A Study On Chinese Resultative Verb Compound Based On Event Structure Theory

Chinese resultative verb compound is a very complicated construction especially when the realization of argument structure, and the semantic orientation of the second component are concerned. Because of complexity, it is always a heated topic studied by many scholars from different perspectives. This thesis mainly reviews the previous studies from the perspective of formal syntax, based on which, this thesis analyzes the realization of argument structure from the perspective of event structure theory.This thesis adopts Jimmy Lin’s event structure theory and further revises his theory so that it can effectively explain the derivation and the realization of argument structure of resultative verb compound. According to event structure theory, event structure consists of three basic verbalizing heads and two verbal roots. Three verbalizing heads are vDO, vBECOME and vBE,which denote activities, inchoativities and stativities respectively. Two verbal roots are activity and state. Event structure is realized syntactically and argument structure and event structure have the property of isomorphism. According to the semantic characteristics of Chinese resultative verb compound, this thesis holds that the manner root, the first component of resultative verb compound, directly adjuncts to the left of its corresponding event predicate, and the relationship between this manner root and event predicate is word-internal adjunction. The result root, the second component, is the complement of its corresponding event predicate and the relationship between them is head-complement. According to whether the argument that the second component is predicated of is subcategorized by the first component or not, this thesis classifies Chinese resultative verb compound into two kinds, which involve control structure and ECM structure. The realization of argument structure and syntactic derivation process of these resultative verb compounds in control structure and ECM structure are all described based on event structure theory, which is a revised theory based on Lin’s event structure theory. This syntactic derivation process is also governed by syntactic principles, such as Huang’s Generalized Control Theory(GCT) and Minimal Distance Principle(MDP). In this way, the problems, such as why some arguments that are nonsubcategorized by the first component are licensed and the whole sentence is grammatical, why some subcategorized arguments of the first component are unexpressed, and why some arguments that are neither subcategorized by the first component nor the second component are also licensed and become the subject of the whole sentence as the causer, can eventually be solved.Event structure theory is a powerful tool in explaining Chinese, especially the complex structure of resultative verb compound. The study on Chinese resultative verb compound based on this theory is of great theoretical significance. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study thiscomplicated construction under the guidance of event structure theory.