臺灣博碩士論文加值系統

Under the framework of the minimalist approach, this thesis attempts to figure out the syntactic structure of the Bi Comparative Construction (BCC) in Mandarin Chinese (MC) with gradable predicates like (1).

( 1 ) a. Zhangsan bi ni (geng) gao
Zhangsan COM you more tall
'Zhangsan is taller than you are.'

b. Zhangsan bi ni (geng) xihuan bangqiu
Zhangsan COM you more like baseball
'Zhangsan likes baseball more than you do.'

In the literature, discussions on the syntax of the bi-constituent lead to the coordination analysis and the adjunction analysis of the syntactic structure of BCC. However, in my complementation analysis, it is claimed that the degree adverb geng is the core elements of BCC as well as bi. The degree adverb geng is the head of the comparative structure and requires two complements to be the compared elements. The comparative marker bi is a complementizer introducing a comparing constituent to be the comparing datum. The projection of the degree head needs to be licensed by the bi-clause in the specifier position. That is, degree is always relative to its comparative datum. Finally, there is PF deletion on the bi- clause so that we may get comparative sentence of asymmetrical comparing elements.

Chapter 1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………… 1
1.1 Various Sentence Patterns of CC in Mandarin Chinese………………………1
1.2 Focus of the thesis…………………………………………………………………5
1.3 The Proposal and Claims……………………………………………………………6
1.4 Organization of the Thesis……………………………………………………… 6

Chapter 2 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………8
2.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………8
2.2 Previous Studies in Mandarin Chinese…………………………………………8
2.2.1 Compositional Analyses…………………………………………………………… 9
2.2.1.1 The Formula of CC (Li and Thompson 1981)…………………………………… 9
2.2.1.2 A Topic-Comment Approach (Tsao 1989)…………………………………………11
2.2.2 Conjunction Analysis………………………………………………………………16
2.2.3 Adjunction Analyses……………………………………………………………… 22
2.2.3.1 A Transformational Analysis (Fu 1978) ………………………………………22
2.2.3.2 A Quantificational Structure with ACD (Liu 1998)…………………………25
2.2.3.3 Adjunctional Structure in VP (Hsing 2003)………………………………… 28
2.2.4 A Complementation Analysis (Chao 2005)………………………………………35
2.2.5 Summary……………………………………………………………………………… 41
2.3 Previous Analyses on Comparative Construction in English………………41
2.3.1 Bresnan (1973)………………………………………………………………………42
2.3.2 Late Merge of Degree Clauses (Bhatt and Pancheva 2004)…………………43
2.4 Summary……………………………………………………………………………… 44

Chapter 3 The Proposed Complementational Analysis………………………………… 45
3.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………45
3.2 The Syntactic Properties of bi in Comparative Constructions………… 46
3.2.1 bi As A Verb ……………………………………………………………………… 46
3.2.2 bi As A Preposition……………………………………………………………… 50
3.2.3 bi As A Conjunction ………………………………………………………………52
3.2.4 bi As A Complementizer …………………………………………………………56
3.3 The Syntatic Status of the Degree adverb- geng……………………………61
3.3.1 A Default Comparative Degree on the Gradable Predicate/Proposition..62
3.3.2 Co-occurrence Restriction Between bi And geng ……………………………66
3.4 The Syntactic Structure of BCC ………………………………………………69
3.4.1 A Functional Head Hypothesis……………………………………………………69
3.4.2 A geng-headed Comparative Structure………………………………………… 71
3.4.3 Comparative Deletion………………………………………………………………73

Chapter 4 Concluding Remarks…………………………………………………… 76
4.1 Summary of the Thesis…………………………………………………………… 76
4.2 Implications…………………………………………………………………………77
4.3 Remaining Issues……………………………………………………………………77

References……………………………………………………………………………………… 79

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