A Corpus-based Study On Constraints Of English Middle Constructions

English middle constructions are characterized by the active form in syntax and passive meaning in semantics.This type of constructions exists in many languages throughout the world.It involves very rich knowledge of syntax and semantics,and it is a widely-discussed topic for many linguists.Most scholars have studied it in terms of syntax and semantics,and reached a broad consensus on its basic characteristics.Syntactically,its grammatical subject is the internal argument,and the verb is in active form.Besides,the sentence usually ends with an adverb like easily.Semantically,this type of constructions involves modality,genericity and non-eventivity,etc.So far,approaches in the research of English middle constructions are divided into the approach of generative grammar,the approach of cognitive functional grammar,the approach of cross-linguistic comparation,and the corpus study.However,on the one hand,there is no complete analysis of all the constraints of middle constructions.On the other hand,most of the corpus studies are introspective corpora,and lack of data support.Based on the corpus observation,this paper tries to analyze the constraints of middle constructions and to point out the problems in them.Then this paper makes a corpus study of the grammatical subject,middle verbs,and modifiers in middle constructions,and attempts to discuss the acceptability of middle constructions in terms of the collocative relationship between the grammatical subject(i.e.the logical object)and the verb,and the collocative relationship between the modifier and the verb.This paper aims to answer the following questions: 1)What are the constraints on the grammatical subject,verbs,and modifiers in English middle constructions? 2)How the verb and the grammatical subject,the verb and the modifier are related to each other topromote the acceptability of middle constructions?The results of this study are as follows.1)Based on the corpus study,this paper finds that the constraints are problematic in accounting for the acceptability of English middle constructions.2)The grammatical subject has primary responsibility for the verb,which will promote or hinder the occurrence of an action.Creation verbs can appear in middle constructions,which is contrary to the previous studies.3)The acceptability of middle constructions can be predicted by the frequency in the collocation of the grammatical subject and the verb,as well as the collocation of the modifier and the verb.Specifically speaking,more frequently a certain noun phrase(the grammatical subject)appears with a specific verb in corpora,more acceptable English middle constructions with these two words become.Moreover,the modifier and the verb must work jointly to contribute to middle interpretation.