英汉形容词性修饰语修饰名词机制的比较研究

A Comparative Study of Adjectival Modification Strategy in English and Chinese

英汉名词短语中形容词性修饰语和中心名词相对位置存在差异,但若以普遍语法特别是最简方案为理论框架对英汉两种语言中形容词性修饰语修饰名词时的语义、句法表现及其修饰名词的机制进行对比研究,会发现英语的限定形容词和汉语的基本形式形容词修饰名词的机制可做统一分析。同时,英语的描述形容词和汉语的复杂形式形容词在修饰名词时表现出来的差异是由功能语"的"造成的,从而体现了普遍语法的语言共性观。

The study of adjectival modifiers is essential for an appropriate understanding of nominal phrases.Under the framework of Universal Grammar and Minimalist Program,the present paper sets to provide a unified analysis of the adjectival modification mechanism in English and Chinese.By adjectival modifiers,we mean words and phrases that can modify nouns,functioning as an adjective.Through a detailed discussion on the semantic and syntactic behavior of the adjectival modifiers in both languages,we find that there is a parallel modification mechanism between English attributive and Chinese base-form adjectival modifiers.Moreover,English descriptive and Chinese complex adjectival modifiers have much in common when modifying a head noun,even though they differ in their ordering.The observed ordering difference in turn could be attributed to the existence of functional de in Chinese.Actually,this result is quite in line with the minimalist view on cross-linguistic variations.