A Generative Study Of The Sentential Le In Chinese

In recent years,the study of Chinese particle le has been a hot topic in linguistics.The status of le₂has generated numerous debates.The syntactic distribution of le₂or the meaning it expresses cannot be well explained by the previous studies.By determining the status of le₂,this study seeks to explain the syntactic distribution of it from the syntactic perspective and illuminate the relationship between situation types and le₂.According to its syntactic distribution,le₂has two basic semantic functions:introducing the reference time and relating the event time to reference time.Syntactically,it’s inside TP but above v P.Therefore,this study proposes that le₂is a perspectival aspect marker,which denotes that the initial point of an event overlaps the reference time,or the event time precedes the reference time.As a perspectival aspect marker,le₂can be omitted in some sentences while it cannot be omitted in others.When le₂can be omitted in sentences,the predicates would be verbal states or activities which denotes the habitual facts.In those sentences without le₂,there’s no feature of[+Transition]or[+Telic]to be licensed in the syntactic structure,thus le₂at IP level is optional.However,in sentences where the predicates are the adjectival states,the activities which refer to the specific events,the accomplishments and the achievements,there must be the le₂at IP level.The features of[+Transition]and[+Telic]should be licensed by le₂at IP level.Sentences with le₂express the inchoative meaning or the completive meaning or both.In general,states,activities,and accomplishments with le₂can denote both the inchoative meaning and the completive meaning,while achievements with le₂can only denote the completive meaning.When le₂operates on the feature of[+Transition],the inchoative meaning rises.When le₂operates on both the features of[+Transition]and[+Telic],the completive meaning rises.Actually,the change of state is the result of the interaction of situation types and the le₂rather than the semantic function of le₂itself.