The Syntax Of Covert Verbs In English And Chinese Coordinate Structures

This thesis investigates parallel coordinate structures in English and Chinese and the syntax of covert verbs in English and Chinese parallel coordinate structures.We propose the Revised Coordinate Constituent Constraint to predict the grammaticality of parallel coordinate structures in the framework of transformational grammar. Thus, coordinate structures are transformed from parallel sentential coordination. English parallel coordinate structure demands syntactic dependency represented either by the presence of a coordinator or by the identification of pro while Chinese parallel coordinate structure without syntactic dependency requires semantic compatibility or relevance of events.The covert verbs in English parallel coordinate structures come from gapping and left-peripheral deletion (henceforth LPD) sentences and result from INFL licensing and Conjunction Reduction (henceforth CR), respectively. Both V deletion approach held by Jackendoff (1971), Hankamer (1973), Langendoen (1974), Stillings (1975), Neijt (1981) and Oirsouw (1983) and V raising approach held by Paul (1999), Tang (1998, 2001, 2003) and Johnson (2003) are unable to solve tense and agreement problems. We adopt Lobeck's (1995) INFL licensing theory in this thesis. This theory, on the one hand, provides a better account for the licensing and identification of an elided verb in gapping than the above two analyses; on the other hand, it distinguishes vP ellipsis from the so-called VP ellipsis. Genuine VP ellipsis construction does not exist in English. The term LPD admits a fact that LPD sentences are sentential coordination underlyingly, thus we claim that they are operated by CR, a rule distinct from the nature of gapping.The covert verbs in Chinese parallel coordinate structures arise from empty verb sentences and LPD sentences and come as the result of subject-predicate predication licensing and CR, respectively. Empty verb sentences, in my analysis, are rooted in verbless constructions. The degenerate nature of Chinese INFL does not allow the light verb v to get deleted even in verb predicate clauses. Only when INFL is realized by certain auxiliaries or modals can vP ellipsis constructions occur. The traditionally acknowledged VP ellipsis constructions are vP ellipsis constructions. Genuine VP ellipsis construction rather than null object construction takes place in Chinese due to the strong feature of the light verb. Tang (2001) concludes that LPD sentences in Chinese as well as in English are gapping instances. We argue they are formed by CR. Hence, no genuine gapping occurs inChinese.