Modern Chinese Causative Sentences Research

Under the guidance of Three-Dimensional Grammar, this dissertation gives a fulland systemic analysis of the causatives in modern Chinese, concentrating on itssyntactic, semantic and pragmatic features. It argues that Chinese causative sentence,combination of form and meaning, is the mapping from reality to concept of causationevent, which includes causative event and result event. The Chinese Causatives can beformally divided into three types, particular-mark causatives, special-constructioncausatives, and compound causative. The dissertation consists of eight chapters, in addition to forewords and closingremarks. The forewords part is a brief introduction of the gist, scope, principles and methodof the research, and the source of corpora. Chapter one is the review of the studies on Chinese causatives, which can bedivided into three periods, namely, the initial and innovative period, the grammarpopularization period, and the flourishing and deepening period. The dissertationgives a concise description of the important studies on causative sentence in the threeperiods and points out the shortcomings of the past researches. Chapter two depicts the character, scope and classification of causatives inChinese. Expounding upon the concept of causation and causative sentence, andbased on the detailed study of the formal and semantic structure, it construes thesystem of Chinese causatives, analyzes the scope of the sentence, and manages tomake new classifications. The above forms a theoretical background for thedissertation. From chapter three to chapter eight the dissertation gives a detailed description ofthe three types and six subclasses of causatives. Chapter three analyzes the first type of particular-mark causatives, Shi-sentence,with stress on its syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features. Inner and outer contrastsare fully carried out. Chapter four studies the second type of particular-mark causatives, causativeBa-sentence. The syntactic, semantic, pragmatic features are described in detail.Compares between these two relational sentences are also made. Chapter five probes the first type of special-construction causatives, the obligatorysentence. Its syntactic, semantic, pragmatic features are fully investigated. ii摘要Relationship between it and relevant sentence is described. Chapter six discusses the second type of special-construction causatives, factitivesentence. Its syntactic, semantic, pragmatic features are also surveyed. Contrasts for itand obligatory sentence and compound causative sentence have been done. Chapter seven researches the third type of special-construction causatives,causative V-de- sentence. The syntactic, semantic, pragmatic features of the twosubclasses of this type are described independently. It also carries out a contrast forthis and other causative sentences. Chapter eight studies the compound causative. Emphases are also put on itssyntactic, semantic, pragmatic features and the differences between this and othercausatives. Closing remarks summarizes the whole dissertation and points out its merits anddemerits. References are attached to the dissertation.