English-chinese Empty Category Comparative Study

In this thesis, a detailed research is made of empty categories distributed throughout the English and Chinese languages. It is pointed out in the thesis that English contains three types of empty categories and Chinese contains four. In adapting to MP framework they are DP trace, PRO, pro, and wh-trace with pro absent in English. Such division coincides with the four-way division made by Chomsky (1981).By comparison one can conclude that English and Chinese are similar to each other in terms of DP trace and PRO. DP trace exists both in English and Chinese since similar procedures of passivization and raising are present in the two languages. Nominal elements will move in these syntactic operations. Subsequently, DP traces are left behind and they get feature composition [+anaphor, -pronominal]. Note that the traces and their antecedents form chains. Within the chain, the antecedent is checked for case feature while the trace is not checked for case. Besides, only one theta role is assigned to the chain. PRO is existent in both English and Chinese; the reason being that both languages are subject to finite and non-finite distinction. Extended projection principle requires presence of subject at external argument position of non-finite construction. The feature composition of the empty category is [+anaphor, +pronominal], and such contradictory feature deprives its GC. Control theory serves to interpret PRO in both languages.English and Chinese differ from each other in wh-trace and pro. In English, wh-words move overtly at SS to check [+Q] feature carried by complementizer. As a result, wh-traces tend to occur at SS in English. In Chinese, however, except in condition of topicalization, wh-words only move covertly at LF to perform semantic interpretation. Therefore, wh-traces tend to occur at LF in Chinese. Such difference, mingled with other parametric variations causes contrasts shown by English and Chinese sentences that contain wh-traces. First, argument and adjunct asymmetry exists in English but is absent in Chinese. Second, order consistency of wh-trace antecedents is present in English but absent in Chinese. Third, parasitic gaps in English tend to more restrictively distributed than that of Chinese. Besides, English and Chinese differ from each other in pro. Chinese possesses such empty category while English is without it. This is due to presence of topic in logical representation, though such topic is null at PF. This topic establishes coindexation process with pro in Chinese. Therefore features of pro are recovered and the empty category is present in Chinese language. However, the same topic is unable to be coindexed with any empty category in English, since AGR system becomes a barrier for such coindexation. In addition to this, AGR system is rather meager in English and is unable to recover feature of pro, which is therefore absent in the language.