Research Of BEI Sentences In Modern Chinese

The BEI sentence in modern Chinese is studied systematically in this dissertation. The basic constructions, covert or overt of components in BEI sentences and its motivation, and transformation between BEI sentences and sentences with a patient NP subject, are discussed as follows.In chapter 1, an overview of research on BEI sentences in modern Chinese is given, and some existing issues are presented. The framework and contents of this dissertation, methodology, and the corpus for research are introduced. In addition, the concepts of passiveness, passive sentences and BEI sentences, passive meaning and passive form, are explicitly distinguished. Three kinds of grammar domain, in which the passive meaning is realized, are explored as the phrase domain, clause domain, and text domain.In this dissertation, the meaning of "passive" in "passive sentences" is deemed to be different from its meaning in dictionaries. The essence of the passiveness in passive sentences lies in that the subject of the sentence is affected by certain actions. So the passive sentence is defined as a sentence with syntactic markers, in which the subject is the affectee of the actions. Passive sentences involve two categories: one is marked by verbs, such as AI, SHOU and ZAO; the other is marked by prepositions BEI, GEI, JIAO and RANG or auxiliary BEI and GEI. The so-called BEI sentence is defined as a sentence with the mark BEI. Therefore the BEI sentence is involved in the passive sentence. Passive meaning and passive form are used to observe passive phenomena from two different viewpoints. Some sentences only have passive meaning, some sentences only have passive form, and some sentences have both.In chapter 2, the BEI sentence is defined as "A BEI (B) +VP", and it contains five constructive forms, that is "A BEI B+V", "A BEI B+V LE/ZHE/GUO", "A BEI B+VR", "A BEI B+VO" and "A BEI B+VP1VP2". The syntactic and semantic properties of the five constructions and the components A, B and VP are discussed. As for the structure as a whole, "A BEI B+V" is the simplest, while the other four ones can be obtained by adding components one by one. The latter can hold the former.The syntactic and semantic properties of A, B and VP include: 1. The syntactic function of A and B is indicative. 2. A and B play the same syntactic role. That is, A is uniformly summarized as the designated affectee, and B is the designated responsible actor. 3. VP also has the uniform semantic characteristics. VP expresses the state, but not the action. Moreover, VP means the termination, not the beginning.The syntactic and semantic properties of the five constructions discussed above involve: 1. From the viewpoint of the syntactic structure, each of the five constructions has its basic and expanded forms. 2. Among the five ones, "A BEI B+V" is the simplest. Unfortunately, its usage is restricted by some syntactic or semantic requirements. 3. "A BEI B+V LE" means the complete affection of B on A. The function of "LE" is to terminate the action expressed by V; "A BEI B+V ZHE"means the continuation of certain passive state; "A BEI B+V GUO" emphasizes the past of certain passive state. 4. The complements in "A BEI B+VR" falls into six semantic categories, that is, resultant compliments, directional compliments, compliments of potentiality, compliments of degree, complications of time and position and compliments of quantification. 5. The objects in "A BEI B+VO" falls into five categories, that is, subordinating objects, affiliation objects, factitive objects, double objects and fixed collocates. Different objects result in different syntactic properties in BEI sentences. 6. According to the different semantic orientation of "BEI B", "A BEI B+VP1VP2" has two sub-constructions: [BEI B [VP1 VP2]] and [BEI B [VP1] [VP2]]. The "BEI B" in the former orientates to all the VPs, but the latter to part of the VPs. 7. The uniform semantic property of BEI sentences is summarized as follows: The speaker designates subjectively an object as an affectee by some actions, and narrates the state of the affectee.In chapter 3, covert or overt of the components in BEI sentences and the motivations are discussed. The covert or overt of A, B, BEI and VP is analyzed. As a result, the covert or overt in BEI sentences is not only the problem of the formal construction, but also restricted by the semantic expression and information transfer. Moreover, covert or overt should be observed not only in the sentence itself, but also in the overall context. Compared with the static analysis of the five basic constructions in chapter 2, the BEI sentences are studied in dynamic context in this chapter. Covert or overt of the components is affected by various factors in the context, and hence, the BEI sentences demonstrate flexibility and vigor in communication.Specifically, the covert of B is more complex than A, since the covert of A means ellipsis of A; and the covert of B includes ellipsis and implication. This proves A is more important than B in BEI sentences, because BEI sentences are used to show the state of affectee, and it isn't vital where the affection comes. Moreover, based on the statistical analysis of the corpus, we find out that the usage frequencies of the covert and overt of A, B are different. This phenomenon can be interpreted as the result of restrictions by the distribution, remembrance, explicitness of information, and avoiding repetition, etc. Restricted by the expression of the focus of information, the ellipsis and implication of VP seldom happens. As for BEI, since it's the marker of BEI sentences, it occasionally can be omitted. The implication of BEI is related to the transformation between BEI sentences and sentences with a patient NP subject, which will be discussed in chapter 4.The topic of chapter 4 is the mutual transformation between BEI sentences and sentences with a patient NP subject. It mainly analyzes the transformation between the complete type I and type II, the simplified type I and type III, and the motivation for transformation. The characteristics of BEI sentences are further explored by comparison. It seems that the difference among type I, II, and III is only the presence or absence of BEI. However, due to the special importance of BEI and the systematicness and stability of the sentence construction, the presence or absence of BEI plays a decisive role in the sentence. Therefore, the transformation is restricted not only by the syntax, but also by the deep semantics and the information transfer. The restrictions involve restriction of special constructions, restriction of the full-formfunction of BEI, restriction of adverbials, the semantic restriction of A and B, and the semantic restriction of the full sentence.Specifically, affected by the following restrictions, the transformation can't take place: 1. Syntactic restriction. The transformed sentences can't survive because of the special sentence constructions or existence of some adverbials. 2. Semantic restriction of A and B. If there is no semantic gradability between A and B, the transformation can't take place. 3. Semantic restriction of the full sentence. If BEI sentences emphasize unfortunate events or sentences with a patient NP subject emphasize fortunate events, the transformation can't take place. These restrictions are hierarchical: the first is basic and obligatory; the last two are flexible.By means of transformation, we compare the semantic differences between BEI sentences and sentences with a patient NP subject. These differences include: l.BEI sentences are always used to narrate unfortunate and unexpected events. However, sentences with a patient NP don't have this semantic property. 2. BEI sentences are used to narrate something dynamically, and the latter is used to describe something statically. 3. BEI sentences emphasize the causative reasons of certain affective state. Sentences with a patient NP subject don't have this semantic property.Chapter 5 discusses the application of the theory of Hierarchical Network of Concepts (HNC) to processing Chinese passive sentences in natural language processing by computer. HNC provides a new processing way for computers to understand Chinese passive sentences. The way HNC processing Chinese passive sentences can be used for reference in the linguistic research. For example, In HNC theory, sentences with a patient NP subject are classified into several types. This classification is more reasonable than the classification of the so- called unmarked passive sentences. Therefore, the division of Chinese sentences into active sentences and passive sentences seems imperfect, if the classification is performed from the aspects of semantics and function. In contrast, the classification of seven semantic sentence types in HNC is more comprehensive and reasonable. Of course, the HNC theory needs to be further developed in order to understand passive sentences perfectly and dynamically. For example, the HNC theory can work better on generation of contexts and short-time memory.The conclusion is given in chapter 6. The contents and main achievements of this dissertation are summarized. Some issues with regard to passive sentences in modern Chinese are listed for future research. This field will be one of the topics of my future research work.