英汉属格语的句法可及性

Syntactic accessibility of genitive NPs in Chinese and English

本文以"名词短语可及性等级序列"(NPAH)为理论框架,对比探讨了英汉属格语在进行关系化、话题化和焦点化这三类句法操作时所表现出的句法可及性。初步研究结果显示,汉语主语属格语的可及性高于宾语属格语,在进行句法操作时,前者常可采用无格空位策略,而后者一般必须使用复指代词,两者之间存在不对称现象;而英语则无这种不对称现象,在进行句法操作时都必须采用复指代词或有格关系代词。这一结果表明,汉语属格语的句法可及性并不完全符合NPAH普遍语法理论的预测。

This paper examines,within the theoretical framework of'Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy'(NPAH),the accessibility of the genitive NPs in Chinese and English as reflected in the syntactic operations of relativization,topicalization and focalization.It is found that in Chinese there is an asymmetry between the genitive NP within a subject NP(GENSU)and that within an object NP(GENOB)in that the[-case]gap strategy is generally allowed in the three syntactic operations on the former,but is generally forbidden on the latter and in its place a resumptive pronoun is usually required;whereas in English such an asymmetry is not observed.The overall behavior of the Chinese genitive NPs cannot be fully accounted for by the NPAH first proposed by Keenan &Comrie(1977)and elaborated by Hawkins(2004,2014).