A Generative Syntactic Analysis Of English And Chinese Free Relatives

Free relative(FR for short)construction has always been one of the most extensively discussed topics in the generative literature.A lot of studies have been done before and some results have been achieved.However,a general consensus has not yet been reached with respect to the nature of this construction.It seems that none of the previous analyses has provided a reasonable explanation for FRs in English.In addition,there are few syntactic studies of Chinese FRs in the literature,and the analyses of the structure are not extensive.Therefore,this thesis aims to provide a further syntactic analysis of English and Chinese FRs.For English FRs,much attention is paid to the analysis of the two typical types:true FRs and transparent FRs.Based on previous analyses and our observation,a unified syntactic analysis of them is provided.Under this approach,English FRs are considered as DP.The element what undergoes cyclic movement,and the landing site is Spec,DP.This could explain why English FRs exhibit the complex properties of CP and DP.This analysis is extended to analyze Chinese FRs,which mainly take the form of[XP+ de],with de analyzed as a determiner in Chinese,and Chinese FRs be analyzed as a DP as a whole.Thus,English and Chinese FRs are analyzed as DP,and both involve wh-movement and movement to Spec,DP.Their differences can be summarized as follows.In English,the element undergoing wh-movement is overt,which further moves to Spec,DP to license the DP level,while in Chinese,the element undergoing wh-movement is covert,and the remnant of the wh-movement is moved to Spec,DP,owing to the clitic nature of the D head,i.e.,de.