The Comparison Of ’V De∕Bu C’and ’Neng∕Bu Neng VC’

In the field of modern Chinese, both potential auxiliaryverbs and potential verb-complement structures are two mainsubcategories in the potential category, which has been thesubject of the researchers on modern Chinese grammar for a longtime.The modality theory, cognitive-functional grammar, andthe‘three plane’theory, are adopted to set up the corres-ponding relation between potential meaning and modal meaning of potential auxiliary verbs and potential verb-complement structures. The pairs of words—‘V de∕bu C’and ‘neng∕buneng VC’, which are often cross used and the most frequentlyused words in potential auxiliary verbs and potentialverb-complement structures, are selected and being compared tofind out the use differences and similarities from syntactic,semantic and pragmatic perspectives, and to reveal the causesof their coexistence. In addition, the author attempts todescribe the phenomenon that potential auxiliary verbs occurin conjunction with potential verb-complement structure and toanalyze the reasons for it.There are five chapters in this thesis.In the first chapter, the author introduces the researchobjective and significance, the research background of thestudy at home and abroad, and research methodology. Except forthat, the symbols and corpus source employed in the presentstudy are illustrated.In light of related theories of modality, chapter twounifies the different subjects in potential category andfocuses on the issues of potential auxiliary verbs andpotential verb-complement structures that appear in modalityconstructions to find out the relation between the potentialcategory and the modal category of potential auxiliary verbsand potential verb-complement structures.Chapter three and four, which are the main body of thisstudy, investigate and analyze the potential verb-complement structures，‘V de∕bu C’and the potential auxiliary verbs，‘neng∕bu neng VC’from syntactic, semantic and pragmaticperspectives. Moreover, the comparison is made. In the aspectof syntactic, the structural features, syntactic function, thecondition with adverbials or objects, parallel structures andsome special constructions of‘V de∕bu C’and ‘neng∕bu nengVC’are compared; from the semantic perspective, semanticfeatures, semantic orientations, and semantic restrictedconditions of these two pairs of words are compared; from thepragmatic perspective, the pragmatic focus, the selection ofsentence types and frequency of use of these two pairs of wordsare compared. The causes of their coexistence are revealedthrough the comparison in syntactic, semantic and pragmaticaspects.Chapter five centers on the description and explanation ofthe phenomena that a pair of ‘V de C’, a pair of ‘V bu C’or a pair of ‘neng VC’ are used in succession and the potentialauxiliary verb‘neng’occurs in conjunction with the potentialverb-complement structure ‘V de/bu C’. The reasons for it arepresented as well.The last chapter concludes the major findings and thelimitations of the study are pointed out as well.