A Multi-dimensional Study Of Periphrastic Causative Constructions In Mandarin Chinese

Periphrastic causative constructions belong to the category of analytical constructions.Such constructions usually take the general form of[NP1[vp V_cause NP₂ V_effect NP3]],where NP1 is the syntactic and logical subject of the matrix verb(V_cause),and NP₂ is the syntactic object of the matrix verb and the logical subject of the embedded verb(V_effect).Semantically speaking,NP1?hence Causer?is the entity viewed as causing the entire event,and NP₂?hence Causee?the entity carrying out the activity designated by the effected predicate.NP3?Affectee?is the entity that is the endpoint of the energy?literal or metaphorical?expended in the entire causative event.In Mandarin Chinese,periphrastic causative constructions are often expressed using the causatives shi???,rang???and jiao???,etc.Although many studies have been devoted to periphrastic causative constructions in Chinese,some questions have been left untouched.The present dissertation,by adopting a corpus-based approach,mainly deals with four research questions respectively,i.e.?1?a collostructional analysis of effected predicates in order to show the semantic differences and similarities among the three constructions;?2?a multi-genre analysis of the constructions from the perspective of subjectivity to explain why the periphrastic causative constructions of the verbs shi and rang have significantly distributional differences across spoken and written language;?3?a study of whether causative prototypes in the literature are the most frequently corpus-attested items and whether there exist significant differences among causatives of different semantic types;?4?a tentative analysis of periphrastic causative constructions from the viewpoint of Construction Grammar.The main conclusions of the study are as follows:?1?The collostructional analysis of effected predicates in the constructions reveal that the three constructions have long been regarded as synonymous because they share some semantic types of effected predicates,and bias effects can be indentified in their choosing effected predicates of different semantic categories.The statistical results show the periphrastic causative shi prefers verbs related to the change of state?both qualitative and quantitative?,rang verbs of motion,and jiao verbs of social interaction and verbal communications.?2?The periphrastic causative constructions involving shi and rang have been considered synonyms that differ only in terms of register.The thesis postulates a dynamic system of periphrastic causative constructions in which shi and rang share the basic meaning of causation while contrasting in terms of subjectivity.By treating meaning and genres as prototypically organized categories,the precise distributional patterns of the two causatives across various genres can be well explained.It is concluded that the causative shi is more frequently used in written genres to indicate objectivity while rang is more frequently used in spoken genres to show subjectivity.?3?In an attempt to have a better understanding of the concept of prototypicality,three models of prototypical causation described in the literature,viz.Iconic Sequencing,Billiard-Ball Model and Direct Manipulation are compared with the Chinese periphrastic causative constructions most frequently found in the corpus data,specifically,the periphrastic causative constructions of the verbs shi,rang and jiao.The results show that there exists a lack of correspondence between the three models and the results obtained in the corpora,and the verbs under investigation behave differently in different models.The reasons behind the discrepancy are discussed and a Construction Grammar approach to the Chinese periphrastic causative constructions is proposed.Also the typical periphrastic causative verb MAKE in English is investigated to show the complexity of establishing the prototypical model of such constructions,indicating that converging evidence is greatly needed in this process.?4?The analysis of periphrastic causatives against the constructions in which they occur shows that both the meanings of these causatives and their semantic arguments closely correspond to these of the constructions and that periphrastic causative constrictions of the verbs shi,rang and jiao in Mandarin Chinese cannot be fully explained in terms of the three event types proposed by Stafanowitsch?2001?.Thus a prototypical view is established according the relations among lexical types of verbs,grammaticalization and the degrees of causation.Within the framework of Construction Grammar,causative verbs are analyzed from the viewpoint of constructional coercion and lexical coercion,and an improved schema of periphrastic causative constructions is proposed.Also four event types of periphrastic causative constructions in Chinese are discussed.