A Study Of The Interaction In Syntax-Semantics Interface In English And Chinese VO Constructions

This thesis chooses the VO construction in English and Chinese to study the interaction in syntax-semantics interface.The research questions are as follows:1)What is the syntax-semantics interface in English and Chinese VO construction?2)Why is the relation in syntax-semantics interface in English and Chinese VO construction interactive?3)How do we explain the interaction in syntax-semantics interface in English and Chinese VO construction? In order to solve the above problems,this thesis chooses a large amount of linguistic data from literature or examples from other scholars,and then analyzes the interaction in syntax-semantics interface in English and Chinese VO construction in detail based on the theory of the Generative Grammar of syntax-semantics interface.The detailed research processes are as follows:1)At first,this thesis classifies the VO construction in English and Chinese based on the semantics,these are: the cognate object construction,the double object construction,the super object construction.This part is mainly to solve the first problem of this thesis,and the following research is based on the above classifications.2)Then I will explore the interactive reasons and explanations of the syntaxsemantics interface in English and Chinese VO construction.In order to probe it in-depth,the thesis will employ the thematic roles to illustrate it clearly.The findings of this thesis are as follows:1)In English cognate object construction,the change of the cognate object's thematic role,from the patient to the pseudo theme/beneficiary/experience,leads to the corresponding change in syntax,which further forces the intransitive verb in English cognate object construction to transfer to the pseudo transitive verb,and then it has the ability to assign case.But,the accusative here is not a true accusative;it is only a false accusative(or pseudo accusative).The verb in Chinese cognate object construction is transitive one,so there is no case assignment question.But the cognate object in Chinese is still not a normal VO construction,which has strict limitations on the verb and the object.In Chinese cognate object construction,the predicate and the cognate object are semantic relevant,and the action of the accusative and the predicate is at the same time,which cannot be divided.In Chinese cognate object construction,the change of the object thematic role,transferring from the normal patient to instrument or result,eventually forces the corresponding change in the syntactic structure.2)In double object construction,in order to keep the agreement of the internal syntax,there are a series of merging and moving operations.Thanks to the vp,the case assignment is fulfilled.In this construction,one object is expanded to two,which causes the change in the syntax correspondingly.As the semantic features of the agent in the double object construction,the English and Chinese are almost same;they are: [+animation],[+autonomy],[+consciousness];as the dative,the semantic component has to express the property of human both in English and Chinese,but in Chinese,it could be extended to a much wider range through metaphor or metonomy;as the patient,the semantic property has different attributes based on different classifications;the main difference lies in whether it is specific or abstract.3)The formation reason of the super object construction is in that it uses the pseudo accusative to cover up the true accusative.Whether it is the change in the semantic lead to the change in syntax or vice versa is not clearly defined.In literatures,especially poems,it usually uses concise words to express rich meanings.However,no matter it is the change in semantics lead to the change in syntax or vice versa,it is the interaction in syntaxsemantics interface in super object construction.The findings above have the reference value to the syntax-semantics interface's future study.