A Syntactic Study Of The “VP Lai” In Xuzhou Dialect

A sentence is composed of clauses and sentence-final particles(SFPs).The same clause endowed with different SFPs will affect the meaning of the whole sentence,and thus SFPs serve as one of the most important components for constituting a sentence.Xuzhou is located on the north of Jiangsu Province,with its local dialect as Zhongyuan Mandarin Chinese.Particles are often found at the end of the sentence to express sentiment and attitude.Among them,the particle “lai” is distinct of diverse usage and complicated structure.Based on the corpus of Xuzhou dialect,this thesis is targeted at the structure of “VP lai” to conduct the syntactic study of the SFP lai in Xuzhou dialect.This thesis involves two research questions:(1)What are the syntactic features of the “VP lai” in Xuzhou dialect?(2)What are the syntactic constraints of the SFP lai in Xuzhou dialect in its generation?Under Minimalist Program and cartography,this thesis,by virtue of relevant literature material,finds that:(1)The structure of “VP lai” is allowed in declarative,interrogative,and imperative sentences,mostly expressing the nonfactual or subjunctive mood.The factual mood that is rare in the structure appears when the declarative sentence indicates continuity.The SFP lai is neither aspect marker or tense marker,and it provides irrealis meaning for the sentence.“VP lai” is applicable to finiteness and carries with itself the feature of dynamic and irrealis.The SFP lai in the structure of “VP lai” is the member of SFPs of the event type,which is closely related to the eventuality of predicates.It dominates the lowest position of the SFP structure,close to the v P.It features the head-final projection.(2)The SFP lai in Xuzhou dialect cannot be the exact exception of FOFC(Final-over-Final Constraint),for its projection is out of the Spell-Out domain.At the same time,the SFP lai is constrained by various conditions: the verb with the feature of autonomy is allowed in the “VP lai”,and its complement is restricted to NP,prepositional,result complement,but state complement and potential complement are not permitted.Verbs with autonomy asks for the subjects that are animate and with agentivity,but inanimate subjects can be allowed in “VP lai” by virtue of auxiliary verbs,causative verbs.The lai in the “VP lai” cannot be overlapped and added to any other complements.The study of the SFP lai in Xuzhou dialect has not only,to some degree,born out the claim of FOFC,but also takes evidence to show the universality of generative grammar.