| This thesis studies the Chinese NP1-Vi-NP2 Construction (special focus will be on Chinese existential sentence (CES) and the possessor-subject possessed-object sentence (PSPOS)) under the framework of Generative Grammar. The aims of this thesis are to provide an explanation of the idiosyncrasies of verbs and the case problem in such a construction as well the generation mechanism of the construction.It is widely accepted that the verbs in CES and PSPOS are unaccusative verbs. Chinese NP1-Vi-NP2 construction has long been the focus of Chinese grammar research. This thesis takes the view that the verbs in CES and PSPOS are unaccusative. However, the following problems arise:Firstly, it is well known that unaccusative verbs have a sole argument, but here are two arguments in Chinese NP1-Vi-NP2 Construction and this means one-too-many argument to be accommodated by the argument structure of the predicate. How to explain this? Secondly, according to Burzio, the unaccusative verb can not assign accusative case. And according to Case Filter, NPs with phonetic form must have case. How to explain the problem of case assignment of the NPs? The thesis attempts to provide answers to these questions.Firstly, the thesis reviews the previous researches, analyzing both the progresses and the existing problems of each research. Chapterâ…¢of the thesis proposes an hypothesis:the dynamic auxiliaries "le" "zhe" "guo" in Chinese NP1-Vi-NP2 Construction have the same function as I in Inflection Phrase (IP), which is a tense indicator. Under this assumption, the dynamic auxiliaries "le" "zhe" "guo" in Chinese NP1-Vi-NP2 Construction can assign case for NPs in the complements of verbs. Chapterâ…£first proves that Chinese dynamic auxiliaries "le" "zhe" "guo" can indicate tense of sentences, then discusses the case problem of NPs following unaccusative verbs in such constructions. Based on the above analysis, the fifth section of chapterâ…£gives explanation of the generation mechanism of the construction.
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