A Study On Subject-object Asymmetry Of Syntactic Component Extraction In Mandarin Chinese

Subject-object asymmetry has become a key point and hot topic both between domesticand overseas linguists since1980s. Compared to the agreed research of subject-objectasymmetry in English, such asymmetry and its cause in Mandarin Chinese arouse disputesamong linguists. This thesis holds that extracting syntactic component in Mandarin Chineseinduces subject-object asymmetry based on Huang (1984) etc. Therefore, it finds outdeficiencies of present syntactic theories in previous researches through investigation andanalysis, and will discuss the following issues around such phenomenon: first of all, whetherthere is subject-object asymmetry in Mandarin Chinese; secondly, if there is, how thesubject-object asymmetry exhibits in Mandarin Chinese; at last, if present syntactic theoriescan not adequately explain such asymmetry, then what factors affect such asymmetry inMandarin Chinese.Through investigating the subject-object asymmetry of syntactic component extraction inMandarin Chinese, this thesis argues that it is rather than a pure syntactic asymmetry, which isalso affected by semantic factors. In the first place, this thesis describes the phenomenon ofthe subject-object asymmetry in previous researches. Secondly, this thesis studies previousresearches carefully, and finds that GCR (Generalized Control Rule) and PIR (PredicationIndexing Rule) both can’t adequately explain the extraction in specific CNPs (Complex NounPhrases) etc. Therefore this thesis holds that the subject-object asymmetry does exist inMandarin Chinese but present syntactic theories can’t adequately account for such asymmetryof syntactic component extraction in Mandarin Chinese. Then this thesis systematicallydiscusses such asymmetry of syntactic component extraction and finds that such asymmetry isexhibited in strong crossover structures, left branch structures, CNPs and sentential subjects.Finally, this thesis gives explanations for these exceptions in extraction, and holds that thesuspension of such asymmetry attributes to the following factors: the specificity of headnouns, the semantic relation between nouns, the complexity of predicate verbs, the semanticrelation between predicate verbs and its objects, negator and focus.The significance of this thesis lies in its systematic discussion of such asymmetryexhibited in syntactic component extraction, its finding of present syntactic theoriesdisadvantages in accounting for such asymmetry, and its proposition that semantic factors alsocontribute to such asymmetry. However, this thesis also has its own limitation. This thesisdoesn’t discuss such asymmetry in other languages and confirm whether such asymmetry is auniversal language phenomenon. Therefore, further researches on the subject-object asymmetry in Mandarin Chinese should be continued.