The Syntactic Analysis Of The Chinese Resultative Verb Construction

In Mandarin Chinese, resultative verb constructions can be divided into two subtypes:resultative verb construction and de construction. This thesis is concerned with the formertype, which is charaterised by having two predicative elements combined together as a verbalcomplex, with the first element a verb denoting an activity or a state and the second element averb or an adjective expressing the result caused by the activity or state. Two major problemsregarding resultative verb constructions are investigated:1) Where and how is the predicatecomplex generated?2) Why is the construction usually multiple-way ambiguous, with somemeaning(s) more easily acceisible than the others?.In order to give a better explanation for the above two issues, we proposed an eventstructure model based on Levin&Rappaport Hovav’s framework. Our model is composed ofthree elements: one linking principle and two distinctions. The linking principle makes aconnection between the semantic arguments and the grammatical relations. One distinction ismade between simple and complex event structure templates and the other is betweenstructure and constant participants. In accordance with the linking principle, the two causativearguments are related to the grammatical relations. The author reveals that the generation ofthe predicate complex obeys the lexical rules. Meanwhile, it is also constrained by thepragmatic factors as well as our world knowledge. Besides, we have shown that the complexthematic relations are derived by integrating the individual and complex thematic relationsand realizing the two causative arguments under different ways. Furthermore, we claim thatthe syntactic frame the predicate complex belongs to is dependent on the event structuretemplate, which in turn is determined by the property of the first predicate, namely whether itdenotes state or activity.As for the ambiguity of resultative verb constructions, we take the sentence WangWuzhui-lei-le XiaoMing "WangWu chase-tired-PERF XiaoMing" for example, which has fourinterpretations, namely (a)"WangWu chased XiaoMing and as a result XiaoMing got tired";(b)"WangWu chased XiaoMing and as a result WangWu got tired";(c)“XiaoMing chasedWangWu and WangWu got XiaoMing tired";(d)*"XiaoMing chased WangWu and WangWu got himself tired". Among the four interpretations,(d) is impossible,(a) is the easiest to obtainwhile (c) is the hardest. We analyze the reason why (d) is impossible and (a-c) are possible,and why the three interpretations in (a-c) vary in the degrees of easiness in getting obtained. Itis proposed that the different interpretations of the same resultative verb construction resultfrom the differences in the interaction of the two different thematic relations, viz. theindividual and complex thematic relations as well as the realization of the causativearguments. The accesibility of the various interpretations is related to prototypicality and theprinciple that the animate subjects act as Agents or Experiencers of the predicates in activesentences.