feature.With the accomplishment of the relative phase,what and how,and their adjacent constituents have to move to the edge waiting for entering into the next phase.The derivation is accomplished when the[+WH]feature is checked.