汉英动结结构的比较研究

A Comparative Study of Resultatives in Chinese and English

汉语与英语中的动结结构都是用来描述动态的有终点的事件,享有同一概念结构,其中动词的论元结构和体态都发生了变化。汉英动结结构也存在差异,比如在动态限制条件、直接宾语限制条件和致使—成事变异上都有不同的表现。本文以JimmyLin的事件结构理论为基础,结合T.-H.Lin的关于轻动词的假设,提出了新的事件结构理论,认为事件谓词的性质决定事件结构操作发生的层面。汉语的事件谓词是纯语义性的,从而决定了汉语动结结构的事件结构操作是位于显性句法层面;而英语的事件谓词是语素性质,决定了其相关操作发生在词汇—句法层面。

Resultatives in both Chinese and English describe events with a definite endpoint, i.e. telic events. They both show argument structure alternation and aspect shift. Besides morphological differences, they differ in their adherence to the three restrictions of resultatives, i.e. the Dynamic Restriction, the Direct Object Restriction and the External Causation Restriction. Based on Jimmy Lin's event structure theory and the insights given in T.-H. Lin's light verb hypothesis, we propose a new theory of event structure. It states that the nature of the event predicates determines at which level the event composition operates. In English, the event predicates are morphological in nature and hence the event structure they project are located in L-Syntax; in Chinese, however, these elements are semantic in nature, so the event structure they project is immune to L-Syntax and thus enters S-Syntax.