A Study On English Small Clauses Within The Framework Of Tg Grammar

Small clauses are intriguing grammatical entities whose syntactic structure has become a controversial topic for a long time. Since Stowell (1981) and Chomsky (1981) put forward the term small clause, small clauses have drawn the attention of many linguists at home and abroad. They have made a good deal of research on the syntactic status of small clauses. However, up to now there is very little agreement.The thesis attempts to redefine small clause and explore the uniform derivational process of small clauses distributed in different constructions. The thesis makes a reclassification of small clauses based on different standards and expounds some other specific features of small clauses.First of all, studies conducted by the scholars at home and abroad in the past years are reviewed briefly. Then, based on the previous studies, the thesis analyzes small clause as a maximal projection headed by a defective inflection I in the light of IP analysis proposed by Chomsky (1981). We believe that isolated constituents bearing a subject-predicate relation semantically are small clauses. Traditionally, verb-less constructions bearing a subject-predicate relation are small clauses; however, the thesis extends the category of small clauses, holding that VP and PrtP can also appear in small clauses. Based on the analysis of English small clauses made by Zhang Yinglan (2007), the thesis makes a more detailed and distinctive reclassification of small clauses according to three standards, namely different specific positions in the main clauses, different semantic functions of small clauses in the main clauses, and different predicates of small clauses. Such a reclassification gives a perspective view of small clauses. After that, some specific features of English small clauses are particularly illustrated. The thesis holds that small clauses possess some specific syntactic features: there exists a copular relation between the subject and the predicate in a small clause; there are three different types of subjects; the defective inflection / has no case-assigning ability; word order that the subject must precede the predicate is fixed and there is a restriction on the predicates in nominal small clauses; small clauses can and only can be assigned a theta role when they are complements of the first projection VP. Afterwards, we explores the uniform derivational process of small clauses distributed in ECM constructions, raising constructions, existential constructions, SVOC constructions and double object constructions, and points out that the subject of a small clause originates in the specifier position of XP to gain a theta role assigned by XP and then moves to the specifier position of IP or IP for the sake of case.