| Whether word formation solely occurs in the lexicon has been an issue of lively debate. Through the discussion of the formation of verb-complement compounds in Mandarin Chinese, this thesis supports the view on parallel morphology that word formation takes place in the lexicon as well as in syntax This thesis focuses on the formation of verb-complement compounds for the reason that they demonstrate complex thematic relations between the elements that make up the compounds and their arguments. The three types of verb- complement compounds under discussion are resultative compounds, causative compounds, and directional compounds.; These three types of verb-complement compounds are discussed in this thesis in order to demonstrate that word formation takes place in at least two grammatical components, lexicon and syntax, while obeying the principles of morphology (e.g., morphological integrity). The patterns, the semantic relations, and the syntactic behaviors of these three types of compounds are closely examined to determine if there are systematic differences between unlike groups of compounds, to identify what factors contribute to the differences, and to best account for these differences.; This thesis pursues a modular analysis of verb-complement compounds in Mandarin Chinese. As the evidence indicates, a syntactic or lexical analysis is proposed for different types of compounds. As a result, this analysis can better account for the individual properties of each type of compound. This approach differs from previous analyses in that all of the previous analyses propose a uniform derivation, syntactic or lexical, for every type of compound. |
