The Semantic And Syntactic Study Of The Additional Component -bu In Manchu Verbs

-bu is a suffix of Manchu verbs,which is used to express passive voice and causative voice.Based on the content of the Manchu-Manchu Dictionary"Han-i araha nonggime toktobuha Manju gisun-i buleku bithe（Imperial Revised Manchu Dictionary）",combined with the Manchu literature and documents in the middle and late Qing Dynasty,this research discusses the semantic and syntactical function of-bu from two aspects,used as word formation suffix and formative suffix。This article is divided into four chapters;each chapter has its own relatively independent theme.Gradually and progressively,the previous chapter serves as the basis for the analysis of the latter chapter,providing the latter with theoretical and linguistic facts.The following briefly introduces the main contents of each chapter.Chapter Ⅰ first introduces the background and significance of this research,and summarizes the previous research results.Languages in the Manchu branch of Manchu-Tongusic sub-family has a commonality,their passive voice suffix and causative voice suffix has the same form,so their semantic and syntax attributes have to be determined in the sentence and by the case marker.Secondly,the theories on which this paper is based are introduced.Theories of linguistic typology and minimalist syntax can help us classify Manchu verbs rationally,then we could study their syntactic features respectively.In the end,the language corpus,the research methods,the Manchu Latin transcription scheme and the grammar glossing rules used in this paper were introduced.Chapter Ⅱ first discusses the differences and connections between-bu and its irregular form-mbu,so that later discussion concentrates on-bu without any additional explanation of-mbu.Compared with-bu,the appearance of-mbu is closely related to the phonetic characteristics of the verb root.The perfective of the Manchu verbs is generally-hA,while the roots of the-mbu are mostly verbs of the perfective-kA or nouns ending in-n.Secondly,according to the content of the Manchu interpretation of the V-bu-in "Han-i araha nonggime toktobuha Manju gisun-i buleku bithe（Imperial Revised Manchu Dictionary）",combined with the Manchu language textbooks and literature corpus in the Qing Dynasty,the author discusses the semantics and basic sentence patterns of-bu as a causative and passive voice suffix and word formation suffix.According to the syntactic structure of verbs,the syntactic functions of-bu can be classified into two terms-the causative and the passive voice suffix.-bu can also be used as a component of a word formation.There are also two cases.One is to simply provide the semantics of "make" or "being" and derive new words without changing the argument structure of the verb.The other case is a mixture of semantic and syntactic functions.New words are derived and the argument structure of verbs is changed.In addition,referring to the superposed use of suffixes in Mongolian,this article considers that the-bu of Manchu can also be used in this way.A verb can be changed into passive voice by-bu first,then add a causative voice suffix-bu,and finally be constituted to be a causative-passive voice verb.However,due to the fact that both causative and passive suffixes are-bu,there is only one-bu can survive at the morphological and phonetic level,so that the causative-passive voice effect is reflected at the syntactic structure.Therefore,the voice of the Manchu verb is not simply reflected in the form of the verb,but is reflected in the overall sentence pattern.Thirdly,according to the argument structure of a specific verb,this article classifies the Manchu verbs into three categories:one predicate verbs,two predicate verbs,and three predicate verbs.Based on the role of-bu and the unaccusative hypothesis of Perlmutter（1978）,verbs are subdivided into:①one-place unergative verb V₁-;②one-place unaccusative verb,V_{1.unaccusative}-and V₂·bu_PASS-;③ one-place passive verb V₂-bu_PASS-;④two-place active verb,V₂-and V₂·bu_PASS.CAUS-;⑤two-place causative verb V₁-bu_CAUS-;⑥two-place causative-passive verb V₂-bu_PASS.CAUS-;⑦three-place double patient causative verb V₂-bu_CAUS-,so Manchu verbs can be divided into at least the above 7 subcategories.In the end,6 kinds of verbs composed of-bu and their sentence patterns are summarized.According to the number of arguments of verbs,Chapter Ⅲ discusses the syntactic structure of the above-mentioned 6 representative verbs composed of-bu.The results of the analysis can be summarized in three points.First,-bu as a word formation component can act on the lexicon to form 2 kinds of verbs,changing V₂-to V₂· bu_PASS-,or to V₂ · bu_PSAA.CAUS-.Second,the syntactic suffix-bu is equivalent to a light verb that acts on the syntactic structure and can constitute 4 kinds of verbs.It changes V₂-into V₂-bu_PASS-,V₂-bu_PASS.CAUS-and V₂-bu_CAUS-,change V₁-into V₁-bu_CAUS-Third,whether it is a word formation element or a syntax suffix,the passive voice-bu will cause the original verb to lose the external argument,that is,the number of arguments is reduced by one,the agent is suppressed,and the internal argument is forced to move to be the specifier.The patient acquires the nominative case,and becomes the subject.The causative voice-bu adds a new argument,which is generated as an external argument in the position of the outer specifier,as the causer and the subject.Chapter Ⅳ first summarizes the previous article,summarizing the main conclusions and innovations of this article.The suffix-bu can express three meanings,causative,passive and causative-passive,which acts on the lexicon or syntactic derivation process.Finally,we discussed the deficiencies in this study,the possibility of further subdivision of the verbs in Manchu and the topics that can be further studied in the future.