英语关系从句外置的生成语法分析

A generative analysis of relative clause extraposition in English

本文从生成语法角度讨论英语中的关系从句外置结构。作者总结了该结构在句法和语义方面的特征,结合这些特征讨论了文献中相关分析的不足,并在此基础上提出了一种新的分析方法。作者认为从句与先行词在句法和逻辑表达式中都不构成一个成分,二者在句法推导过程中是分别生成的。从句是经过省略的"再思"(afterthought)成分,目的在于通过提供更为详尽的信息来帮助确定先行词的所指。当先行词位于宾语、主语以及SpecCP位置时,"再思"分别发生在vP、IP和CP层次上,"再思"成分与包含先行词的vP,IP或CP是并列关系,具有相同的句法地位。事实证明这种分析可以为外置结构的句法语义特点提供一个合理的解释。

This study discusses the relative clause (RC) extraposition in English from the view point of Generative Grammar. After a summary of the syntactic and semantic properties of the construction, followed by a discussion of the shortcomings of existing analyses. the authors argue that the extraposed RC and its antecedent are generated separately in the course of syntactic derivation. The RC is an 'afterthought element' having undergone ellipsis after spell-out. When the antecedent is the object, the subject and a wh-element in Spec CP, the 'afterthought element' is respectively a vP, an IP and a CP.