A Comparative Study on NP-trace between English and Chinese

Many scholars have contributed to the research of Empty Categories since 1980s; however, most of them just concentrated on PRO, pro and variable, with little attention paid to NP-trace. Under the theoretical framework of GB theory, this paper will make a comparative study on NP-trace between English and Chinese from the aspect of Binding theory, the restrictions on NP-movement, and the motivation for NP-movement, in order to find out whether the NP-trace in Chinese is the same as or different from that in English, the result of which may indicate some syntactic features of the two languages.

Many scholars have contributed to the research of Empty Categories since 1980s:however,most of them just concentrated on PRO,pro and variable,with little attention paid to NP-trace.Under the theoretical framework of GB theory,this paper will make a comparative study on NP-trace between English and Chinese from the aspect of Binding theory,the restrictions on NP-movement,and the motivation for NP-movement,in order to find out whether the NP-trace in Chinese is the same as or different from that in English,the result of which may indicate some syntactic features of the two hnguages.