Raising Constructions within the Framework of Minimalism

【作者】 赵秋霞；

【导师】 杨广俊；

【作者基本信息】 郑州大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2007， 硕士

【摘要】 其实我们对本文所讨论的结构并不陌生。历史上许多语法学家就曾对此做过研究，各抒己见。Poutsma 1928年在A Grammar of Late Modern English一书中将其命名为主语驱动；Jesperson将其视为主语分裂；而传统语法的另一位代表Quirk在《英语语法大全》中提出另外一种解释——链接动词结构。尽管语法学家们冠之以不同的名称，但是他们所指出的只是一种语法现象，并没有深入到这种结构的实质。转换语法的创始人Chomsky及其追随者开始注重语言原则的解释充分性。他们努力探索语言的本质。在细致的研究基础之上，他们提出了主语提升这一新的概念。之所以这么命名就是因为主句的主语是由不定式分句的主语提升得来的。汉语中也存在提升结构。而对于英汉提升结构的研究在转换语法框架下已得到了很大的发展。毫无疑问，英汉提升结构存在着异同点。在多数语言学家眼里，这些异同点显得很重要并成为他们所关注的焦点。句法作为语言的三个重要层面之一也是语言学家所关注的。对于一种语言来说，所谓充分的句法就是能够生成正确的结构。同时，也能有助于我们去解释那些不正确的结构。因此，为这些结构的句法提供一个有统一原则的解释是有必要的。显然在句法学领域里研究提升结构也是具有一定理论意义的。本文是在最简方案框架下对于提升结构句法的研究。总体目标是能为英汉提升结构的生成以及整体特点提供一个合理统一的解释，能更清晰地展现和解释英汉提升结构的特征。更多还原

【Abstract】 As a matter of fact, the constructions in question in this thesis are no strange to us. In history, some grammarians once noticed and studied this kind of construction. However, they hold different viewpoints concerning it. Poutsma (1928) in his famous work A Grammar of Late Modem English labels it as ’Shifting of Subject’; Jesperson (1927,1937,1940) refers to it as the ’Split Subject Construction’; while one of the representatives of Traditional Grammar Randolph Quirk (1985) in A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language puts forward another interpretation—’Catenative Verb Construction’. Although the grammarians entitle it in different ways, what they point out to us is only a certain kind of grammatical phenomenon, not going deep into the essence of this kind of construction. With the appearance of Transformational Grammar, Chomsky and his followers have attached more importance to the explanatory adequacy of linguistic principles and have made great effort to explore the essence of human languages. Based on their careful study, they put forth a new concept which is known as Raising Constructions. It is so called just because the subject of the matrix sentence is raised from the subject of the infinitival clause.It is held that Raising Constructions do exist in Chinese, as in English. In TG, many researchers have made studies on this from different perspectives. Without doubt, there are similarities and differences between English and Chinese Raising Constructions. For most linguists, these are of much importance and thus become the center of attention. To our knowledge, syntax, one of the three important levels of language study is also the focus of many linguists. Anyhow, the task of any adequate syntax of a language is to generate all the well-formed structures of the language. Meantime, it can assist us to account for the ill-formed structures of the language. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a principled account of the syntax of these structures in order to fulfill this goal. Obviously, there is no wonder that to make a study of Raising Constructions in the field of syntax is of certain theoretical significance.The research will be conducted within the framework of Minimalism (Chomsky1998, 1999) and mainly concerned with the syntax of Raising Constructions. The general objective of this thesis is to put forward a proposal that is capable of accounting for the derivation and general properties of both English and Chinese Raising Constructions. In addition, it is hoped that a relatively clearer presentation and explanation of the characteristics of English and Chinese Raising Constructions can be achieved to a great extent in this thesis.更多还原