The Syntax And Semantics Of Chinese Middle Constructions

Middle Construction, as a universally unique language phenomenon in natural languages, has attracted much attention to its special syntactic and semantic features from the linguistic circle. Since Jerperson discovered this unique language phenomenon in English and called it "active-passive", linguists have been endlessly probing into it from various aspects, and it is true of Chinese, for which Chinese Middle Construction also exists in Chinese Language. Chinese Middle Construction, as one kind of Middle Construction, has also drawn widely heated discussions on its unique syntactic and semantic features from many scholars' deep probe, represented by Cao Hong (2004)(2005), He Wenzhong (2005)(2007), JiXiaoling (2006), DaiTingting (2008),YuGuangwu & SiHuiwen (2008) and so on. Meanwhile, many other scholars have studied the generation of Chinese Middle Construction, represented by Gao Xing gang (2000), Dai Manchun (2001) (2003), Han Jingquan (2004), Zhou Xiaoyan & GaoTeng (2007), LiHui (2007), Nan Chao (2009), ZhuLehong (2011) and so on, but their focuses lie in the field of generation of Chinese Middle Construction, lexical generation or syntactic generation, attached by the semantic analysis of its constituents. These focuses have been discussed frequently by many linguistic schools. However, the previous descriptions about the syntactic and semantic features of Chinese Middle Constructions haven't been quite comprehensive, so this thesis attempts to provide a comprehensively syntactic and semantic analysis on Chinese Middle Constructions under the language principle of "Explanation Adequacy" and "Description Concreteness" in order to make a further study on Chinese Middle Constructions.Based on the analysis of the previous literature, the thesis tries to make a new definition on Chinese Middle Construction by providing the idea that Chinese Middle Construction refers to the construction like this:CMC refers to construction of this kind which denotes a syntactic subject representing an actual object inspiring the happening of the event referred by the verb because of the intrinsic feature of the syntactic subject. Furthermore, the thesis reclassifies Chinese Middle Constructions, and differentiates typical and non-typical Chinese Middle Constrictions clearer. In terms of syntactic study of Chinese Middle Constructions, this thesis first defines the syntactic status of the implicit argument of Chinese Middle Constructions, and gets the result that the implicit argument is IMP, rather than PRO or pro, which is consistent with Zhao Yunming (2002). Besides, the thesis offers a comprehensive analysis on the case-assignment of the implicit argument, assuming that the implicit argument is generated in the specifier position of vP, and it is v that checks its null case. Then as for the transitivity of middle verb, the thesis tries to get the conclusion that middle verb is semi-transitivity in nature with the help of the salient relationship between "trajectory" and "landmark" accompanied by the billiard model. Next, the thesis uniforms the syntactic generations of all types of Chinese Middle Constructions within the theoretical framework of Phase Theory and Cartographic Approach in generative linguistics, demonstrating the generative process of both typical and non-typical ones by cartography, thus strongly proving the idea that Chinese Middle Construction is generated syntactically.In terms of semantic study of Chinese Middle Constructions, the thesis makes a further semantic study on its respective constituents and the entire construction as a whole based on the previous literature according to the language principle of description, testing the independence of Chinese Middle Constructions, differentiating from other similar constructions in Chinese.To sum up, the thesis makes a profound study on the syntactic and semantic features of Chinese Middle Constructions respectively from the perspectives of syntax and semantics, including the syntactic status and semantic features of the implicit argument, the syntactic and semantic features of middle verb, and the syntactic generation of Chinese Middle Constructions and their relevant semantic features and so on. The research is helpful to understand the nature of Chinese Middle Constructions, and it is bestowed with theoretical significance and practical value in further discovering the nature of language essence.