Research On Syntactic-semantic Features And Grammaticalization Of "GEI NP VP” Construction

“GEI” sentences have always been the focus of research in the Chinese community.Many domestic scholars have conducted in-depth discussions and researches on the part of speech,semantics,and syntactic structure of “GEI”.The literature discusses the types of verbs licensed by the construction composed of“GEI”,the constructional meaning of the construction of “GEI” and the grammatical problems related to “GEI” from various angles,but there are still the following two aspects that need further research:1 In modern Chinese,through the comparative analysis with “V GEI”,what are the syntactic and semantic features of “GEI NP VP” construction? What are the characteristics of verbs and nouns that are licensed in different meanings of “GEI NP VP” construction?2 In the view of grammaticalization,what are the grammaticalization characteristics,paths and mechanisms about the sub-construction “GEI WO VP” of“GEI NP VP” construction? Has “GEI” in “GEI NP VP” construction been grammaticalized as a causative marker?In order to solve the above problems,this paper firstly based on the theory of construction grammar,after sorting out the definition and usage of “GEI” in several versions of function word dictionaries,it is found that the polysemy of “GEI” can only appear in the construction of “GEI NP VP”.Since this construction is commonly used in frequency,its semantics cannot be completely inferred from its constituent parts,and it is impossible to fully understand “GEI NP VP” by focusing only on the verb itself or the construction itself.Goldberg（1995）believes that when the verb is the means,result and premise of the construction,it is also possible for the verb to enter the construction.The core semantics of the Chinese “V GEI” construction is that although it is also the transfer of an item,the transferred item generally needs to exist in advance and be owned by the agent.Verbs of giving fully conform to the above core characteristics and is a typical example of the “V GEI” construction.And verbs of obtaining and verbs of creation can be understood as the premise of verbs of giving,but just because it is a premise,the recipient violates the requirement of“self-reliance”,and this dilemma needs to be solved in order to enter the “V GEI”construction.There are two common ways to improve syntactic independence: the“BA（把）” construction and the topic construction.At the same time,the self-sufficiency of the recipients of verbs of obtaining is higher than that of the verbs of creation,and the restricted degree of entering the “V GEI” construction will also be reduced.By comparing the “V GEI” constructions,it is found that the same verb has both similarities and great differences in the two constructions “GEI NP VP” and “V GEI”.“GEI NP VP” is a benefactive construction,“V GEI” is a transfer construction,there is overlap with dative and beneficiaries.Generally,the recipient belongs to the beneficiary.It can be said that the recipient is an instance of the beneficiary.This is one of the main reasons why the two constructions can be changed alternately.But the recipient is not always the beneficiary,and there are cases where the recipient and the beneficiary are separated.At this time,although the verb can enter two constructions respectively,but the semantics will be different.Under normal circumstances,the receiver can be fused with the “V GEI” construction.But failure to fuse with the beneficiaries of the “GEI NP VP” construction will result in mismatches of roles.There are two nouns after the “V GEI” construction,so the load of information is generally tail-heavy.However,in the construction of “GEI NP VP”,the two nouns are associated with “GEI” and the verb respectively,which can be tail-heavy or front-heavy in the load of information.Then,based on the theory of grammaticalization,this paper discusses the path and mechanism of “GEI NP VP” from benefactive construction to imperative construction through grammaticalization.The grammatical path for “GEI WO VP” to be grammaticalized as a command token is benefit→request→command.We believe that there is an inference from benefit to request first,“WO” is the beneficiary.Under non-realistic conditions,it can be understood as the speaker’s request;then the transition from request to command,and with the deepening of the mandatory tone,the imperative meaning gradually emerges,involves reanalysis: [[GEI][WO]]→[GEI WO],reanalysis is easier to spot only when “WO” is no longer the explicit beneficiary,or at least not explicit in that context.Although “GEI NP VP” has the causative meaning,but after investigation,it is found that “GEI” is not completely grammaticalized into a causative auxiliary verb,and it is understood that causation requires strict syntactic and semantic conditions:（1）Semantically,since “GEI” has the attribute of giving,if VP in “GEI NP VP” appears to be a recipient,then the causer must have the ownership or the right to dispose of the subject;（2）“GEI NP VP”is in a larger range of serial verb construction...