On Chinese Pro And PRO

Empty Category is one of the important topics in transformational grammar, while both PRO and pro occupies the key position in Empty Category, which is one of the most controversial topics. So far, very few papers explore PRO and pro in Chinese, furthermore their viewpoints are different from each other. With this in mind, I put forward a hypothesis to deal with such an issue after discussing some evidence, which focuses on the classification and references of Chinese Empty Subjects.The thesis is divided into 5 parts. Part one talks about the definition and the role of Empty Categories (EC) and the EC theories of Chomsky, indicating that the thesis will focus on the licensing mechanism and references of Chinese pro and PRO, and showing that the research into Chinese pro and PRO is very significant. Meanwhile the author also points out that the distinction between Chinese finiteness and non-finiteness is a vital factor in determining the classification of Chinese null subjects.Part two deals with linguists' controversies over the distinction between Chinese finiteness and non-finiteness and the existence of Chinese pro and PRO.Part three analyzes linguists' disputes over the distinction between Chinese finiteness and non-finiteness and the existence of Chinese PRO. Then the author first proves the existence of Chinese non-finite clauses, and then raises her own standard for judging Chinese finiteness and non-finiteness. The article shows that the null subject of a non-finite clause is PRO. Finally the reference of PRO is analyzed in three aspects.Part four, first, shows different linguists' debates on Chinese pro. Then the author reveals that the pro licensing condition under Government and Binding theory has specific characteristics in different languages, puts forward a new hypothesis about another licensing mechanism called Free Inversion about which heated discussions have already arisen, and indicates that the morphological conformity under the null subject parameter is more reasonable to license pro in pro-drop languages, which, ofcourse, is applicable for Chinese pro. Seeing that the reference of Chinese pro relies on specific linguistic context, the author raises a new idea about the definition of empty categories given by Chomsky. All in all, all the above-mentioned corresponds to what Chomskian universal grammar pursues. The last part is a conclusion.