A Semantic And Syntactic Analysis Of Chinese Appositional Constructions

Chinese has various types of appositional constructions,and different types have different semantic features and syntactic structures.This thesis makes a further study on the semantic feature and the syntactic structure of Chinese appositional constructions on the basis of previous studies.Furthermore,it offers explanations to those combinations that are not accepted as appositional constructions.Chinese appositives are divided into close appositives and loose appositives.According to the categories of the components,close appositives are further divided into five sub-types:(1)noun phrase + noun phrase;(2)noun phrase + numeral phrase;(3)noun phrase + personal pronoun;(4)noun phrase + demonstrative phrase;(5)personal pronoun + demonstrative phrase.It is found that in the [noun phrase + noun phrase] form,only a common noun phrase and a proper noun phrase can constitute an appositional construction.The common noun phrase is the anchor,and the proper noun phrase is the apposition.In this appositional construction,the relationship between the anchor and the apposition is coordination.Syntactically,this combination is projected as a coordination phrase.The two elements are regarded as conjuncts which are connected by the Co head.The other four types are all projected into DPs.In most cases,the anchor provides the referent and the apposition provides descriptive information,except the [noun phrase + personal pronoun] form,in which the anchor provides descriptive information and the apposition provides the referent.Loose appositives are divided into two types:(1)noun phrase + noun phrase;(2)noun phrase + numeral phrase.The relation between the anchor and the apposition in the loose appositive is both coordinate and parenthetical.The appositional marker can co-occur with the coordinator,and they are in different positions.When the coordinator is in the head Co position,the appositional marker is in the head Par position because it is a part of the apposition.In this case,the appositional marker and the apposition is combined together to be a parenthetical phrase.The apposition firstly merges into the Par P,and then merges with the Co P.In the construction of [noun phrase + numeral phrase],the apposition in different levels has different interpretations.It has a strong interpretation when it is regarded as a part of the coordination because it can replace the anchor to make a sentence.When the apposition is in the lower level,it gets a weak reading,and the construction is interpreted as “anchor is apposition”.