| The middle construction is a sentence structure that expresses passive meaning by means of active form.It has unique syntactic and semantic features,and has become a hot topic in recent decades.There has always been quite a few controversies about Chinese middle construction,such as the definition standard,the generation mechanism and the internal relations among the components of the construction.Most of the studies on Chinese middle construction are based on analogies and even imitations of English middle construction research results,often ignoring the characteristics of Chinese middle construction.And as far as the current research objects are concerned,the research on middle construction in modern Chinese mainly focuses on the construction “NP+V-qilai+AP”,and there are relatively few studies on the construction“NP+hao+V”,and the researches on this construction are also controversial in the above aspects.The thesis is based on combining and summarizing previous domestic and foreign studies on “NP+hao+V” construction from different perspectives.We draw on different linguistic theories including Case Grammar,Case Filter,Generalized Case Filter,Theta Criterion,and etc.This essay adopts inductive and qualitative research methods,and the examples are mainly from relevant literature or the author’s introspection.Based on the definition and classification of“NP+hao+V” construction,the thesis attempts to analyze the characteristics of each component of the construction,further explore the syntactic and semantic features of the construction.The syntactic features include the implicity of agent and the use of simple present tense.The semantic features include generic,stative,modality and subject responsibility.As to the characteristics of “NP+hao+V”,it is found that: the initial NP can be filled by non-agent semantic roles;“hao”(good)is a character adjective with the meaning “rongyi”(easy),which modifies V and acts as an adverbial in the structure;the middle verb undergoes a state-oriented process,and both transitive and intransitive verbs may occur in the middle construction;“hao+V” is a phrase,and the two together semantically points to the NP,describing the attributes or state of it.The thesis also explores the generation mechanism of this structure under the guidance of Case Grammar and other theories.It is proposed that the structure changes from stating events to describing the attributes of the NP,during which the agents are grammatically suppressed and cannot appear at the syntactic level.The middle verbs thus lose their ability to assign a case to the complement,and at the same time,the nominative case assigner’s assignment energy needs to be released.After being assigned the role of patient,instrument or location by the middle verb,these three arguments are shifted under the requirements of Case Theory,Theta Criterion,etc.,and finally moved to the position of the structural subject,granted the nominative case by the I.node.The middle construction is thus generated. |
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