A Minimalist Approach To Chinese Raising Predicates

This thesis addresses questions concerning the Chinese raising predicates within the latest minimalist framework.Chapter one is an introduction. We raise the research questions and discuss the origin of raising predicates in this chapter. Chapter two reviews the major studies of raising predicates within Government and Binding Theory. Chapter three studies raising predicates from several different perspectives, i.e. their differences from control verbs, their relations with modals, their classification and their positions within GB. Chapter four reviews the relevant points of Chomsky (1995, 2000, 2001) and puts forward assumptions. Chapter five deals with the raising construction in English and Chinese. Chapter six is a conclusion.In our research, we hope to give a unified account of English and Chinese raising structures and explain their structural differences. We have studied the origin of the raising predicates. We have also studied their characteristics and compared their differences from control verbs. We have studied their relations with modals and then given a tentative classification. By applying minimalist assumptions, we have explained how raising construction is formed. We have also explained the differences between English and Chinese in raising structures.Our approach is in accord with the latest minimalist assumptions. The study provides empirical evidence from Chinese and English for Chomsky's (2000) claim that EPP features are universal while P-features varies parametrically among languages. The typological differences are the differences of default strength of features. It is hoped that our research might make some contributions to the study of the nature of human languages.